Chapter 15
LOUIS
Iskip dinner. Sitting through another meal with women I don’t want to marry while my parents watch me like hawks makes me want to throw something through a window.
Instead, I pace my quarters until the walls start closing in, and then I grab the note I wrote for Addison and head to the one person who can deliver it to her.
Delphine’s room is at the end of the west corridor, and I don’t bother knocking. The double doors swing open, and I stop, taking in the chaos.
My sister is in bed wearing silk pajamas, propped against a mountain of pink pillows, a bowl of popcorn balanced on her stomach, watching what looks like a terrible reality dating show.
Her room is a disaster, with clothes draped over every surface, shoes scattered across the floor, empty wineglasses on the nightstand, and what might be three days’ worth of snack wrappers on the bed beside her.
“What the fuck is this?” I walk in and look around, shocked.
“Don’t you know how to knock? Damn. Also, shut up,” she says, pointing at her TV.
The doofus on the screen is crying. “But I love you. No matter what happened at the hotel.”
I move in her way.
“Dude! This is the season finale! I will lose my shit. I’ve been bingeing this all day to find out who he chooses! The new girl or his fiancée!”
She’s livid, sitting up in bed. When she sets her popcorn down, I know she means business.
“Get out of the way. Your father wasn’t a glass maker,” she says, grabbing the remote and pausing it. “What? What do you want? You’re supposed to be at dinner right now.”
“I skipped it,” I tell her.
“Oh, so that’s why you’re being annoying. You’re hangry.”
“I need you to deliver this.” I hold out the note.
She finally glances at me, then at the paper in my hand. “No.”
“Delphine.”
“I’m not your carrier pigeon, Louis.” She climbs out of her bed and physically moves me from in front of the TV. “Figure out your own love life.”
“This isn’t a joke,” I tell her.
“Neither is my evening.”
She turns the TV back on, where a woman is sobbing in a hot tub. “Krystal, it was one night.”
I take the remote from her hand and turn off the TV.
“Hey!”
“I need your help.” The words come out rough with exhaustion and frustration. “Like, I really need it. Not only delivering notes. With everything.”
She studies my face for a long moment, and I watch her expression shift from annoyed to something more serious. She brushes crumbs off her pajamas.
“Define everything.”
“Cover stories. Distractions. Intel. Manipulation. Any of your evil skills that could be useful. You’re the only person I can trust.” I run a hand through my hair and start pacing again because being still feels impossible.
“I need a strategy where I won’t be forced to marry one of those brats.
I want to be with Addison, and I can’t do this alone.
My methods aren’t working, and I’m running out of time. ”
“You have two weeks.”
“Less than that now.” I stop at her window and stare out at the sea. “Help me, or I’ll renounce my title.”
I turn to face her.
The words hang in the air between us. Delphine’s nostrils flare, and I see her lose the color in her face.
“You wouldn’t.”
“I would. So, you help me, or I will walk away, and you will take the crown. I’ll pass this straight to you, dear sister.”
In her eyes, I can see fear, which is rare.
“You’d actually give it all up for her?” she asks. “It’s this serious?”
“Yes. But I don’t want it to come to that. I want Mother and Father to adore her, to see why she’s fit to lead, to be my wife. I believe I can have both, if I prove to them it’s possible.”
“In twelve days,” she says, blinking up at me. “That isn’t enough time.”
“I’m aware, which is why I need you,” I tell her. “You’re one of the smartest people I know.”
“Yes, I am. The flattery is working.” Delphine swings her legs off the bed and stands, navigating through the clothing minefield on her floor until she’s standing in front of me.
She’s shorter than me by almost a foot, but the look she gives me is anything but small.
“Now, I’m going to deliver your fucking note.
Then I’m going to come up with a way to find you more time.
” She wiggles into a pair of jeans, then moves to her bathroom to put on a T-shirt.
As she walks past me, she pokes me in the chest. “Know I’m postponing my season finale for you. You owe me big. Huge!”
“I do, and I appreciate it.”
“And be smarter going forward.” She taps the paper against her fingers.
“No more wandering around the palace, making heart eyes at Addison, where people can see you. No more skipping dinners. Follow the rules until we can change them. Play the game in public and do whatever they ask. Okay? If you have to see her, do it in private and carefully. Got it?”
“Understood,” I say.
“Good.” She tucks the note into her back pocket and crosses her arms. “Now, tell me about these princesses. Any of them tolerable? Anyone we could use as an ally?”
