Page 50 of The Winter Princess
What is this?Her eyes widen and widen some more.Were you about to kiss? I mean, holy crap, Freja.
“This isNeerVelasquez,” I gesture, “the man I’m doing the Pixy campaign with.” How did Erik’s infernal upspeak get in my mouth? “He’s come to collect his uncle, who knows Père. He’s Pavian. They’re both Pavian.”
Ella shakes her head, a half-smile tickling the dimple on her cheek.You sound ridiculous. I’m here for it.
Death. I wish you suffering and death.
Ella grins cheerily atNeerVelasquez—at Oskar, I correct. I can’t use a formal title for a man…who hardly kissed me at all.
“NeerVelasquez,” Ella repeats, pursing her lips in a prim, innocent smile. “It’s nice to meet you when you’re not bawling my sister out. I’ve seen your Pixy videos.”
She darts a look at me, and my semaphore flags are snapping.Leif Sobelsen, galloping through the East Gate with three thousand mounted cavalry, thundering into Vorburgian forces and tearing them limb from limb, did not long for the blood of his enemies as I do now.
Ella’s smile scrunches her nose.You’re adorable.
Oskar straightens and gives a brief, correct bow. “You’ve been helping her with the tech, I hear. Thanks for that.”
He’s never bowed to me.
“Mm.” Ella clasps her hands the way we have been taught to do on official engagements when we must communicate diplomacy and interest, hypnotizing the public into docility and trust. “Are you dating? Is this a date?”
“What?” I smack her on the elbow, jarring her magic hands loose. She rubs the spot, and words bubble out of me like logs floating down a waterway, jamming in the narrows, piling up, crashing. “No. We would never—why would you—? He’s a coworker. Honestly, Ella, what a thing to say.”
Oskar tips his head around my sister. “Will someone tell my uncle I’m waiting?” He sounds bored and slightly impatient.Vede.What if he feels the same way about our kiss? Humiliation slides into my stomach, settling hard against the lemon torte.
“I’ll do it,” I say.
Ella. “No, I’ll—”
I race away before my sister can call me back. The cloak billows dramatically, and I whip it off, tossing it over an arm. No more goblin lovers for you, Freja. No more letting your imagination get completely out of control. No more thermonuclear detonations in a narrow palace hallway.
“Vede. Vede, vede, vede.”I repeat the words in an intense, furious whisper. I’ve been so careful, since the inception of my volunteer work, not to overstep any boundaries, particularly my boundaries with him. I’ve been so careful to be professional. I’m no navigational expert, but even I know that Oskar Velasquez’s lips are on the wrong side of professional boundaries.
“May I kiss you?” he asked, and like a dummy, I didn’t trot out one of my stock phrases or ask him to clarify his meaning. I roll my eyes half out of my head as I walk. I didn’t even pretend not to understand. Instead, I just leaned in, daring him like I was totally down for it.
Iwastotally down for it.
I have never been down for anything more in my whole life.
Handing off my cloak to a footman, I race down another corridor, trading elegance for speed. The sooner I can get that man out of my palace, the better my sleep will be.
I fetch up before my father’s rooms, knocking lightly before hearing the low answer bidding me to enter. When I step across the threshold, I feel myself entering a foreign country. Though, as elsewhere in the palace, there are French furnishings dating back several hundred years, the room also contains vibrant Pavian textiles scattered on the floor and sofa. Instead of quiet Sondish interiors or idyllic fields of grain, each piece of artwork over the mantel and lining every wall celebrates the blinding contrast of sun and shadow.
Père is settled near the fire, a tumbler of Scotch resting on his knee. His necktie is loosened, and his jacket has been tossed over a chair. He must have finished some hilarious anecdote becauseSehorFornasari is laughing, tears in his eyes.
Père laughs too, but then he spots me.
“Not already,donnina,” he says, using his old nickname, little woman.Can this be my sweet donnina?he would ask, finding me at the back of a closet with a book perched on my knobby knees and hauling me into his arms to carry me off to dinner. I haven’t heard it in ages.
“How can you be back so soon?” Père groans. “A true son of Pavieau would’ve had my daughter out for half the night.” Once again, my color rises.
Oskar’s Uncle Timo shifts to the edge of his seat and shakes his head. “That boy’s blood travels through his veins like water dripping off a Sondish icicle.” His hands make a series of parallel boxes in the air. “Everything in its time and place, each item in its pigeonhole. I pray he may find some Pavian girl who will blow his ordered life into disarray,” he says.
A chill races between my shoulders.I don’t pray for such a girl.
The thought shocks me enough that I have to mentally print it off and feed it into an imaginary shredder.
“Had he stayed in Pavieau, in a rundown apartment in Gransoleil with a pretty girl across the airshaft to get into trouble with, he would be another man, not so—”SehorFornasari gives an exaggerated shiver.
