Chapter 19 Queen Ageltheld
Queen Ageltheld
MARC
When Jang Mi posted the Dandelion Tiara on her Pixy account, it broke the internet.
Search results for “What is a Neerheid?”, “Lee Jang Mi dating scandal”, and “Marc van Heyden hot model pics” shot way up, but so too did “Lindenholm, Sondmark”, “Seong Crisis status update”, and “BLUSH charity concert”.
We are sold out of jars of Lindenholm honey for the next year.
Though I told her it wasn’t necessary, Alix makes herself in charge of fielding press inquiries. She briefs me each evening from the gym at Lindenholm, the phone perched on a treadmill, while Tom lifts weights in the background.
I have dinner with the Seongan ambassador, and we settle on a strategy to woo the Sondish government into giving us the necessary permits and visas for the relief concert. I am stretched as thin as the silk stockings Ella abhors.
For Han Heyden, I am caught up in the final details of an acquisition, lunching at Minty’s with a husband and wife who built their business one server at a time.
Though they stand to gain a fortune, I deliver soft, diplomatic reassurances that my conglomerate won’t rip the heart out of their life’s work. We were rivals, but we can be allies.
There shouldn’t be room in all this to think about Ella—but she takes time, whether I can spare it or not.
There have been a few mentions of her in the traditional press detailing the odd engagement or royal function.
Thin morsels, hardly enough to satiate my hunger.
One of the reporters at PAPZ, however, is unhinged about her new look, inciting grass-roots social media commotion.
It has me feeling like a college-town record-store clerk, following my indie band from gig to gig—standing in the front row with my lighter when they were still playing pubs and selling t-shirts out of the trunk of a car.
Now that everyone else is catching on to how hot Ella is, tickets are hard to come by.
Suddenly I’m jostling elbows in the nosebleeds with fanboys who don’t know her B-sides from her deep cuts.
“I’ll send Werner the amended contract over in the morning.” One of my lunch companions breaks through my thoughts, dragging my mind back to the bright courtyard patio with the splashing fountain. To the negotiations.
“Perfect,” I breathe, smoothing my tie. I stand to send them off and type out a quick text to my office, when I hear my name.
I glance up to see one of Alix’s bridesmaids from Saint Sissela. The girl in the headlock.
“Yasmin,” I call, making my way through the densely-packed patio to greet her. A glaring sun is in my eyes, but I recognize the girl at her side. Her name is some kind of flower. Daisy? Delphinium? “Dahlia. Are you meeting anyone? Is Ella—”
Ella leans forward, emerging from deep shadows. “I am.” At the sound of her voice, I feel an intense ripcord pull of attraction yank my whole body and all at once I’m fighting for air. Can I not just be normal around this girl?
Dahlia slides a glance back and forth between us. Finally, she whacks Yasmin in the arm and rises, grabbing her jacket and bag. “We have an appointment at Esther Hong’s ten minutes ago,” she says, pushing her friend ahead of her. “Toxins. Pores.”
Amidst the flurry of their departure, Ella and I stare at one another, just looking.
No harm in looking at the curve of her cheek and the tilt of her eyelashes behind tortoiseshell frames.
I don’t know what I want, but if Noah walked in right now, he would see his oldest friend and his little sister standing in a public space, a whole meter apart.
I’ve been on my best behavior since that kiss.
No late-night texts. No calls. No asking Alix where they’re meeting.
I’ve been holding my breath. My eyes trace a trail over her face and my fingers itch to touch her skin.
Is this what fate feels like? I imagine a thin red string tying her wrist to mine.
I imagine ravelling it into my hand, pulling her closer and closer.
“Can I join you for a drink?” I ask.
Her freckles wash with a rosy blush, barely visible in the shifting light of the tree cover, but she nods. Arne, always watching his domain, brings a pair of drinks consisting of soju, cranberries, soda, and salt, disappearing again.
“We haven’t seen much of you,” I say. We. I drag Alix and my people at Lindenholm in front of me like a shield.
“I’ve spoken to Alix everyday, either in Handsel or online, being the best maid of honor a girl ever had.” She shakes her head. “Only Alix could plan a wedding this way—”
“What way?” My thumb brushes a bead of moisture from the glass.
“When there’s no money, people kind of wing it. The DJ is a playlist. Someone gets a case of cheap beer and maybe a fight breaks out. If there’s a bit of money, people start freaking out if their second cousin sourced a similar napkin.”
