Page 36 of The Midnight Princess
JACOB
“You’re giving me a make-over,” I say, when we’ve leafed through the binders for more than an hour. “What is this?Fieldnotes of a Teen Queen?”
“You know it?” Delight washes over her face before she assumes a more businesslike tone. “We have to bring your exterior presentation into visual alignment with your new job title.” Her hands weave through the air, eventually forming a straight line.
I cross my arms and stand squarely in front of her. “It’s a make-over.”
“It’s no different than giving you a hard hat to operate a forklift,” she insists, chin lifting in an obstinate angle. “It’s necessary for the job.”
“Are you pleased with your blue-collar analogy?”
Her eyes sparkle. “A little.”
I look away. This is dangerous. It was fine when the princess was trapped behind a dense thicket of royal manners but now the thicket is thinning. Narrow paths open up, rabbit trails that may lead anywhere. What would I do with a princess if I caught her?
Alma has been banging on about diplomacy for days, and some of it must be sinking in because I keep telling myself that having the future Hereditary Grand Duchess of Himmelstein as a friend will be good for Vorburg. A friend.
The thought of friendship sours my mood.
“If Vorburg needs me to be their crown prince so badly, they should take me as I am. No one’s going to buy this,” I say, waving a hand up and down my heavy frame, “as crown prince material, no matter what you put on my back. I’ll always look like a bear, and nothing in these binders will convince me otherwise.”
She closes the distance between us. “All right Jacob, I give up.”
She’s too close, and every inch she claims, the more I struggle to think straight. “You’re saying I get to keep this suit?” I don’t even want the suit.
Her cheek tucks. “Oh, no. We’ll burn that suit.”
“Burning synthetics? What will your fiancé say about the smoke cloud?” I drag her impossible-to-remember engagement between us, waving it like the hugest red flag in all the land.
The smile disappears and she swallows. “Let’s leave the binders and drive around Handsel. Maybe I can get you to accept the benefits of cohesive visual messaging.”
Alma sounds like she’s delivering a presentation on third quarter earnings, but the possibility of getting out of the palace wakes me up like my grandpa’s retired hunting dog when he jangles the keys.
“Can I change?” I ask.
“Be my guest.”
I charge up to my room, tearing off my tie and loosening the top button on my shirt like a superhero racing off to an elevated train disaster. Reaching for a pair of jeans, a soft-worn t-shirt, and my leather coat is automatic, and it’s only when I’m lacing the boots that my mind wanders back to New Year’s Eve. This is what I was wearing.
I tug the laces tight and return to the Great Hall, jogging down the stairs. Alma emerges from the admin wing with a trench coat slung over one arm looking, as she often does, buttoned up and hot.
Taking the coat, I hold it out while she tucks herself inside, scoops her ponytail from the collar, and belts it neatly around her waist. I step back, giving her a whistle.
“You have to stop whistling,” she corrects with a slight shake of her head. “Pretend you don’t even know how.”
“I look like I’m hunting for Handsel’s best biker bar, and you look like you’re on your way to an economic forum.”
“You don’t whistle at people going to economic forums.” She glances at me, but her gaze bounces away. “I’m driving you around until you start understanding the secret language of people’s clothes.”
I understand hers. In order to silence it, I cast my eyes to the ceiling, flinching away from the faces looking down. The palace is like a jump-scare. In Blackberry, art is a single landscape print over a sofa, a thrifted seascape in the half-bath, or a culturally insensitive buffalo painted on velvet. It doesn’t loom and intrude.
“Ready?” she asks.
“After you.”
I fall in line, following her through the back corridors of the palace, watching the swing of her hair. When we come to a side door, she fishes keys off a hook and pushes through it. TheJanuary sun is blinding, and the wet pavement steams under its steady glare.
“This one.” She steers me toward a silver Mercedes sedan. A nondescript blue Fiio occupies the space next to it with a bright orange Mini Cooper in the stall beyond.
