Page 78 of The Dandelion Princess
“I’m still keeping Nils out,” she insists. The guards will be here any moment and I shut the laptop almost on her fingers.
“You’re goingnow.” I scoop her onto my shoulder and she grabs the rope.
“Come quick,” she commands. “Nils—”
I shrug her onto the wall and she steps over the wire, gives a delighted, roguish salute, and rappels down the opposite side.
Soon, the rope lands on my head. I hear Thor barreling across the meadow and scramble to the top of the wall. I step over and lean back, but my greater bulk makes the rope unstable. I swing suddenly and knock against the wall, my knuckle grazing the wire. A current flies up my arm as a hot, sharp sting.
I land hard, and air gusts out of my lungs. Ella sinks to her knees, running her hands up and down my limbs. “I’m fine,” I tell her, my voice tight. Sondish, English, and Seongan curses ricochet through my brain when the head of palace security pulls up in a golf cart. “Nils, youvailys, you were supposed to turn the voltage down,” I grit.
He crouches, pokes my chest with a stick, and waves away a clutch of interested officers.
“It was the tiniest little zap,” he says, moving the stick up under my chin. “Did we scrape your pretty face?”
“Why did you let me talk you into that?” I say, struggling to my elbows. Blood oozes from a scratch on my hand, and I have no one to blame but myself. “Ella could have been hurt.”
Nils laughs. He actually laughs. I’ll have him sacked—
“I never worry about Her Royal Highness when she’s in your hands,” Nils observes. “You would die rather than see her hurt. If you need patching up, I guess we could call the surgery.” In horror, I watch as he lifts his shoulder and pinches the short-wave radio.
“You wouldn’t dare,” I grunt.
He laughs. “The rope is a little low-tech. I expected better.”
“Youwere the soft target,” I grind out. “You and your hunger for scalped Dragons tickets. You threw the gates of the Summer Palace open yourself.”
Nils scowls. “You made it over the wallandI’m not registered for the FC Motovia game?Flamenhell.Flamen. Hell.”
“I promise you can finish this discussion tomorrow,” Ella chides, blowing gently on my hand.
Nils wedges himself into the golf cart. “We’re turning that all the way up now,” he says, pointing at the electrified wire, “so don’t try anything stupid. I’d better see you walking past the south gate in a timely fashion.” The cart rolls away again.
The night is soft, and a gentle breeze follows us up the hill and through the golden gates. At this hour there are no news vans, protestors, or tourists, and I nod at security. “Was that everything you ever wished for?” I ask, lights from the palace illuminating the gravel drive.
Our shadows trail behind us, following where we lead.
“Better.” She smiles and lifts her fist. I tap her knuckles, and our hands make the form of tiny explosions, falling away from one another. “When you’re ready for your life of crime, let me know.”
Ella follows me back to my car and digs out my emergency kit, looking for a band aid. She leans me against the bumper like I’m really injured.
“I can—”
She clicks her tongue, and I think of Atlas and his lichen-covered stone, groaning in my walled garden under the blazing sun and in the bitter cold. No one ever lifts his burden. No one ever tends to his wounds. Ella holds my hand and dabs on a salve, blowing gently. She applies the too-large bandage and gives it a kiss. I tilt her face up and follow her kiss with a warmer one.
We part whenVrouwTiele comes tripping through the lot, jangling her keys in the midst of a suspiciously timed coughing fit.
I spend the next week on a business trip to London and have to content myself with late-night texts and mid-day check-ins. I speed home on Friday because Alix messaged me not to bother. She was only having her bridesmaids in and out for dress fittings.
It’s been six days since I saw Ella, and I take the stairs two at a time, tapping on Alix’s door. “Is it safe to come in?” I ask.
Before I enter, I force my expression into lines that read, “This is boring. I’m a little bored. I’d rather be doing double entry bookkeeping.” My plan is to cross the room, lean on the back of a sofa—pick up a book or something. Every word out of my mouth is going to sound like a chore.
But when I see Ella standing on a dressmaker’s platform, my plan is blasted to hell. “What in the name of Erasmus are you wearing?”
Alix giggles. “You sound exactly like the housematron at Saint Sissela’s.”
I don’t see what’s funny. Ella is half naked, while the seamstress seems to be doing a very poor recreation of atraditional Seongan dress with its close-fitting, wrap-around top and billowing skirt. The usual shape skims the ground, but Ella’s shapely legs are on full display.
