Chapter 4 Speedrun
Speedrun
MARC
“Never say never,” she says.
Ella’s silky curl rolls between my thumb and forefinger, wrapped in the scent of blossoms and warm sugar. “Hmmm?”
“I hope ‘She horrified the government’ is on my epitaph.”
She looks up, and her green eyes, crinkled with laughter, catch the light.
Her freckles and a soft blush are just visible under a dusting of powder.
I know this face already, but I hardly hear her for how intently I’m tracing the lines of it.
I know her brows are soft to the touch and that her chin narrows, following the shape of a heart. I know that her mouth is expressive.
Kissable.
“The opportunity to cause a national scandal was wasted on Freja,” she continues.
“You should have been here to see it. When she eloped, it was on the front page of every newspaper and all over those trashy podcasts. Comments sections were ripping her to pieces and she was completely unbothered. If it had been me, the flame wars would have been visible from space.”
I release a sharp breath, her curl slipping from my fingers.
I don’t like to talk about Ella’s eventual marriage.
I don’t like sitting this close to her, noticing everything from the way her tongue sweeps up sweet crumbs at the corner of her mouth to the way she shakes her curls out of her face. I don’t like how empty my hands feel.
I blink. It’s jet lag, the way my mind rocks between hyperfixation and the inability to focus where I need to. Just jet lag. I’ve only been back five days.
I reach for another piece of stroopwafel, but Ella holds it high above her head, just out of my reach. “Ask nicely.”
Doesn’t she know me? We tussle for a brief but intense moment, her laughter turning into a piercing yelp as my hands band the sensitive skin at her waist. Her great weakness.
She lands a hard blow against my chest with her elbow but I narrow the gap in one quick jerk, reaching for her wrist. Gently, but firmly, I drag the stroopwafel between us and take a huge bite, wolfing it down.
“Whui-ho,” I taunt, brushing the tip of my tongue along my lip. It’s a Seongan phrase, meant to encourage. You can do it.
Ella shoves my chest but I don’t budge. “You’re a pest.”
“You never win that game. I don’t know why you play it.”
She slides me a look. “You’re going to lose a hand someday. And you’ll deserve it. And I won’t cry when we give it a Viking burial. I’ll shoot the flaming arrow myself.”
“Ella,” I admonish, resting my arm across the back of the bench, playing with her curls again. Technically, we’re in public, and this is where Noah specifically told me I was to get Ella to behave.
I grip the wooden slats and try for another piece of stroopwafel. She’s faster this time, slapping my hand, capturing it, lacing her fingers through mine. I don’t even try to twist out of her grasp.
After she polishes off the rest of the treat, she releases me, brushing her palms with exaggerated elegance, and flashes a look of triumph. Holding a small fist between us, she gives me a tart smile. “Whui-ho.”
My stomach tenses with desire. Just a flash. Nothing particular to her. In the past months I haven’t had time to think of women, and this must be a sign that I finally do.
I’m no danger to Ella—Noah made me promise to keep clear of staff and sisters, and she is no danger to me.
Even before I left for Seong, Ella and Alix started spending more time in Handsel than Lindenholm.
When I visited the Summer Palace, I would see flashes of her on her way out the door, and it’s obvious that she makes no effort when I’m around.
One time she went on about cufflinks so long I started to wonder if kissing her would make her shut up.
On the whole, however, Ella has made it as easy as possible to keep my hands to myself. A furrow gathers on my brow. Why is it that I never have to calculate how easy Freja, Alma, and Clara make it?
I locate a rational answer, looking to dissolve these unsettled feelings.
For months, we’ve been almost as far apart on the globe as two people can be, but Ella was the first person I messaged when I woke up in the morning and the last person I texted before going to sleep.
Of course there’s an added frisson of awareness when I am right next to her.
Eventually, I’ll get used to it and we’ll figure out how to go back to the way things were.
The furrow deepens. The sight of her figure poured into curve-hugging jeans isn’t helping.
She wonders if I’ve ever been at the mercy of something warm and feral?
Yes. I’ve acquired some recent experience, princess.
My friendship—a brotherhood, almost—with Noah is the closest relationship I have, outside my family. He warned me away from his sisters in direct, straightforward words, and this is nothing but jet lag—this night that seems to be nudging categories and definitions sideways.
I lift my hand to brush the curls within reach, so softly she can’t feel it.
