Page 11 of The Dandelion Princess
“I thought it was over.”
“Looks like we got one more shot,” he answers. His hands haven’t moved.
The silence stretches and he takes a breath. Before he can speak, he’s pushed from behind and I’m squashed into the corner, saved from a parade of a couple of Saint Sissela girls by his forearm braced against the wall.
“...an actual photo. So fun,” one says, peering over Marc’s shoulder, pushing him against me. “Ella! You escaped!”
Yasmin is not the brightest bulb, but she also thinks the fact that I have to show up to community centers on snowy Tuesday mornings in heels and stockings is hilarious. I love her.
Marc dips his head, breath stirring the hair near my ear. “Isn’t that the one you put in a headlock?”
She called Freja The Hunchback of the House of Wolffe in the first week of school. My cheek brushes his and I whisper, “Just once. She made a handsome apology.”
“Ella?” Dahlia, a bubbly brunette whose romantic decisions might be a form of self harm, squishes into the booth. The last boyfriend was an aide to the prime minister who treated her like the hired help.
I make a muffled answer and feel Marc’s chest shaking with laughter as the camera clicks through a series of photos. When we finally emerge from the booth, Dahlia turns to Marc, her eyes wide and her lashes fluttering. “Welcome home,Neerheidvan Heyden. Are you back for good?”
He reaches into the photo depository to retrieve our strip. “That’s the idea,” he says, ripping off the photo with my uptight expression. He hands it to Dahlia. “Compliments of the Crown.” He puts the remaining photos in his wallet, nods his farewell to the others, and takes my hand, guiding me to a picnic area to catch my breath. Marc doesn’t have to be told that I don’t love crowds or tight spaces.
“Stroopwafel?” he asks.
When I nod, he leaves me on a bench under a tree that glows with fairy lights and shivers with soft pink blossoms. Soon hereturns with a flat, syrup-filled waffle as big as my head, and he devours the piece I tear off for him in one bite.
The sound of Alix’s unmistakable laugh carries over the distant music. “I like him. Do you?” I ask. “Tom.”
The edges of his mouth pull in thought. “Alix doesn’t always think when she’s throwing herself into one of her passions.”
Marc isn’t wrong. Being a muse isn’t a full-time gig. My friend has dabbled in being a Pixy influencer and a pop singer, hiked one of the lesser Alps for charity, and now works as a social media manager for the van Heyden estate. She ran Lindenholm when her family was gone. By some miracle, the place didn’t burn to the ground.
“Are you worried she doesn’t really love him?”
“I’m worried she’s not using her head.”
I let the syrup dissolve on my tongue and offer Marc another portion. “Who thinks when they fall in love? No, don’t answer that. I can’t imagine you or Noah being carried away by something soft and feral.”
He swallows, the muscles of his throat working, and my pulse lifts. I shift my gaze to examine the stroopwafel, torn in the shape of a ragged heart.
“Well,” he whispers, giving my hair a brotherly tug. “You’d better not be carried away. I won’t have you running off and getting engaged, too.”
4
Speedrun
MARC
“Never say never,” she says.
Ella’s silky curl rolls between my thumb and forefinger, wrapped in the scent of blossoms and warm sugar. “Hmmm?”
“I hope ‘She horrified the government’ is on my epitaph.”
She looks up, and her green eyes, crinkled with laughter, catch the light. Her freckles and a soft blush are just visible under a dusting of powder. I know this face already, but I hardly hear her for how intently I’m tracing the lines of it. I know her brows are soft to the touch and that her chin narrows, following the shape of a heart. I know that her mouth is expressive.
Kissable.
“The opportunity to cause a national scandal was wasted on Freja,” she continues. “You should have been here to see it. When she eloped, it was on the front page of every newspaper and all over those trashy podcasts. Comments sections were ripping her to pieces and she was completely unbothered. Ifit had been me, the flame wars would have been visible from space.”
I release a sharp breath, her curl slipping from my fingers. I don’t like to talk about Ella’s eventual marriage. I don’t like sitting this close to her, noticing everything from the way her tongue sweeps up sweet crumbs at the corner of her mouth to the way she shakes her curls out of her face. I don’t like how empty my hands feel.
