Page 85 of The Winter Princess
She narrows her eyes at me. “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. If I get the couch, you get half.”
Bad idea. Very bad. What about spontaneous combustion? Sitting next to Freja all night, I could burn through the studio and half our national heritage.Vede.She’s still too close.
“I—”
“If you don’t take it, I won’t either. Think of my back after a night in an office chair. You’d probably have to wheel me out of here. My mother might toss you out of the country with her own two hands.”
I move away just to put some distance between us and cast myself onto the sofa. Sinking as deeply as I can, I cross my arms and ankles. I close my eyes and say with as much boredom as I can plausibly feign, “I hope you don’t snore.”
Freja settles on the other end with a light laugh that brushes over my skin. From time to time, she murmurs a few words until she finally drops into sleep. She shifts and turns, swallowing up more and more of the neutral zone until she’s leaning awkwardly on my shoulder. I tilt a small lamp away from her face and let my mask fall as I watch her slow, easy breathing.
Nothing has changed. She’s still a Sondish princess, I’m still a Pavian immigrant. No matter how much I wish these facts didn’t exist, they do. I’m not Freja who can look at the world and trust in miracles.
Nothing’s changed.
I have to believe that. If not…My breath catches. If not, I have to admit that everythinghas. Finally, I fold a coat in my lap, and carefully—as careful as I am with priceless things—I shift her sleeping form so that she’s stretched out.
“Mm,” she murmurs, her hand slipping into mine. I move a lock of hair away from her face. My hand shakes.
Everything has changed.
I love her.
A miracle.
29
Snowball
FREJA
My eyes jerk open and I take a deep breath, inhaling the scent of nutmeg and lemon. Oskar. His arms tighten around me, and I slowly orient myself in space. That’s right. We’re in the studio on the sofa. I lift my head, and hazy consciousness sharpens into white, hot focus. I’m facing the back of the sofa, curled up against Oskar, my arms wrapped around him.
His face is relaxed and his eyes are closed, but when I stir, his hand cups the back of my head and he settles me against his chest again. I’m all for that. I tighten my hold on him and my eyes drift closed.
There’s a jab on the back of my shoulder and I bolt upright, scrambling to the other end of the sofa. Oskar inhales hugely and sits up, washing his face with his hands.
“You guys,” Erik says, leaning over us and biting his lip to contain the smile. “This is a place of business.”
“If you poke me one more time, you’ll lose a finger,” I warn.
Oskar breathes a laugh. “Audicia.”
For Erik’s safety, I get to my feet and rake the hair out of my face, explaining about the alarm, awash in mortification and fumbling for my things. Unhurried, Oskar feeds me my bag and coat. He sets my heels side by side on the floor in front of me, not even emitting a grunt when I lean on his shoulder for balance.
I bend to finish the job, but he brushes my hands away and fastens each tiny buckle around my ankles. The desire to sink back onto the sofa nestles next to an equally strong desire to stuff Erik into a cannon and fire him across the city.
“That looked super uncomfy,” Erik says with a bland smile.
“Um,” I answer.
Oskar pushes a hand through his hair, stretching his arms wide, his top button straining. That button deserves a medal for showing extraordinary valor in the face of enormous odds. “I have to work,” he says. “Take the intern?”
Gladly. I grab Erik’s arm and drag him from the room.
“Look at this,” Erik says as we jog along the corridor. He lifts his phone, showing an image of me and Oskar wrapped up together, sleeping.
My cheeks pale. Photographic evidence. What does Mama always say about photographic evidence? Burn down the building and bury the bodies.
