8. Tiara Wobbles
8
Tiara Wobbles
ALMA
The reception hall of the Vorburg Embassy is packed. I hold a stilted conversation with their Minister of Technological Cooperation, nodding politely when she talks about low-level hardware incompatibilities.
“I couldn’t plug my curling wand in at the hotel without bringing along an adapter. Imagine, our capitals are 130 kilometers apart, but it’s like visiting an alien planet.”
I laugh, but the Cold War mentality remains entrenched in Sondmark. I have traveled north, west, and south, but I’ve never been east to Djolny.
Minister Chezna glances at the ornate ceremonial doors leading off to the tiny chapel Freja eloped in a mere fortnight ago. She doesn’t dare bring it up. None of us do.
“Sondmark and Himmelstein have the same specifications for electrical outlets,” she says, committing to her throughline. “You must be pleased. When you get married, nothing has to change at all.”
“Nothing,” I nod.
I take a sip of champagne, trying to look my best in a Werewolf’s Girlfriend dress. A difficult task. The ruffles around the neck, cuffs, and hem manage to be both droopy and shiny. The designer leaned hard into a “harvesting the wheat but in a discotheque” aesthetic, and it’s the perfect day-to-night outfit for young, sensible lady farmers.
Ordinarily, I could count on a few days of backlash for looking ridiculous in public, but it’s going to take more than a bad dress to do that because the tone of Freja’s news coverage has neatly shifted in the last couple days, away from the near universal acclaim she received when she got married. These days, journalists write some version of, “But, you know, Princess Alma is the one doing it the correct way—getting parliamentary approval, allowing her future husband to be carefully vetted. Who is this foreigner with whom Freja entangled herself? What alliances does he have? Isn’t Princess Freja’s forfeiture of her place in the line of succession a reasonable price for flouting the rules? I’m simply asking questions.”
My dinner companion is an old friend, and we catch up between courses and toasts. I nod along with half a mind, the other half wondering where Jacob is. Mama handed him over like a knapsack of rocks, commanding me to polish them. That must be why I carry the thought of him everywhere, even to parties where he has no business being.
He must enjoy his relative freedom. Without paparazzi stalking him down the pavement, he can wander the streets of Handsel, an anonymous figure in the winter crowds. He’s free until Monday, when he’ll return to my corrections and drills, the endless reminders about forms of address.
With every attempt to civilize him, he asks, “Why?” The question shakes the foundations of every assumption upon which I’ve built my life. Why does it matter if we drape our napkins in our lap? Why don’t we just shake hands with a foreign monarch? Why does my title matter? Why does all this make me someone worth bowing to?
Still, the barbarian is making progress.
“Alma?”
My friend gives the tiniest prod. I return an apologetic smile and shake my head, wishing that, just once, I got to come to these things in a ponytail and stretchy athleisure instead of this sparkly, doleful gown, chandelier earrings, and the Lowenwald diamond kokoshnik. It’s the heaviest tiara among the royal jewels allotted to the princesses—and the one most often relegated to me. None of my younger sisters will tolerate the glittering sunburst, unwilling to put up with the splitting headache that comes with the weight of that much splendor. I see them around the room, laughing with other guests, at ease because I’m the one carrying the burden.
A hairpin shifts suddenly, digging into the soft flesh of my head. An hour into the tedious Vorburgian speeches and the dull irritation has become a sharp pain, radiating from the spot and settling behind one of my eyes, throbbing wickedly. I maintain a serene fa?ade, my eyes fixed on the speaker rather than the hands of the clock as the seconds tick by.
At the night’s end, we return through a gauntlet of flashing cameras and shouted questions. Is Princess Freja leaving the royal family? Only when the Rolls Royce delivers our party back to the Summer Palace do I allow myself the luxury of releasing a breath.
Ella glances at Clara as she leads the way up the staircase. I see the concern. “Anyone want to come to my suite? We could watch Fieldnotes from a Teen Queen and take a drink every time the characters breach protocol.”
Though exhausted, I smile. “We’d be plastered before the makeover.”
