Page 20 of The Midnight Princess
She calls out in Sondish and conducts a brief exchange. It’s like I’m hearing the language for the first time. Textbooks will tell you that Sondish is a cousin of English with a higher degree of throatiness. From Princess Alma’s mouth, it’s strong and nimble. I wonder what it sounds like when she’s whispering in the dark.
“The Royal Academy of Vorburg is one of the most academically rigorous private schools on the continent,” she says, interrupting my thoughts. “They don’t typically accept transfers from Skip Middle School.”
Karl spins the explanation. “Even before the confirmation of Crown Prince Jacob’s royal parentage, His Majesty concerned himself with his heir.”
I watch the slight lift of Alma’s brow, an expression on the edge of a smile. She sees right through Karl’s public relations, and when she looks at me, I start answering a question she hasn’t even asked.
“My mother reappeared in His Majesty’s life with compelling evidence of my identity. When faced with the…reality of my existence and the potential disaster it constituted, he threw money at us. Quite a lot. You can call my father a lot of things, but you can’t call him cheap.”
She nods. “Your grades weren’t outstanding, but given that you were a graduate of the Royal Academy, you could have gone almost anywhere.”
Again, I feel the question rather than hear it. Nice royal girls take you right to the edge of a cliff and wait until casting yourself over the edge seems like your own idea.
“I didn’t go justanywhere. I apprenticed at Appe and Sons for more than eight years. I worked hard to master my craft andlearn the business. Within the world of restoration carpentry and bespoke furnishings, it’s a name that commands respect.”
Not with Karl, though. “He also attended École Sciences.”
I shake my head. “Half a semester hardly qualifies—”
Alma makes a note. “That helps.”
6
Little Duckies
ALMA
Crown Prince Jacob’s academic record is bad, and there’s no use hiding it. These things always have a way of getting out, whispered from ear to ear until they’re splashed across the front page of some tabloid.
“Idiot Prince Picked as Vorburg Heir”
“Six Times Crown Prince Jacob Misused the Past Perfect Tense: Term Papers Uncovered”
“Dolt on the Throne”
They’re easy to imagine.
I skim through the binder, picking out more damning details. Each time, my stomach drops like a child’s toy, bouncing down the stairs to the dungeon.
There were three suspensions in four years for unruly conduct. At sixteen he was involved in a fistfight with the heir to a powerful petroleum magnate. I double check the name.Vede.Young Jacob Gardner aimed high. I leaf throughthe documentation showing that, behind the scenes, King Otto settled the dental bills and had his lawyers bribe everyone down to the school janitor’s third cousin to sign non-disclosure agreements.
It won’t matter. These things always have a way of getting out.
I’m not afraid of this biography, as such, but I know how this world works. Jacob doesn’t have an unimpeachable pedigree to back him up. The people of Vorburg aren’t acquainted with his character and have no reason to extend grace when he falls short of perfection.
He will have one shot to introduce himself. Our job, though he doesn’t know it yet, will be to cobble together a story strong enough to weather the damning details. He has to control the narrative from the moment he steps onto the global stage.
Our midday meal reveals an appalling number of things he has yet to learn. He puts his elbows on the table, leaning forward when he speaks. He talks with his hands and devours his meal quickly, prowling the room in a restless fashion while his aide and I finish at a more civilized pace. In the afternoon, I turn to a tab marked ‘Legal Issues and Citations’ and release a relieved breath when I find there’s not much there. A speeding citation for a motorcycle. A dispute involving his business and an aristocratic estate, settled by a small claims procedure for 10,000polskas. He won that one.
Once he enters adulthood, the dossier gets thinner, and Jacob seems to fade out of the official record. I stare at the page as though doing so will conjure a fully realized human man.
A hand drops over the paper, and I blink, focusing on the nicks and scars over his skin.
“Excuse me,” I say, raising my gaze, “for allowing my attention to wander. Now—”
He flips his hand and knocks his knuckles against the page. “No worries. It’s hard sitting still all day.”
He tells me this like he knows a secret. My secret. About how hard I have to work to dampen every fidget and suppress every twitch. How I have to run every day, the sound of my sneakers absorbed by the dense forest floor, to present the picture of a calm princess. How he sees the invisible waters which rush through me, alive and bracing.
