Author's Preface
I am able to enjoy most of my engagement in relative peace, thanks in no small part to Viscount Moretti. Somehow, he was able to convince my father to let me have the remaining week of my new year’s break all to myself, and instructs me in no uncertain terms that I am not permitted to return to work until everyone else comes back. I have no qualms about this. I shove my clerk’s uniform to the very bottom of my steamer trunk and aim to not think about work for the whole week. I even cancel my hotel stay and move back into my childhood bedroom for the week (temporarily evicting Pansy to the living room couch, but she is just happy to stay here and does not mind).
With all secrets cleared between us, Thorunn and I are whisked away on a whirlwind of passion that I only thought occurred in books. I feel physically lighter, as if a literal weight has sloughed off my shoulders. And even though most of the week is occupied by the snowstorm and bitter cold, Thorunn and I keep warm. We spend hours by the fire, his fur cloak draped lengthwise over both of our shoulders, sharing stories of our pasts and plans for the future.
And we would share much more, if not for the close presence of Mom. She has never been strict, like some mothers would be, but she must find something hilarious about young love because she snickers to herself whenever she catches Thorunn and I getting “too familiar” beneath the fur cloak. The embarrassment usually makes us quickly pull away. At night, Thorunn and I share my childhood bed, but it is too narrow to cuddle for long, not to mention so rickety that it bends precariously under both of our weights. In the morning, I always wake up fully clothed and alone in my bed, and upon rolling over, find Thorunn snoozing soundly upon the floor.
“Good,” Mom tells me over our morning tea. “Marry first—and have that marriage certified —before you even think to give up your maidenhood.”
“I know, Mama.”
“That boy seems nice enough, but I worry about his family. The Oberjarl, that’s basically their king, isn’t it?”
“The Northerners don’t care for status in the same way,” I explain. “Their royal lineage is…well, more a meandering path than a line.”
Briefly, I explain to Mom what I know. Thorunn is the heir apparent, but he once mentioned two older brothers in passing. And the current Oberjarl is not his father, but rather his uncle. So birth order and direct relationships must not matter for succession. I recall from my past life that the sea raiders often take spouses from other countries, so I doubt they care for blood purity, either. The Northerners will not be concerned with my marriage. The Saelic heads of state, on the other hand, might be. They do not like it when any Saelic landowner, even a no-name baroness of a sandwich-sized sliver of beachfront land, marries a foreigner. I fear that I will not need to petition a foreign government to marry Thorunn—but instead, my own father.
When I mention Edgar, Mom’s face turns somber. It has now been two full weeks since she saw him again for the first time, but in all that while, she has not once spoken of him. I have even held off on delivering Edgar’s letters to her, not wanting to reopen any wounds. Briefly, she glances across the kitchen towards the adjacent living room. At the early hour, Pansy is still fast asleep on the couch, and Lucienne, having elected to stay here instead of battling through the cold last night, is draped over Pansy like a terrycloth stuffed animal. Both of them are snoring in almost perfect sync. Still, Mom lowers her voice and leans in as she speaks, not wanting to wake the sleeping beauties.
“I should tell you, Ellie,” says Mom, “I haven’t quite given up on him.”
I do a double take. “What?”
“Mmm. He gave me quite a spook, back there in the restaurant…I really thought the guards were about to whisk me back to jail. But I’ve given it some thought, and especially now with the backing of your fiancé, I…I think I’m ready to see Edgar again. At the very least, I want to talk.”
My head is spinning. First Mom is obsessed with Edgar, then she can’t get far enough away from him, and now she wants to see him again?
“Mom, I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” I say gently. “Everyone I’ve talked to—good guys, bad guys, every guy in between—everyone agrees that you are safer here than the palace. Except Edgar, but like I’ve said, he’s not stable right now.”
“Pfft. He’s never been ‘stable.’ Even when I knew him.”
“I’m serious. He’s intelligent most of the time, but every once in a while, he just…snaps. He threw himself out of a fifth-floor window a couple months ago, trying to go see you.”
“Ohh, you didn’t tell me that. Aww…that’s kind of sweet.”
“It’s really not. He almost killed himself.”
“Ellie, if we sat here and named all the times your father almost died, but didn’t, we would be here all day. He’s like a cockroach. Always coming back when you last expect him. I’m sure it’s only gotten worse since I haven’t been around to scold him—”
“Mama,” I set my mug of tea down a little too forcefully, and some sloshes over the side. I flinch back from the heat, then compose myself. “You haven’t been wrong even once so far. So I really, really, really want to trust your instincts on this one…but if you step foot in that palace again, they will kill you.”
“Who?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Who’s ‘they’?”
I hesitate. For all the obsessive planning and thinking I have done on this matter, I am still not entirely sure. Queen Philomena is involved, but to what extent, I don’t know. Edgar is convinced that Lady Olivia is behind everything. But I have never met either woman, so I cannot say. Pym is the only person I know for certain is implicated in this elaborate conspiracy, and anything beyond him is pure speculation.
