Page 29 of The Midnight Princess
She lifts her hand, hovering a slim finger over the wavy edge of my blue suit. “We have to address your clothes,” she says, scooting past me and jogging out of easy reach.
I wave, and she shakes her head but waves back. A flash of white on her hand warns me away.
Alma is engaged. I can’t forget.
8
Tiara Wobbles
ALMA
The reception hall of the Vorburg Embassy is packed. I hold a stilted conversation with their Minister of Technological Cooperation, nodding politely when she talks about low-level hardware incompatibilities.
“I couldn’t plug my curling wand in at the hotel without bringing along an adapter. Imagine, our capitals are 130 kilometers apart, but it’s like visiting an alien planet.”
I laugh, but the Cold War mentality remains entrenched in Sondmark. I have traveled north, west, and south, but I’ve never been east to Djolny.
Minister Chezna glances at the ornate ceremonial doors leading off to the tiny chapel Freja eloped in a mere fortnight ago. She doesn’t dare bring it up. None of us do.
“Sondmark and Himmelstein have the same specifications for electrical outlets,” she says, committing to her throughline. “Youmust be pleased. When you get married, nothing has to change at all.”
“Nothing,” I nod.
I take a sip of champagne, trying to look my best in a Werewolf’s Girlfriend dress. A difficult task. The ruffles around the neck, cuffs, and hem manage to be both droopy and shiny. The designer leaned hard into a “harvesting the wheat but in a discotheque” aesthetic, and it’s the perfect day-to-night outfit for young, sensible lady farmers.
Ordinarily, I could count on a few days of backlash for looking ridiculous in public, but it’s going to take more than a bad dress to do that because the tone of Freja’s news coverage has neatly shifted in the last couple days, away from the near universal acclaim she received when she got married. These days, journalists write some version of, “But, you know, Princess Alma is the one doing it the correct way—getting parliamentary approval, allowing her future husband to be carefully vetted. Who is this foreigner with whom Freja entangled herself? What alliances does he have? Isn’t Princess Freja’s forfeiture of her place in the line of succession a reasonable price for flouting the rules? I’m simply asking questions.”
My dinner companion is an old friend, and we catch up between courses and toasts. I nod along with half a mind, the other half wondering where Jacob is. Mama handed him over like a knapsack of rocks, commanding me to polish them. That must be why I carry the thought of him everywhere, even to parties where he has no business being.
He must enjoy his relative freedom. Without paparazzi stalking him down the pavement, he can wander the streets of Handsel, an anonymous figure in the winter crowds. He’s free until Monday, when he’ll return to my corrections and drills, the endless reminders about forms of address.
With every attempt to civilize him, he asks, “Why?” The question shakes the foundations of every assumption upon which I’ve built my life. Why does it matter if we drape our napkins in our lap? Why don’t we just shake hands with a foreign monarch? Why does my title matter? Why does all this make me someone worth bowing to?
Still, the barbarian is making progress.
“Alma?”
My friend gives the tiniest prod. I return an apologetic smile and shake my head, wishing that, just once, I got to come to these things in a ponytail and stretchy athleisure instead of this sparkly, doleful gown, chandelier earrings, and the Lowenwald diamond kokoshnik. It’s the heaviest tiara among the royal jewels allotted to the princesses—and the one most often relegated to me. None of my younger sisters will tolerate the glittering sunburst, unwilling to put up with the splitting headache that comes with the weight of that much splendor. I see them around the room, laughing with other guests, at ease because I’m the one carrying the burden.
A hairpin shifts suddenly, digging into the soft flesh of my head. An hour into the tedious Vorburgian speeches and the dull irritation has become a sharp pain, radiating from the spot and settling behind one of my eyes, throbbing wickedly. I maintain a serene façade, my eyes fixed on the speaker rather than the hands of the clock as the seconds tick by.
At the night’s end, we return through a gauntlet of flashing cameras and shouted questions.Is Princess Freja leaving the royal family?Only when the Rolls Royce delivers our party back to the Summer Palace do I allow myself the luxury of releasing a breath.
Ella glances at Clara as she leads the way up the staircase. I see the concern. “Anyone want to come to my suite? We could watchFieldnotes from a Teen Queenand take a drink every time the characters breach protocol.”
Though exhausted, I smile. “We’d be plastered before the makeover.”
The movie is dumb and tropey, but I never get tired of the scene when the Alabama beauty queen learns she’s the long-lost monarch of a fictional island nation in the Mediterranean. Her starchy aide cures her from an addiction to bedazzled ball gowns, fake eyelashes, and overabundant spray tan by taking her to a vintage Dior exhibit.
If only it was as simple to turn Jacob into a crown prince.
“I’ve got an early engagement tomorrow,” Clara says, whipping her phone out. “As long as we don’t really make it a drinking game, I’m in.” She taps the screen at lightning speed. “Let me cancel with Max.”
I cover her phone. “If I don’t get to sleep, I won’t be worth anything. Honestly, I’m planning to go right to bed.”
My sisters exchange another look, worried about me and doing a bad job of hiding it.
I turn to my suite, leaning heavily against the wall when I hear their doors shut. I slip fingers under the frame of the tiara to find momentary relief.