“Katarina maybe. She seems miserable to be here.”
“Really?”
“I think she has someone back home. She barely looks at me during meals.”
Delphine nods, filing that information away. “Anyone else?”
“Cornelia is a nightmare. Tatiana is calculating. The rest blur together.”
“Tatiana is the front-runner in Mother’s eyes.” Delphine moves to her vanity and pulls her hair into a ponytail. “I’ve heard her talking about their banking connections.”
“If I don’t stop this, that’s who they’ll have me marry and knock up.”
“Be careful with her. She’s manipulative,” Delphine warns me. “Cornelia is a mean girl, but Tatiana is conniving.”
“Noted.”
But then again, she’s not telling me anything I haven’t already learned by watching.
My sister grabs her phone and slides it into her pocket, then turns back to me with an expression I recognize. “Maybe you and your girlfriend should exchange numbers?”
I shake my head. “No. Too dangerous.”
“Twelve days,” she says. “That’s not a lot of time to change our parents’ minds about centuries of tradition.”
“I know.”
“But it’s not impossible.” She tilts her head. “And what makes her the perfect queen?”
“Addison is brilliant, honest, and doesn’t take my shit. She has the education, wealth, relatability, and she’s beyond talented. She’s not some random artist. She’s—”
“Perfect for you.”
I nod, meeting her eyes. “Yes.”
“Then there is no other choice.” She walks toward the door.
“One more thing,” I say. “Addison found something in Henri’s paintings. He hid our grandmother in landscapes where no one would think to look. They form a trail that ends at a wall in Mother’s sitting room, where a painting was removed.”
Delphine’s eyes narrow. “Excuse me?”
“I need more information on everything that Henri painted that’s in the record. All landscapes, along with their locations. Please check the storage inventories and ask around about any artwork that’s been moved in the last twenty years. I want to know what was there.”
“You think someone is hiding something?”
“I don’t know.” I meet her eyes. “But I want to find out.”
She nods. “I’ll look into it. Now, I have to deliver your note. Go home and shower because you smell like stress and desperation. Also, please don’t get caught. That will ruin everything.”
Then she’s gone, and I’m standing alone in her disaster of a room, surrounded by clothes and a frozen image of a woman crying in a hot tub on her TV screen.
I don’t waste any more time, and I head back to my loft through the service corridors. It’s a route I’ve memorized over years of sneaking around this palace. Most of the staff finished their duties hours ago, so I make it to the door that leads to the east wing without passing anyone.
Once I’m inside my loft, I move fast, preheating the pizza oven, then removing the dough from the fridge so it can sit. I take a quick shower, then change into some jeans and a soft gray T-shirt that doesn’t feel like I’m wearing a costume.
When I return to the kitchen, I stretch the dough the way I learned from a YouTube video by an old Italian grandmother who yelled at the camera the entire time.
I add fresh mozzarella, torn basil, tomatoes, and mushrooms from the palace garden.
Before I slide it inside the oven, I throw fat pepperonis on top.
My phone vibrates on the counter.
Delphine
Delivered. You owe me a VERY expensive birthday present.
Louis
Thank you. If I get what I want, I promise I’ll give you anything you want.
Delphine
Anything?
Louis
Within reason.
Delphine
I slide my phone into my pocket and smile, knowing she’ll be here soon.
A light knock comes twenty minutes later.
When I open the door, Addison is standing in jeans and a white T-shirt with her hair down and no makeup. Her natural beauty catches me off guard.
“You summoned me,” she says with a smirk.
“I invited you.” I step inside, allowing her in.
“The note said: Come to my loft at nine. Don’t be late.”
“Apologies. I haven’t eaten since breakfast, so I’m a bit hangry. Glad you’re here,” I say.
She inhales deeply, and her whole face changes. “Do I smell pizza?”
“The best fucking pizza you’ll ever eat.”
“I’m excited. Honestly, I forgot to eat dinner. I was going to wing it with ramen.” She wanders into the kitchen and examines the setup, trailing her fingers along the counter. “Is there anything you can’t do?”
“Accept my fate gracefully, apparently.”
“That’s a good one.” She laughs, and the tension I’ve been carrying all day starts to ease.
I pull the pizza from the oven and slice it, then pour us each a glass of wine. We eat standing at the counter. It feels natural to bump elbows and fight over the last piece with the most cheese.
“This is really good,” she says around a mouthful. “Like, annoyingly good.”
“Told you.”
“I expect this, like, once a week,” she says.
“Don’t tempt me.”