The movie is dumb and tropey, but I never get tired of the scene when the Alabama beauty queen learns she’s the long-lost monarch of a fictional island nation in the Mediterranean. Her starchy aide cures her from an addiction to bedazzled ball gowns, fake eyelashes, and overabundant spray tan by taking her to a vintage Dior exhibit.
If only it was as simple to turn Jacob into a crown prince.
“I’ve got an early engagement tomorrow,” Clara says, whipping her phone out. “As long as we don’t really make it a drinking game, I’m in.” She taps the screen at lightning speed. “Let me cancel with Max.”
I cover her phone. “If I don’t get to sleep, I won’t be worth anything. Honestly, I’m planning to go right to bed.”
My sisters exchange another look, worried about me and doing a bad job of hiding it.
I turn to my suite, leaning heavily against the wall when I hear their doors shut. I slip fingers under the frame of the tiara to find momentary relief.
“Alma?” a low voice calls.
The pain comes roaring back when my hand drops. I straighten my spine and arrange my face. “Jacob.”
Vede. I haven’t spoken his name until now, even if that’s who he is in my mind. He Alma s me at every turn, but I haven’t budged, keeping this thin crust of ice between us.
The Sondish have a saying about thin crusts of ice, posted on a sign at every canal-crossing in the city. Begeert um Ees an dem falsh Sigheit so geb . Beware of ice and the false security it offers.
My chin tightens with the effort to appear normal. He can’t possibly see it in this light. “Good evening. I hope you had a pleasant day.”
He falls into step with me, hands in his jean pockets. “I took a car and ran out to the ruins at Felslot.”
The castle, besieged by the Vors and left half razed, sits on a broad, grassy plain. Even in the summer, the wind, unbroken by hills and mountains, scours across the landscape. In January, it would be frigid. I blink heavily against the pain and keep my question short. “Climb to the top?”
“I ran up with a Vorburgian flag and claimed it again,” Jacob says, his smile uneven. “It’s mine now.” He gives my shoulder a bump and looks me over, lifting his brow. “That’s quite a dress.”
“We need to work on that,” I breathe, trying to sound mildly amused instead of on the verge of passing out. I just need to last until I’m safely in my own room.
“What?” Another shoulder bump. The contact is soft, but a shaft of pain lances behind my eyes.
I gather the edges of a smile. “Your diplomacy. Amateur hour. You hate the dress.”
“I don’t hate the girl in it,” he smiles, and then it drains away. His gaze sharpens as I pass him in the doorway. “What’s wrong?”
Vede. “I’m a little tired.”
“Is it the crown?”
“Tiara.” I add to the list of things he doesn’t know. “The queen’s dresser will be around in a few minutes to pick it up.” I glide carefully up the narrow hall to my private door and put a hand to my hair. The hand-shakes. In this light, he won’t see.
He does see.
Without a word, he pushes through the door of my room and presses me into a chair.
“Pain relief tablets?”
“Second drawer.” I gesture to the bathroom, unable to claw myself out of the well of agony dragging at my temples. With eyes screwed tightly shut, I breathe deeply, slowly. This will pass. It always does.
A glass of water is pressed into one hand, a couple of tablets dropped in the other.
“Drink,” he commands, standing over me until I do. Jacob sounds like a crown prince—steeped in privilege and used to being obeyed.
I tip my head back, and the weight of the tiara shifts, dragging a whimper from my throat. I press my lips together, but tears gather in my eyes. He’s got to go. I have to get him out of here before I fall apart. Before I can form the words, Jacob moves behind me. I feel his hands on my hair.
I reach to stop him, and our fingers touch, tangle, pause. A tear slips down my cheek, and silence fills the room for the space of five heartbeats.
“I’ll be careful.”
I can’t even talk, but I drop my hand.
“This is something I should learn,” he says, voice resonant and soothing, placing me back on my pedestal as his tutor. His second pass at diplomacy is better than his first. “Won’t my wife wear one of these things?”
“Amber,” I whisper. His fingers dig into the thick coils of hair, and I grip the edges of my seat.
He withdraws a hairpin and drops it on a side table, bringing a tiny measure of relief. “What about amber?”
