I walked out of Eduardo's rooms and stood in the corridor for a moment.
The name he had given me sat in my chest like something with weight and temperature. Not a shock, I had known, from the moment he said there is one more thing, that what was coming would reorganise everything around it. I had braced. But bracing doesn't stop the impact. It just means you're still standing when it lands.
I looked at the envelope in my hands. The genealogical assessment. The third signatory's name now in my head alongside it. Two pieces of the same picture, and the picture was considerably worse than I had understood when I woke up this morning.
I went to find Adrián.
He was finishing a meeting with two palace administrators when I appeared in the doorway of the east study. He looked at my face and s
