Page 22 of Prince of the Palisades

I can’t remember much about California back then. Not my first trip to the beach. The cool rush of Pacific water splashing my ankles. Sitting under soaring palm trees with Mom. I see it in photos, of course, the press obsessively trailing us to get new snaps of Princess Ava and her two children, but there’s one memory that sticks out: standing barefoot on my grandparents’ deck, watching everyone else enjoy the sun and water, but not us.

“We can’t be like them,” Mom said.

It’s still that way. Me, far from everything, unable to be like them. Like anyone, really.

My mom’s voice pulls me out of my head. “I bet the beach is beautiful right now.”

“Mom,” I half-snort, “the beach is always beautiful.”

“It is.”

“But it’s not Réverie,” I whisper.

Silence hangs over us like a ghost. It wasn’t like that before. Since I was strong enough to crawl into her lap, Mom’s always had a story to share. A way to feed my hunger for life outside of Centauri’s walls. When she had more time for me.

I kick off my sneakers—a pair of Kobe 5 Lakers that complement the yellow in my uniform—before stretching out on a bed that still doesn’t feel like mine. I angle my phone until I’m back in focus.

“How are things there?”

Mom hums softly. She’s going through her nightly skincare routine, which is almost as aggressive as mine. Being royalty doesn’t exclude me, a seventeen-year-old, from acne or blocked pores.

“The usual. Meetings and such.” A wry smile tugs at her lips. “Oprah invited me to another women’s summit. Keynote speaker.”

“Opening?”

“Closing,” she says with fake outrage. “I’m nobody’s opening act, Canelé.”

Absently, I grin.Canelé. Mom’s nickname for me.

A range of languages are spoken on Réverie, French and English being the most prominent. Despite being married to Papa for over two decades, Mom’s French is still fairly bad. She knows her pastries, though. As a toddler, she claims I’d sneak handfuls of canelés—a warm rum-and-vanilla-flavored bread with a caramelized crust—from her plate. Eventually, she begged the chefs to create a liquor-less version just for me.

“Good for you, Mom,” I say, smiling weakly. Another trip. Another moment when she’ll be unavailable.

She returns to moisturizing her skin. Her image glitches for a second. Frozen pixels. A reminder of how far I am from her, from the comforts of home.

My chest aches. “What if I—” I pause, the last two words lodged in my throat.

Her brow wrinkles. “What if you what?”

I stare up at the ceiling. The ugly light fixture glares back at me. This isn’t my bedroom. This isn’t where I want to be. “What if I came home?” I finish.

More silence. I chance a look at my screen. Mom’s not frozen again. Instead, she’s staring blankly at me, confused. Then, her expression sharpens.

“Are you ready to explain yourself?” she asks. “Tell me and your papa why you decided to openly trash our country’s prime minister instead of—what do the kids say? Keep it in the drafts? Save it for the group chats?”

“Mom,” I groan, embarrassed. But she’s not laughing.

“Are you going to apologize to him?”

I clench my teeth, chewing hard on the “no” ready to burst out. She doesn’t understand what she’s asking for. My mom’s strong, the very definition of resilient, but I can’t repeat what Barnard said that day.

Look at what we’ve become. No one respects our monarch. Because of her. She’s an outsider. Toxic. And now her influence is corrupting the crown princess and that boy. They don’t belong here.She’s not one of us. Never will be!

I can’t hurt her like that.

“Jadon,” she says with a heavy, tired breath. “Where is this coming from? Why are you constantly acting out? Is it stress? Is about what happened with Lé—”

“It’snothim,” I say hastily, pinching the bridge of my nose.

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