Page 34 of The Winter Princess
“My family has got to learn how to use a search engine,” she sighs, swiveling in her chair. She taps a few keys and finds several basic YouTube videos of sufficient length. “These’ll get you started. Mostly it’s about having a clean lens and not aiming toward the windows. People will forgive a lot if you can be interesting. I saw that video. You’re going to be very interesting.”
She bends over, rummaging through a box—an actual cardboard box in the middle of a royal palace—and tosses me something that looks like an alien mothership component.
“That’s a cell phone stand with a built-in ring light. It’ll keep your phone steady but it’s better to use natural light when you can. The best thing is to watch videos and practice with that,” she says, pointing at the contraption in my hands. “Start with short snippets, focus on one thing, don’t try to do it all, and, for the love of Erasmus’s cap, use the gift you have.”
“Which is?”
Ella looks skyward, as though calling upon the heavens to strike me down for the crime of stupidity. “Chemistry.”
12
Cinnamon Siren
OSKAR
“You were holding her hand,” Uncle Timo says, spooning the thick stew into his mouth and chewing around a large potato. He shakes a finger at me, a gesture which would give him away as a foreigner even before he spoke one word. “When will I meet her?”
“She’s not a girlfriend, uncle.” My mind soberly nods in agreement. The frisson of electricity coursing through my body does not. “Princess Freja and I only work together.”
He taps the front page of The Holy Pelican with its sedate headline.Prime Minister Challenges The National Museum.The article mentions my residency status, casually pairing the fact with the prime minister’s immigration plan. The photograph below the text is meant to sell papers, the work of Erik the Intern who should hire himself out for royal wedding announcements.
“Then why are you holding her hand? Is this harassment?” He picks up the paper and gives the photo a close inspection. “Are you harassing her?”
I chop at a carrot with the edge of my spoon, mincing it into tiny pieces. “Neither of us wanted to do that video. We were just trying to get through it.”
Uncle Timo smacks the paper with the back of his hand and snorts. “You liked it.”
I liked it. I allow the raw-boned truth to slip out of the shadows and into the forefront of my thoughts. Being filmed for the impromptu announcement hadn’t been comfortable, but holding Freja’s hand had conjured a primal reaction. I rub a thumb over my palm. I liked it.
I frown into my stew. Rain lashes the windows of the ground floor apartment and Uncle Timo’s small garden, making the skeletal outlines of his potted plants shiver. I’ve spent more than twenty-five years building a life here. People like me don’t get second chances in Sondmark, and I can’t afford to be distracted now when citizenship is on the line.
I carry this reminder with me into work the next morning, punching my keycode into the security system, repeating the pattern several times until the door clicks and I tug it open.
“Wait for me,” comes a voice. Freja skips up the steps buttoned into a wool coat and carrying some dry cleaning, a drinks container, and a paper bag. She scoots past, bringing the smell of autumn, cold temperatures, and freshly baked goods.
I sniff, and she holds up the bag from La Baiser Chaleureux—The Warm Kiss—an expensive bakery in the heart of Handsel, thrusting it into my hands. “I’ll carry our coffee,” she says, tilting her head at the insulated cups.
“You don’t have to bring me food,” I say, peeling the dry cleaning out of her grip. I’m being wise, sternly setting a boundary between me and my distraction.
“My sisters have this theory that I’m nicer if they feed me first. Maybe you are, too.” She strides ahead, unaware she’s left me tumbling like a bird in a high wind.
“Are you? Nicer?” My boundary loses a few stones with this question, and I’ll have to build it back again. After she gives me her answer.
She bumps my arm with her elbow. “We already established this over Chinese food. Everyone’s nicer when they’re not hungry.”
“We should be getting to work,” I say, but when we pass through an exhibit of Viking pottery shards and Early Iron Age implements, I can no longer restrain myself. Unwrapping the top of the bag, I push my nose in, inhaling the smell of fat, braided cinnamon bread. I’m seized by a cinnamon siren who’s wrapped her hands around my head, sucking me into the pastry vortex with her sweet and fragrant blend. Maybe this is how Freja’s ancestors claimed the throne. Conquest by gluten.
“The food doesn’t care if you’re in a bad mood,” Freja says. “It would be a wicked thing to waste it.”
She makes a good point.
In the studio, she hangs her coat up on my only hook and takes the pastries. I hang the dry cleaning over a door jamb, examining the folded-over paper stapled to the plastic.
“This is my suit jacket?”
“Yes,” she says, setting the breakfast things out on my desk in the same configuration we used when it was Chinese takeout. Her hands still. “I didn’t thank you, before, for lending it to me. My back—thank you.” She clears her throat. “I had it dry cleaned.”
I nod. There’ll be nothing left of her on the material, no lingering scent.
