Page 35 of Falling Princess

“You’ve said that before. At the garden center. You never did tell me what you meant by it.”

My friend turned serious. “You’ll find out in due time.”

“I wish you’d stop being so smug and secretive.”

I knocked back the champagne too fast. Between the bubbly and my confusion over dancing with Lorcan, it quickly made me dizzy. I grabbed another one anyway. Cata plucked it from my hand and replaced it with a glass of water. I rolled my eyes, but with the first sip, I realized I was parched. When the water was gone, she gave me back my champagne.

“We’re trying to give you the freedom you want, Zosia. As best we can.”

But the freedom I want can’t be given to me. That’s the whole point. It’s rightly mine—or should be. I’m sick and tired of having my life controlled.

* * *

October bled into November. After the trip to London, the five of us settled into a routine. Raina, Lorcan and I were together from before sunrise to nightfall, except when Raina had her own classes. The truce with my knight led to a welcome thaw in relations with my friend, too. Friday evenings, when other students gathered to blow off steam and drink, Cata picked me up after my last class and took me to her rented house in Edinburgh.

I tried not to mope about the fact that the only friend I had made in the two months I’d been on campus was Scarlett. At this rate, I’ll go to my wedding night without ever having kissed anyone but my husband, a fate too horrifying to contemplate.

Then, toward the end of November, when I was already stressed over exams and the paper I was preparing to submit for the biodiversity conference, Raina pulled me aside and said bluntly, “I think Lorcan’s failing his classes.”

“What makes you say that?” I asked, absently, more focused on plotting the measurements of my seedlings on a graph than on my unwanted guard’s poor performance in school. For some reason, the plants refused to grow here. I don’t know whether it’s the temperature, the soil conditions, or something else. What I do know is that my dreams of presenting examples of our native foliage at the conference are not to be.

Do you want to share notes?Lorcan asked once, early in the term, when things were rockier between us. I left my notes out for a week or so and then stopped. Cata suggested he might be struggling, too.

“You know he hasn’t had much formal education. Enough to pass exams—he qualified for admittance—but his schooling has been very catch-as-catch-can. Lorcan simply doesn’t know how to be a student.”

What a peculiar concept. “You read the material, you take notes, you review your notes, and take exams. There’s nothing more to it than that.”

“Zosh, just because you’re good at it, doesn’t mean it comes naturally to everyone.” Raina, sitting on the study’s bed-couch with her biology textbook and laptop open, gave me a pleading look. “I’m worried about him. He’s been so busy with extracurriculars, and his notes are a bit of a mess. I’ve been trying to help him get organized for exams but I don’t know the material. You do. Help him? Please? For me?”

Considering the way she hung me out to dry in Beijing, she has a lot of nerve asking for a favor.

“Yeah, okay.” I tucked my hair behind my ear and marked down a few more notes, wondering how to accommodate her request while maintaining the minimum level of interpersonal interaction with Lorcan. “If he gets kicked out, I might not be able to continue my studies, either. I’ve a vested interest in his success.”

In this singular, limited way.

Raina hopped off the bed-couch and tackled me with a hug. “Thank you.”

“I know how much he means to you, Raina. We’ll get it sorted.”

My friend hesitated, then said, “If you’d just give him a chance, I think you’d see that he’s really something special.”

How can I think otherwise, when everyone tells me how fuckingspecialLorcan is at every opportunity?

“I don’t mind him, now.” Mostly. I’m resigned to being watched like a hawk for the entirety of my year abroad. But if I were to be honest—which I rarely am; honesty usually gets me into trouble—Lorcan is nothing but a giant pain in my royal ass.

* * *

“I hear you need help.”

It is, perhaps, not the best beginning. We seem to have a knack for bad beginnings, Lorcan and I.

Blue eyes cut to mine. Must he have such long eyelashes? Put a bit of makeup on the man and he’d be downright gorgeous. The thought is enough to make me grit my teeth at the conflicting mix of feelings I have whenever I am forced to interact directly with him. Annoyance, frustration, despair—mostly that last one—all undergirded by a peculiar attraction I refuse to admit exists.

Even if Iwereto acknowledge it, Raina got there first.

Seven more months. Six more weeks until you’re back in Auralia to celebrate the winter holidays. You can make it!

“Who told you that?” he asked. We’re packing up after our religion class. He seems to be doing fine here—I caught a glimpse of his paper when the professor handed them back. Lorcan’s was marked with a solid B.

---