His question keeps me talking. “Vorburg has the richest amber deposits on the North Sea. Unless your father sold them off, the crown jewels include a whole parure in amber.” More hairpins scatter on the table, and I sigh, leaning into his hands.
“Parure. I don’t know that word.”
I like how he never pretends.
“Tiara, earrings, necklace…” I answer, allowing myself to believe that I really am teaching him something he has to know, that I’m not at his mercy. “A matching set. No one has seen them in decades.”
“Mm.”
He extracts another pin, and the tiara wobbles. I brace it as he discovers more anchors, brushing my neck and the tips of my ears, sending tiny electric shocks along my veins. When he lifts the tiara free, I hear a knock.
“That will be Mama’s dresser,” I say, standing reflexively.
“No, you don’t.” Jacob eases me back into my seat, hand clasping the back of my neck, almost circling it, his index finger sinking into my hair. “This is the box?” he asks, touching the tooled leather case.
When I nod, he fits the tiara inside, and I hand him the earrings. Technically, this box shouldn’t leave my hands, but the tablets haven’t kicked in.
“I’m coming back,” he says with a voice well-suited to demanding answers and calling for decisive action. The list of his virtues is growing longer. There was almost nothing in that column last week. “Change into something comfortable.”
I hear the low-voiced conversation at the front door and duck into the closet. Sliding the Werewolf’s Girlfriend onto a padded hanger and my high heels into a fitted cubby, I glance at my nightgown. Rich honey-colored satin cut on the bias, paired with a deep neckline outlined in delicate lace trim. It’s not the only one. Every nightgown I own screams, “I’m an obscenely rich widow living in Monaco for tax reasons and willing to allow a gigolo to attempt to seduce me out of my fortune.”
Every flamen gown has a matching robe. All flamboyant. I groan and slide the hangers around, looking for anything that communicates, “I’m a prudent public servant who would know to tie her fortune up in a diversified stock portfolio and carefully vetted real estate investments”.
At the back of my closet, I unearth a pair of basic joggers and an old Harvard sweatshirt. It will have to do.
Jacob’s voice, muffled through the door, finds me. “She inspected the box twice and told me to tell you that if you ever let them out of your sight again, you’re getting the Cyclops.”
I yank the pants on and juggle the shirt, looking for the way in.
“Cyclops?” he adds.
“Clara’s tiara,” I explain, tugging the sweatshirt over my hips. I ease the door open. “It’s got a big rock in the middle that looks like an eyeball.”
When he gets a look at my outfit, he gives a low, teasing whistle.
I return a quelling smile. “Thank you,” I say, guiding him out of my room. I’m acutely aware of the stack of lumpy winter hats next to my knitting basket, the pile of papers scattered across my desk, and a novel, Death by Plum Flummery , on my bedside table. If he sees any more of me, I’ll have to kill him.
It would not be the first time an extrajudicial assassination of a foreign prince happened on the grounds of the Summer Palace.
Jacob turns quickly, and my hands land against his chest. Even a piercing headache can’t override the unwanted wish to slip and keep slipping until I’m in his arms. Vede , Alma, no. This princess of Sondmark would never do such a thing—betray the trust of her queen, drop her defenses in the face of an enemy, want something she can’t have.
“Let me,” he says, voice low. He moves into my space, and I have enough sense—just enough—to move away. I keep moving until the backs of my knees hit a chair, and I sit down with a plop. “I’ll do the hair, too,” he says.
“You don’t have to,” I breathe, but I’m tired and his hands are already working another set of hair pins out, and this feels so good. I close my eyes.
The painkillers hit when he’s halfway through, the medicine slowly unweaving the band of pain over my brow and temples, and I let out a sigh.
“Say what you like about the Old World,” he murmurs, “but you don’t get over-the-counter painkillers like that in the U.S.”
A braid slips loose, and he works the translucent rubber band from the end. His thumb presses into the plait, deconstructing it from the bottom up, the rippling hair holding its shape.
The tips of his fingers explore another coil, his brows gather, and he tips my head to the light. “Why is this so complicated?” he asks, running a finger along the roots of my hair. Each time a section moves, it feels like a bruise.
“I need to look good from every angle.”
“You’re in pain.”