“And you?”
She taps the table. “I’m a special case. A princess has to be dragged before Her Majesty’s government and bow to ancient laws.”
I grunt, amused. This feels like it used to…if I ignore the tightness in my stomach and the fever in my head when I think about Ella’s wedding.
“You have to be precisely as rich as Alix to throw a wedding together like she is.”
“Like what?” I just want to hear her talk.
She stretches her neck and a jolt of electricity sparks along my skin, “Like, ‘Babe, let’s ice skate down the aisle in midsummer. It’ll be a metaphor.’” She laughs. “I like that she’s having so much fun.”
I wish I was having fun. Instead, I have grown philosophical. I imagined putting Ella aside like a smooth stone at the beach, picked up on a whim, rolled between two palms for the novelty of it, and hurled back into the waves.
If wanting it could make it so, we would have greeted one another with the vague warmth I feel for her school friends.
I have tried to bring it to pass. Since the day in the woods, I have lived the life of an ascetic, daily praying that we could get back to our old footing, or close enough. To want anything more is dangerous.
I slip a pair of sunglasses on, trying to mute this stirring of attraction.
Stirring. A silent sigh escapes. We are beyond that.
I thought it was simply a matter of exposure, of building up an immunity to it and developing a reliable course of treatment.
It would take patience and exposure, but the effects would dwindle in slow and easy stages.
Kissing her compounded my problems, and now the only way out of it is through it. Her head tilts away. I feel the shortest reprieve known to man until my eyes fasten on the soft hollow below her ear.
“I’ve been remaking myself into a perfect princess,” she reports, expecting praise. “The new me wears sweater sets and sensible heels.”
I’ve noticed. Someone on social media made a fan edit of Ella set to “Hot Walk”. It’s just her, walking to and from several different events, the new silhouette swaying side to side. I’m on season thirty-seven of that particular Pixy short.
“This is your idea of working your way out of the monarchy?”
Ella pinches the frame of her glasses, pushing them up when they slip down the bridge of her nose. “I’ll lull everyone into relaxing their grip. It will get very quiet, and when I sense an opening—”
I loosen my tie. “It’s never going to work.”
She purses her lips around a straw and kicks me under the table. I grunt.
“Have you been in touch with Jang Mi?” she asks.
“Of course.”
“I’ve been thinking about the logistics—what a nightmare the north meadow can be,” she says.
“What makes you think I chose that location?” I break in. “Alix doesn’t even know.”
“It’s got the best access to the main road.
It has a gentle slope and good drainage, even if the electricity will be a beast to route around the orchard, and, if you position the stage just right, Lindenholm will be lit up in the background.
” It’s like she’s been crawling around in my own head for the last week.
“Oh,” she digs in her purse. “I got Vrouw Tiele to give me the name of a former palace secretary who is looking to do part time work in the private sector. She can help with advance work.”
She slides a card across the table and I place it in a pocket. We’re back to pretending that things between us are normal, but it feels like a wild stag is charging around the cafe tables and our only protection is that we’re not making eye contact with it.
“Thanks,” I tell her.
“You told me that you like it when everyone wins.” She twirls her hand, spooling out an imaginary bow. I want to catch it. Kiss the tips of her fingers.
I hold her gaze until Lev Kepler lopes by in rough, oversized denim with a model as slim as a scarf draped under his arm. Piano music plays from an open window, mixing with the sound of birdsong and distant traffic.
“You have too much going on this summer,” Ella says. “The wedding. BLUSH. Have you made any progress with the wearable electronics people?”
How does she have the bandwidth to remember my problems? The stag is sniffing loudly, shaking his mighty head, and his rack of antlers threatens to sweep away the cutlery in a clatter. Dominanstid, I can’t look away from her mouth. “We’ll sign by the end of the month.”
Her fingertips run along the glass, tracing watery patterns.
“I should start a consultancy business, getting landed adel out of hereditary inheritances. You can be my first client. I’ll have you hand off the title to Cousin Eckhart and negotiate to keep a suite at Lindenholm so you can throw yourself at Han Heyden full-time. Think about it.”
I grip my glass. I’ve been drowning in work. I barely have time to hear myself think. And when it does…Ella. “I have a duty to my family.”
The light in her laughing eyes fades. “Duty is for suckers.”