Page 40 of The Dandelion Princess
“What’s your third wish?” she asks, reaching her arms above her head, hooking her fingers in a deep stretch.
I open my mouth to answer but the words won’t come—would be wildly inappropriate if they did. Saying what I want would be like shattering a porcelain dish on a cool tile floor. Something priceless might be lost and there would be no putting it together again.
“When I think of something I’ll let you know,” I answer.
I spend my week thinking about ways Ella is already perfect while she sends me screenshots of the deleted home page on Chirp. Her comments on Pixy disappear, leaving empty spaces in their place. Notifications still ping on my phone, but these are mentions of her handle on ReadHe or PAPZ, speculating about her identity.
Noah accompanies me to the Grousehof when I report to a government agency on conditions in East Asia, claiming his prerogative as the future head of state. He asks about Ella, but I shrug, heading him off with a question about Himmelstein’s financial woes. Ella sends me cat memes and progress reports.
“I wore a pair of heels to open a community garden and didn’t fight my mother,” she says, expecting praise.
I spend a concerning amount of time choosing a congratulatory GIF that says “I’m proud of you but you’re also a grown woman who can make her own decisions but also I wasn’t checking out your legs when you showed me your stockings unless you’re into that and, if so...”
On the morning of my sister’s party, I schedule a breakfast meeting with a team of VPs and skip lunch to field questions about long-term budget forecasting with an investment group.
“I’m reminding you that you’re clocking out at four,” Werner murmurs, slipping me a protein bar in the middle of the meeting, along with an updated cash flow statement.
We both know a real break is impossible. Han Heyden is hungry, always demanding everything I can give it.
I am alone in my office, going over a list of action items, when my tablet flashes a silent reminder. 16:00. Lindenholm.
“It’s time,” Werner puts his head around the door. “You made me promise to kick you out,” he says, yanking the tablet out of my hands. “You said to remind you that Alix won’t be in Sondmark forever and you’ll never get this time back. So I am.”
As helpful as Alix has been this year, I know my sister. She will run away from Lindenholm again with Tom running after her. I have to give her a weekend. I nod. Another alarm seems to silently flash on the edge of my vision. I’ll be seeing Ella, too.
In forty-three minutes, I turn from smooth asphalt to well-groomed gravel, the Mercedes slipping underneath a canopy of ancient trees. In the distance, the windows of Lindenholm glow amber in the sunlight, inviting me home. The Neoclassical lines are softened by exterior walls painted a deep, butter yellow, and it nestles into the grounds like it grew there. Two centuries have passed since the thirdNeerheidvan Heyden built it, his wealth accumulated in ways that don’t make for clean, heroic stories. Still, it’s beautiful.
Ammaused to tell me that the U-shaped building made her feel at home. That she knew her old hearth goddesses held her in their hands when, in the earliest and most disappointing days of her marriage, she was blessed to find an echo of a traditional Seongan courtyard house in such an unlikely place.
Alix, her hair an orange sherbet this week, races down the porch and drags me through the hall and into the east wing, past a dizzying string of unused suites. She steps over an extension cord as she strides beyond the threshold, and we are greeted with the sound of an electric drill.
I cock my brow. “What’s this?”
She smiles. “I got a VIP RSVP. You’ll never guess who. Okay, I’ll tell. Mikkel Dorsgard,” she squeaks her excitement, fingertips prancing on my arm. “The actor. Theabs.”
His name lands like a left hook.
“You know—” Alix drops her voice into a husky whisper, imitating the famous delivery. “‘Your heart is all I wish for, Majesty. Today, tomorrow, forever.’”
Oh, I know it. I fight a gag reflex. All of Sondmark knows it. It won the man his first Oscar nomination and a lucrative ad campaign. I couldn’t be more pleased that my sister invited him to come and emote all over the property.
“I didn’t know you knew him,” I murmur, approaching an arched stone gate.
A giggle bubbles from Alix. “Not know-know. But I know him from his brooding in movies.”
“Brooding? What’s brooding?”
“Thinking plus hotness,” she says, supplying a definition. “I contacted his people as soon as the articles about Ella and him dropped. She looked interested, right? I thought so. I wanted to get her a present because she never meets actual men.”
“She meets men.” I glower—thinking plus jealousy. She meets too many.
“She meets uselessadel,” she scoffs. We’re uselessadel. “No Sondish aristocrat is going to get serious with a princess. You wouldn’t.” My skin vibrates in answer. My little sister doesn’t have the first clue about what I would and wouldn’t do, but she rattles on. “You know too much about the royal clockworks.You’ve seen under the hood. No,” she steps into the garden, “it’s better to shop at a new market when the first one doesn’t have the right fish.”
“Ella’s not shopping—”
“Look, look, look.” Alix sweeps her hand in a wide arc.
I want to put her straight but she’s been busy. The modest ‘camp-out’ she first conceived of has materialized as crisp canvas tents set on wooden platforms, dotted among blossoming fruit trees. Strings of lights crisscross the garden, and fire pits and lawn games fill open areas, cleverly turning the rigid ornamental walking paths into gathering points. Thick blankets drape over deep outdoor chairs, set in clusters throughout. In the center, a statue of Atlas, covered in lichen and moss, observes the changes but stands resolute, holding the world on his back.