In Sondmark, public opinion polls can’t agree that the sun rises in the east, but they all agree that Ella is everyone’s favorite princess.
Statistically speaking, these feelings I’m trying to tamp down are nothing special.
She leans forward, her curls spilling out of my hand. “It’s time to ask you those substantive questions about your time in Seong,” she smiles. “Do you want to talk?”
I shake my head, then I nod.
This week, I gave a brief report to Queen Helena and the Secretary of Foreign Affairs that amounted to a series of facts and proposals. Ella doesn’t need that. She was there with me every day and knows more than anyone. A memory edges through my mind and my mouth tucks with a smile.
Ella: Do you think I won’t notice that you haven’t sent me a check-in photo in six days?
Marc: Hey, Ells. Busy here. Relief workers belonging to the Seongan Statebuilding Party were found misappropriating funds and funneling them to supporters. My mother is on a tear.
Ella: Check-in photo, Marc.
Marc: *photo of the left side of my face, grubby with upland dust*
Ella: I could text Amma, if you want, and force it out of you.
Marc: *photo of the right side of my face—faded bruise on my cheekbone, and a new chunk taken out of my right index finger with a grimy, bloody trail down my wrist* A tree trunk rolled the wrong way. I didn’t want to worry you.
Ella: Not worried. I’m certain you’re communicating to me from the line outside the infirmary.
My next photo was of a clean bandage and a clean face.
There’s nothing we left out of our texts, but I find myself talking, telling her again about the mad scramble for supplies and order in those early days and all the ways Seong is still in trouble.
“I’m glad to be back,” I say at last, watching Ella, her chin tipped toward the fairy lights and the blossom-laden branches. “I am.”
“But?” She brings her gaze down to mine.
“But I was able to hop a flight and get out of it. For those with deep roots, there’s nowhere to run.”
She reaches for my hand, holding onto it in silence. Eventually, she turns it over, inspecting the right index finger and the slightly wonky fingernail, and grunts when the healing meets with her approval.
“Now you,” I say, liking the way she cradles my scarred hand. “Tell me about Freja.”
She shifts her weight and rocks forward but I hook a finger through her belt loop and anchor her to the bench.
Her muscles tense, and from over her shoulder, I catch a glimpse of an illuminated sign on the midway. “Try Your Luck.”
“If you run, I’ll chase you and we’ll end up wrestling in the grass.” I crane my neck, gazing doubtfully into the gloom. “You look too cute in that sweater to ruin it.”
Her cheeks pinken and a sudden wave of definitely jet lag rolls through me. Looking at Ella that way is a mistake I won’t make again.
“What do you want to know?” she asks.
I give the loop a little shake. She’ll tell me everything.
Alix is her best friend, but the first time Ella ran away from the palace as a ten-year-old princess who talked the palace chauffeur into driving her to Lindenholm with a pile of bespoke luggage and her favorite gaming console, she ran to me.
I was the one who carted Ella off to the stables, where she groomed the goats, told me how her mama was “going to be gone for three whole months this time,” and cried her eyes out.
I was the one who fixed it so that she could stay with Amma instead of her nanny.
I was the one who made a pinky promise that she could come to us every time Freja was in the hospital or the queen was on a diplomatic mission.
I remind myself of this past, using the solid wholesomeness of it as a shield to keep my thoughts in line.
Ella shifts sideways on the bench, folding her arms over the backrest, and leans her chin on top of stacked fists. “I don’t have the right to be mad. Freja’s happy—more than happy. She’s,” her brow gathers in thought, “radiant. What kind of terrible person can be mad at radiant?”
A smile teases my mouth. Ella is radiant when she’s not even trying.
“Are you mad about who she married or how she married?” I ask. I stretch my legs out, crossing them at the ankles, and fold my arms over my chest. No more touching.
“Oskar’s fine. He’s got great hair. He frowns an unholy amount, but he feeds her when she’s hungry. I mean, he’s not my type, but I get it.”
Wait. “You have a type?”
She ignores my question and closes her eyes briefly, curly lashes resting on her cheeks. “I don’t even mind the elopement, in theory. No one was invited but—”
“You’re her twin. She might have made an exception.”
“Thank you.” She pounds my arm to emphasize the point, adding, “It’s wild that Mama isn’t out for blood, but of course there’s one rule for Freja and another for me. Can you imagine her city-leveling wrath if I eloped?”