"Cuba?" Don Miguel repeated.
"Yes, the island in the Caribbean," Napoleon II confirmed.
"May I ask why you want it, Your Imperial Majesty?"
"I just want it," Napoleon II said. "The reason is not important. What's important is how much price Spain would want from it."
"Your Imperial Majesty, I don't think I am authorized to even discuss such a matter," he said carefully. "Cuba is not merely a colony. It is—"
"A liability," Napoleon II cut in, and added. "An expensive one."
Don Miguel opened his mouth, then closed it again.
Napoleon II leaned back in his chair.
"Spain is bleeding money trying to hold what it can no longer control," he continued. "Your treasury is strained. Your navy is overstretched. And every year, Havana requires more troops, more subsidies, more attention."
"That does not make it disposable," Don Miguel said.