The only people who seem to know for sure which players are active in the game are Ezra and Moretti. They know everything. They probably even know that I plan to keep Mom as far away from them as possible, and will never even mention their names.
“You know,” Mom muses, tapping her fingers on the table, “if even you don’t know who to be afraid of…I think I know someone who would. Have you met your uncle yet? Prince Ezra?”
I curse. Well, so much for that. I am about to warn her about Ezra’s quirks when she continues:
“Yes,” Mom says decisively, “we should reach out to Ezra. He always had the scoop on everyone, even back then. And after all,” she adds with an innocent smile, “there’s a chance he still fancies me.”
“I’m sorry,” I choke on my tea, “ what?”
—
“Imogen, my dear, you haven’t aged a day!” Ezra declares, kissing the back of Mom’s hand. “Such a blessing to see you again, happy and healthy. And so beautiful in that dress. Moretti told me that you went shopping; what a stunning color on you. You always had such impeccable taste. Oh! Your hands! So raw and red, you poor, poor thing! All those toxic chemicals in the laundry basins, I’ll bet. First things first, sweetheart, we’ll book you an appointment for a full-service manicure and pedicure, on my dime…”
On the last Friday of the winter furlough, we are back in L’Magnifique. Except this time, it is not my parents having a lovely romantic dinner for two. Rather, it is the world’s strangest collection of people gathered around a circular table in the restaurant’s banquet hall. Our party of seven includes Mom and myself, Thorunn, Pansy, Lucienne, and finally Prince Ezra and Moretti. Ezra is the least disheveled I have ever seen him, but I am not sure if the alternative is any better. He looks like a medieval roleplayer got lost on his way to the faire. I thought this would be a discreet meeting, but nothing about a giant feathered hat and a gold-tasselled doublet—or, for that matter, renting a fifty-seat banquet hall for seven people—is giving “discreet.”
Ideally, I had planned for Mom to sit between Thorunn and me. Letting her sit next to Ezra unprotected is the last thing I want. But somehow, with an impressive sleight of hand and a comment about not wanting to separate the “young lovebirds,” Ezra swaps the seating around. Now Thorunn sits to my left and Moretti sits on my right, separating me entirely from my own mother. Prince Ezra has ended up conveniently next to Mom, free to ham her up with all of the clichés in his toolkit. Right now, Ezra is comparing her eyes to glimmering embers and her hair to the finest of silks, and judging by her giggling, Mom is eating it right up.
“I don’t like this arrangement,” Thorunn mumbles. “And I don’t like that prince.”
“He can hear you from there,” Moretti says mildly.
“Good,” says Thorunn.
If Ezra heard him, though, he doesn’t show it. He is one wineglass deep already and the waitstaff are only just now bringing out the appetizers. I scowl as I watch one waiter set down a massive tiered glass full of shrimp and sauce in front of Ezra, to which Ezra heartily thanks the man and begins to crow how much he adores L’Magnifique’s specialty cocktail sauce. I catch Moretti staring at me. You noticed, his raised eyebrow seems to say. Then he just smiles and asks me to pass the breadsticks.
Gods damn it all. Is everything a test with these two? Are they actually trying to help me, or do they just like playing mind games?
I am not the only one supremely uncomfortable with Mom and Ezra’s dynamic. I invited Pansy and Lucienne as well, since they are also “in the know,” and they sit on the opposite side of the table looking quite ill. Every time Ezra puts his hand on Mom’s shoulder, Lucienne wrinkles her nose. Pansy is a little more subtle, passing me knowing looks over the rim of her wineglass, sometimes feigning a burp. Being a noble, Pansy is more in tune with the intricacies of polite social life than I am, so I insisted on her presence in the hopes that she would provide some guidance in that area. But she seems just as surprised as I am. And with Moretti caging me in, I cannot simply lean over and whisper my questions.
It is Lucienne, actually, who breaks the supreme awkwardness. After the wait staff have delivered the main course and left us alone in the banquet hall, she clears her throat.
“Your Highness,” she pipes, allowing her voice to soar into a sweet, girlish tone, “I really apologize if this is out of place…I’m just a commoner, after all; I don’t know how these sorts of things usually go. I’ve never even met a prince before. But I was just wondering…if at some point…we intended to discuss Prince Edgar .”
She might as well have fired a gun in the banquet hall. Everything goes silent. From what Pansy has told us, royal politics is most often meandering, sprinkled within otherwise substanceless small talk and gossip. It is rare and dangerous to demand attention to the elephant in the room, calling everyone to stop their pleasantries at once. I spy Pansy tensing up as if bracing for an impact. Ezra notices the breach in etiquette at once, but to my relief, he does not call it out, simply chuckles and takes a sip of his (now third?) glass of wine.
“What an odd task force you’ve assembled, Baroness,” he remarks to me. “I think this will be very fun indeed.”