Page 75 of The Winter Princess
It can’t be serious. It’s the last concession wrung from me before surrender.
Our fingers lace together. My lips meet hers, cold at first but quickly warming. Is it different from last time when the sheer chance of it made it feel like finding a hundred-markkenote on the ground? Is this chance too? No. No chance, I think, gathering her close. I’ve spent half the night burning off reservoirs of hope, the other half stoking wildfires—looking for a way to kiss her from the moment she poked her head around my kitchen door, from the moment I crowded her into it, wondering what she’d do if I got close.
Look. That’s what she did. She looked.
She’s been looking for hours, glancing across the room, careful to maintain speed and trajectory across her target. Putting something halfway between us in her line of sight so that I’m always on the periphery of her vision. I know those tricks. I’ve been doing them too, lending half an ear to a conversation about Torbald’s immigration cuts and half an ear to Freja saying in halting, ungrammatical Pavian, “Good time dance now.”
I hold her waist, frustrated by the stiff wool under my hand but unwilling to let her go–going mad as her fingers explore the nape of my neck, hand shifting forward to touch my jaw, to place a finger in the soft spot under my ear.
I want her. I want this. I’m shocked by how much. It’s like coming to the edge of the water and realizing it’s not a puddle to be stepped over but a vast ocean to drown in. If this goes on, I’ll be lost. She’s a princess who lives in a palace and I’m an art restorer in a pre-war walk-up. None of these details mean anything. The truth, if I can bear to look at it in the light, is that we fit.
I close my eyes tighter. We can’t fit.
Finally, I lift my head and take a shaking breath, resting my forehead against hers.
What am I supposed to do now? If I keep kissing her, maybe I’ll find out. Maybe I’ll drown. I take a breath, but headlights flash against my eyes. We break apart, arranging ourselves into separate, civilized silhouettes.
We watch her car approach. I lean over and brush my lips against her cheek, not strictly necessary but it’s the right side of the border, this time. Freja glances away.
“Freddie,” she calls with a wave. When she looks at me again, she’s completely in command of herself. Maybe she goes around kissing every immigrant in Sondmark.
“Thanks for coming down to the party,” she says, very much the princess. My body is humming with frustration.
“Thanks for agreeing to study with me.”
She gives me a tiny smile and settles into the black Mercedes. Freddie shuts the door with a snap. I should be putting more distance between us.
Instead, I stand on the curb watching the red lights until I can’t see them anymore.
26
Top Button
FREJA
For the last several days, palace workers have been winding garlands around newel posts and erecting evergreen trees in the Grand Hall, threading them with thousands of fairy lights. It doesn’t matter how cost-conscious Noah wishes we could be, the Summer Palace is flooded with light from Saint Luz’s Day until the new year.
All this light means that I can’t avoid my reflection as I make my way along the halls. I know what I look like. Flushed and vulnerable and also, somehow, like I’ve started both halves of a football game, scored three goals, and need a shower. I rake my fingers through my hair and fan my cheeks before entering Ella’s suite.
She taps on her keyboard and swivels in her chair. “What do you want?”
“Hello to you, too.”
Ella closes a laptop, dismissing several screens. “All right. I’ll take a break,” she says, leading the way to her sitting room. She slips into a low-slung hammock chair, her bare foot resting on a knitted pouf, keeping her from swinging. I sink into the sofa opposite her, kicking my heels off and curling my feet underneath me. I’ve always liked this room. The bohemian atmosphere is a counterpoint to the formality and elegance of mine.
“Paige, play Rainy Day Coffee Shop,” she says, reaching for her tumbler of Vestfyn and taking a pull from the metal straw.
The virtual assistant responds by cueing up exactly what she asked for: rain, the faint murmur of patrons, the clink of cutlery, and a lazy piano picking out a tune. My twin and I are different, but this is an area where our taste overlaps. We gestated during a nuclear warhead crisis, and the joke in the family is that it made us high-strung.
Another joke is that Ella always has her headphones on, her hoodie up, and a gaming controller attached to her hand. The truth is that she always comes through for us. Even better, she knows me like no one else does. She doesn’t hurry me along or make me feel slow and silent. Instead, she nurses her Vestfyn, the bitter bubbles tickling her nose, until I’m ready to speak.
Does she already know how I feel about Oskar? My fingers brush the velvet nap of the sofa this way and that, creating contrasting patterns, erasing them. Does she know how much I want him to kiss me again? Does she hear it when I say his name?
I sort through a series of scenarios where I tell her about my…crush seems the wrong word. I could see Clara using it in the early days with Max. But things are not going anywhere with Oskar. A relationship won’t develop. We’re not a thing. I only want to kiss him senseless for an unfixed amount of time.
Attraction. It’s an attraction. The word sounds like window shopping, passing an impractical red number with a plunging neckline on a mannequin and thinking, “That’s nice. Lovely color. Wonder if it comes in my size.” But eventually, my plan is to move along to the simple, mutually-beneficial arrangement of Mama’s choosing: the classic sheath dress of royal relationships. Mama could use a win, these days. There’s no reason to spill my guts to Ella.
“I need some technical help.”
