Page 7 of The Winter Princess
Marie narrows her eyes, and a withering descriptor drops from her mouth. “Vailys.”
When the alarm cuts off, I sag in relief. Low chatter and loud music pick up almost at once.
I follow Marie’s line of sight to Director Knauss’s back. “What’s he done this time?”
“Nothing new. This is residual anger for spending buckets of money trading out a perfectly adequate security system for one that ensures I couldn’t get into the building when I clocked in this morning. Departments are surviving on the backs of donors and volunteers,” she says, tipping her glass at me.
The word volunteer conjures someone wearing a lanyard, standing at the door with maps, and directing people to the nearest loo. I put nearly twenty-five hours a week into the museum, beyond the requirements of holding The Nat as one of my royal patronages, but Oskar’s words return to me, carrying a sting.This isn’t a dollhouse.
Suddenly, Marie pivots to my side, pointing up at a Renaissance painting, her hands sketching the lines of the frolicking nude figures. I am bewildered until she tips her head and says in a low whisper, “Freja, love, why does Oskar keep looking at you?”
Is he? I quell the wish to turn and see for myself. “Is he glowering?”
“Just a sec.” She taps me on the arm and executes a masterful pivot—nonchalant, innocent. I wonder if the political longshoreman was a spy.
“It could be interpreted as a kind of sexy glower.” Her tone is doubtful.
A line forms on my brow. What does a sexy glower look like?
She taps her chin, considering. “It might be sexy thoughtfulness.”
“Are you going to call all his looks sexy?”
She waves a hand at the painting, preserving the fiction that we’re engaged in a discussion of profound artistic and historical importance.
“I know sexy when I see it.”
“I ran into him earlier. Banged right into his chest.”
“Lucky girl,” she chuckles.
“He wasn’t pleased at all.” Just thinking of the interaction makes me annoyed all over again. I hate that I agree with him about the substance of my speech. I hate the way I can’t stop thinking about being pressed up against him.
Marie’s exquisitely plucked brow arches. “Are you sure about that? You look positively delicious in that frock.”
Marie has it all wrong. Our interaction was nothing but antagonistic, and somehow, I find the most offensive thing about it was his hands in his pockets and the easy set of his shoulders. Like I was a threat he didn’t even have to protect himself against.
I could be a threat if I wanted to, cutting up his peace of mind as surely as he cuts up mine.
The thought erupts in the tiniest laugh. Among my family, I’m known as the Lone Wolffe, for keeping my own council and tending my own garden. Not for me are hot-headed incursions into enemy territory, galloping into the host with lances drawn and arrows nocked. As long as Oskar Velasquez keeps his distance, he has nothing to fear.
Instead of answering Marie, I hail the Head of Curation, a man who can be counted on to become wildly agitated about the topic of mid-70s architecture, to join us.
He gives both of us a small bow. “Your Royal Highness. Marie.” Despite the formal title, Roland kisses my cheek like a much-loved uncle. “I like what you’ve done with the place.The Romantics of Sondmarkwill be the most comprehensive exhibit of its kind in sixty years.”
My first impulse is to apologize for taking up desperate resources, but being part of the royal family of Sondmark—an institution that could swallow me without so much as pausing to chew—makes me careful to draw clear boundaries. It’s Director Knauss’s problem to worry about the fiscal health of The National Museum. Not mine.
So, instead of commiserating with Roland about the broken drinking fountains in the Breughel wing or the constellation of buckets the janitorial staff put out during every rainstorm, I murmur a thank you.
I glance up. Oskar Velasquez has moved. Instead of a comfortable gallery away, he’s lingering barely a meter from me, neither speaking to anyone nor joining our circle, his face possibly thoughtful, possibly glowering. When he won’t glance away, my mind stutters like the old outboard motors I’d encounter at summer camp. I’m sawing away at the pull cord. Start. Start.
I turn to Roland and begin, hardly knowing what I’m about to say, hoping I’ll grope my way to something sensible. “I’m looking forward—”
The commotion of the gallery spikes, and I feel drumming in my ears. Nerves. I dismiss it until Roland’s eyes slide past mine and widen in alarm.
“Watch out,” he shouts, clamping his hands on Marie, and dragging her backward.
I glance over my shoulder to see several police officers chasing Director Knauss. What? Before I can make sense of it, the director crashes into me, landing between my shoulder blades and shoving me off balance, the pain of it ripping up my spine. The deliberate posture of a princess is abandoned as I flail, hands reaching for anything to stop me. When someone arrests my fall, I clamp onto him, crumpling wool and satin in a death grip, my head landing in the crook of his neck.
