Page 37 of The Dandelion Princess
“He said terrible things about you.”
She touches the edge of a newspaper and her chin quivers, almost imperceptibly. “Now the entire North Sea Confederation gets to join the conversation.”
I feel the pain of my own carelessness, made worse because she’s right.
“How did you know it was me?” I ask. Despite Marc’s warnings about digital security, I am certain I covered my tracks.
“Jacob connected the dots. You have access to photos of my ex, you’re an online creature, and you have a creepy raccoon collection.” She brushes the polished table with a row of fingertips. “It’s not just affecting my personal life.”
She tosses me the front page of theSondish Worker. “Pietor’s Crimes: Paternalism, Colonialism, Carbon Waste.” The headline is paired with a picture of Pietor in a blindingly white dress shirt, surrounded by grubby children from a Lijuelan slum. It’s certainly a look.
I flip the fold down to see another headline. “Locke vs. Hobbes: Ten reasons to abolish the monarchy,” and work my way through the lede. “In light of recent events shaking the House of Wolffe, the editorial board of theSondish Workerwill begin a ten-part philosophical deep-dive on the subject of royalty and revolution…”
I bite my lip and close my eyes, hoping that if I screw them shut tightly enough, maybe I can go back to a time before I lit my family’s future on fire. To a time when my great failure was a burp curtsey.
I hear Alma rise, and when she reaches me, she tucks my hand in hers. I’m hit with a wave of memory.Keep track of Ella.That was her job. She was barely twelve when Mama put her under oath to keep the family menace from falling into canals, launching herself over balcony railings, or dashing under horses hooves.
I open my eyes to meet my sister’s steady, reassuring gaze. No matter what disasters befall, she always dusts me off and puts me on my feet again. I feel all this at the same time as the realization that her love doesn’t come with a permit to run roughshod over her boundaries.
“You were wrong to drag me into all this,” she says, “and I expect an apology.”
I take a breath. “I’m sorry. You’ve had a hard enough time this year, and I made it harder. That wasn’t my goal—I won’t do it again.”
She lets me dangle over the burning hot coals for a few moments before giving me a brisk nod. When she offers her pinky, I wrap it with my own, sealing the vow. It feels like time travel, this way we promise, taking me back to when my heart had never been broken and my family was still strong.
“Okay.” Alma taps the table. “I’ll leave you to get on with your computering.”
She let me off too easily. “It wasn’t so long ago when you held the indisputable title of Sondmark’s Perfect Princess.” I buck my chin at the papers. “They’ve always loved you. I undid that.”
Alma tucks her hair behind her ear. Looking at her now, wearing a seasonably appropriate sweater set and a skirt it would be a crime to wrestle in, I could believe that she had a divine mandate from heaven to wear tiaras and sashes forever.
“I bored everyone to tears.” She rises, tipping her cold coffee out and refilling the cup. “It’s what I prefer. Flying under the radar makes it easier to get things done when you don’t have to fight off an angry press. Ella, don’t make that face. I’ll figure out how to go back to boring everyone again.”
“You’re not boring Jacob,” I say, flashing her a lopsided smile as she returns to her newspapers.
I navigate the source code for an app I created years ago to quiz my sisters on the names, faces, and achievements of world leaders, and wonder ifIshould try flying under the radar. I type a few lines, hearing Marc in my head.Do the responsible thing.He lives by that motto. He probably has a tattoo of it somewhere.
I was there when he first told Noah about his plans to attend Stanford. I was there when he plotted his approach to venture capitalists on a pad of yellow legal paper, explaining it in terms I pretended to understand. I was there when his startup took offand he kicked around the pros and cons of relocating to Handsel on that same yellow legal pad. He’s half wildly ambitious risk-taker, half dutiful son and scion of his ancestral house, but he’s always done the responsible thing. I try to peer into his future and wonder if he will always bow to duty, spending his life bending through thresholds that hardly fit him.
My throat is thick, but Alma breaks in.
“You’d better stay out of Clara’s warpath,” she warns. “But Freja— Can you remember that she’s not the only one who kept secrets from the rest of us?” Alma grips her cup in both hands, unused to having a conversation about feelings, even with me.
“Oh, and thank you for all this,” she says, glancing at the newspapers. Color rises in her cheeks and she swallows. “I didn’t want anyone blaming Jacob for breaking my engagement when we decide to go public.”
I lift my brows. “When?” For a princess of Sondmark to date openly is as good as a ring and a wedding date.
She smiles into her coffee. “When.”
I release a breath, thankful I haven’t ruined everything. “I thought you were going to beat down my door and haul me before a tribunal.”
She shakes her head. “Clara was out for blood, but Marc wouldn’t budge until we promised to leave you alone until morning. He said—” She laughs. “He said that anyone who made you cry would answer to him.”
His name is like one of the palace ghosts—warming the room despite a draft, secreting little treasures behind decorative urns to be discovered in a time of greatest need. It warms me now, pinking my cheeks.
“He’s a good friend to us.” Alma brushes my sleeve as she goes. “Be sure to thank him.”
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