“I’m impatient.” I tap his hand, resting gently on my head, fingers tangled in my hair.
He tips my face up so we’re eye to eye, even if upside down. His gaze flicks to my lips and away, leaving my stomach in knots.
“Is it worth it?”
I don’t think of the pain as a choice. It’s a natural consequence of the life I lead—as inevitable as the ghastly Werewolf’s Girlfriend frock, chosen simply because the designer is Sondish. I blink against the weight of Jacob’s undivided attention and imagine how easy it would be to stretch up so slightly, touching my lips to his. I swallow, tipping my head forward.
“Are you going to finish?”
Monday will come. Once this is all over and he returns to his room, we can forget everything and return to the way things were. I’m sure of it. I’ve read fairy tales. When princesses fall asleep, magical, impossible things happen.
He holds a lock of hair in front of my face. “I like this color.”
I tuck the strand back. “It’s just brown.”
“So is mine.” He’s silent for a second and then grips my shoulder. “We’re not cousins, are we?”
I choke on a laugh. “What has Pane Nowak been teaching you about the history of Vorburg?”
“He started with Ulek the Bear carrying a house on his back, hibernating in the Lyste Hills, and having villages spring up between his paws. We’ve made it to the reign of Piasa III.” He sets his jaw. “Give it to me quick. Are we family?”
I indulge a seed of mischief. “Almost everyone belonging to a European royal line is family.” His face falls, and I want to snap a picture for Pietor. This man ogled me. He touched my hair. He doesn’t want to be my cousin.
Thank heaven, he’s not my cousin.
“Our families only intermarried once, but that was almost 500 years ago. The union produced no children.”
He releases a relieved breath and drags a stool over, setting it before me, knees bracketing mine as he continues his work on the tiny anchoring braids near my brow, essential for keeping the tiara in place.
“We share a common border,” he says, the pink tip of his tongue appearing as he concentrates. “Surely, we gave you a princess or two, out of pity.”
“We gave you a princess out of pity.”
When he works the plait free, I tip forward, steadying myself with a hand to his chest. I lift it away, my fingers curling softly.
“Was it a happy marriage?” he asks, interrupting a tiny mental crisis.
He poses strange questions. “It was a medieval marriage, entered into for the benefit of nearly everyone except the two parties most concerned. It sparked off the War of the Amber Cross.”
“But were they happy?” he persists.
It didn’t matter if they were. “Sondmark took its princess back. Scholars have nothing to say about the relative happiness or unhappiness of the couple.”
He resumes his work. “What does Alma say?”
I have a soft spot for that princess, though I’ve never said so out loud to anyone. “Sondmark had to keep her locked in a tower for the rest of her life, and Vorburg never stopped trying to get her back. Scholars might be blind to the implications, but I’m not.” I lift my shoulders. What that princess felt shouldn’t matter. What I think about it shouldn’t matter, either. “And that’s why these trade negotiations are such a big deal. They will give our countries a chance to settle the old grudge.”
“That was 500 years ago. How can we possibly still—”
He doesn’t get us, but he has to. “Do you like football?” I ask.
“Soccer football or American football?” Jacob pulls down the last of my hair. My head is tender and sore, but I gasp when he plunges his fingers in the mass and massages my scalp.
Gritting my teeth, I force my voice to remain even. “Heretic. There’s only one kind of football when you’re in line to rule a European kingdom, and you are required to love it.”
He grunts a laugh. “I was a baseball kid.”
I make a noise of disgust, choked off when his hands slip, fingers above my ears, palms hovering against my cheeks. I’ve never been touched like this. Not once.
“The grudge is alive and well. When the Dragons play the Djolny Vipers, the fans sing this song called ‘No Second Princess,’” I tell him.
“Ouch.” He repositions my head, reaching over the crown. “It’s just as well you’re engaged, then. There’s no danger of accidentally falling in love with you.”
I smile as I stare at our knees. It wobbles. I don’t have to pretend when no one is looking.
“You shouldn’t get ideas about my sisters, either,” I say when I’m sure I can speak.
“I don’t have ideas about your sisters. Is this good?” he asks, rubbing the muscles at the nape of my neck.
I’m shaking. “It’s good.”