“Not even telling me what to do. She’s just talking,” Finn corrected me.
“Why doesn’t she talk to me like that?” I asked.
“She wasn’t sure if you’d be receptive. If you’re not accustomed to it, hearing another person’s voice in your head can be unsettling. And she didn’t really need to. ”
“But she needed to with you?” I slowed down, and he matched my pace. “She was talking to you privately about me, wasn’t she?”
Finn paused, and I could see that he was considering lying to me. “Some of it, yes,” he admitted.
“Can she read minds?” I felt slightly horrified at the thought.
“No. Very few can. ” When he looked over at me, he smiled crookedly. “Your secrets are safe, Wendy. ”
We went into the dining room, and Finn set about preparing me for dinner. As it turned out, I wasn’t completely socially stunted and had a basic understanding of manners. Most of what Finn said amounted to commonsense things, like always say please and thank you, but he also encouraged me to keep my mouth shut whenever possible.
I think his task had been less about preparing me for the dinner and more about keeping me in line. The secret things Elora had been telling him had just been a warning to babysit me—or else.
Dinner was at eight, and the company was arriving at seven. About an hour or so before that, Rhys popped in to wish me good luck and let me know he was heading over to Rhiannon’s, in case anybody cared. Shortly after I got out of the shower, Finn came in, looking even sharper than usual.
He was clean-shaven for the first time since he’d stopped going to school, and he wore black slacks and a black button-down shirt with a narrow white tie. It should’ve been too much with all that black, but he managed to pull it off, all the while looking incredibly sexy.
I had on only my bathrobe, and I wondered why nobody here thought it was inappropriate for boys to barge in when I wasn’t dressed. At least I was doing something semi-sexy: sitting on the edge of my bed putting lotion on my legs. I did it every time I showered, but since Finn was in the room, I tried to play it off as being sensual when it really wasn’t.
Not that Finn even noticed. He knocked once, opened my bedroom door, and only gave me a fleeting glance as he headed straight to my closet. After a little while, I sighed in frustration and hurriedly rubbed the rest of the lotion in while Finn continued to rummage through my clothes.
“I don’t think I have anything in your size,” I said and leaned farther back on my bed, trying to see what he was doing in there.
“Funny,” he muttered absently.
“What are you doing in there?” I asked, watching him, but he didn’t even look at me.
“You are a Princess, and you need to dress like one. ” He went through my dresses and pulled out a long white sleeveless gown. It was gorgeous and much too fancy for me. When he came out of the closet, he handed it to me. “I think this might work. Try it on. ”
“Isn’t everything in my closet suitable?” I tossed the dress on the bed next to me and turned to look at him.
“Yes, but different things are better for different occasions. ” He came over to the bed to smooth out the dress, making sure it didn’t have any wrinkles or creases. “This is a very important dinner, Wendy. ”
“Why? What makes this one so important?”
“The Stroms are very good friends of your mother’s and the Kroners are very important people. They affect the future. ” Finn finished smoothing the dress and turned to me. “Why don’t you continue getting ready?”
“How do they affect the future? What does that mean?” I pressed.
“That’s a conversation for another day. ” Finn nodded toward the bathroom. “You need to hurry if you’re going to be ready in time for dinner. ”
“Fine. ” I sighed, getting up off the bed.
“Wear your hair down,” Finn commanded. My hair was wet, so it was behaving now, but I knew that as soon as it dried, it would turn into a wild thicket of curls.
“I can’t. My hair is impossible. ”
“We all have difficult hair. Even Elora and I. It’s the curse of being Trylle,” Finn said. “It’s something you must learn to manage. ”
“Your hair is nothing like mine,” I said dourly. His hair was short and obviously had some product in it, but it looked smooth, straight, and obedient.
“It most certainly is,” Finn replied.
I meant to prove him wrong, so impulsively I reached out and touched his hair, running my fingers through the hair at his temple. Other than being stiff with product, it felt like my hair.
It wasn’t until I had done it that I realized there was something inherently intimate about running my fingers through another person’s hair. I had been looking at his hair, but then I met his dark eyes and realized exactly how close I was to him.
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Since I was short, I was standing on my tiptoes, leaning up to him as if I were about to kiss him. Somewhere in the back of my mind I thought that would be a very good course of action right about now.
“Satisfied?” Finn asked. I retracted my hand and took a step back. “There should be hair products in your bathroom. Experiment. ”
I nodded my compliance, still too flustered to speak. Finn was unnaturally calm, and at times like that, I really hated how aloof he could be. I barely even remembered to breathe until I was in my bathroom.
Being that near to him made me forget everything but his dark eyes, the heat from his skin, his wonderful scent, the feel of his hair beneath my fingers, the smooth curve of his lips . . .
I shook my head, clearing it of any thoughts of him. That had to be the end of that.
I had a dinner tonight to worry about, and somehow I had to do something with my hair. I tried to remember what Maggie had used in my hair before I went to the dance, but that felt like a lifetime ago.
Thankfully, my hair magically decided to behave itself tonight, making the whole process go easier. Finn seemed to think my hair looked better down, so I left the length of it hanging in the back and pulled the sides back with clips. To top off the ensemble, I got a diamond necklace from my jewelry box.
The dress turned out to be trickier than my hair. It had one of those stupid zippers that refused to move higher than my lower back, and no matter how I contorted myself, I couldn’t win. After struggling with it so long my fingers hurt, I had to get help.
Tentatively, I pushed open the bathroom door. Finn had been looking out the window at the sun setting over the bluffs. When he turned, his eyes rested on me for a full minute before he finally spoke.
“You look like a Princess,” he said with a crooked smile.
“I need help with the zipper,” I said meekly, gesturing to the open slit down my back.
He walked over, and it was almost a relief to have my back to him. The way he looked at me made my stomach swirl with nervous butterflies. One of his hands pressed warmly on my bare shoulder to steady the fabric as he zipped me up, and I shivered involuntarily.
When he had finished, I went over to the mirror to investigate for myself. Even I had to admit that I looked lovely. With the white dress and the diamond necklace, I almost looked too lavish. Maybe it was too much for just a dinner.
“I look like I’m getting married,” I commented and glanced back at Finn. “Do you think I should change?”
“No, it’s perfect. ” He looked pensively at me, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say he looked almost sad. The doorbell chimed loudly, and Finn nodded. “The guests have arrived. We should greet them. ”
TWELVE
introductions
We walked down the hall together, but at the top of the stairs, Finn deliberately fell a few steps behind me. Elora and three people I guessed were the Kroners were standing in the alcove as I descended the stairs, and they all turned to look up at me. It was the first grand entrance I had ever made in my life, and the
re was something wonderful about it.
The Kroners consisted of a stunningly beautiful woman in a floor-length dark green dress, an attractive man in a dark suit, and an attractive boy about my age. Even Elora looked more extravagant than usual. Her dress had more detailing and her jewelry was more pronounced.
I could feel them appraising me as I walked toward them, so I was careful to keep my steps as smooth and elegant as possible.
“This is my daughter, the Princess. ” Elora smiled in a way that almost looked loving and held her hand out to me. “Princess, these are the Kroners. Aurora, Noah, and Tove. ”
I smiled politely and did a small curtsy. Immediately after, I realized that they were probably the ones who should be curtsying to me, but they all continued to smile pleasantly at me.
“It’s such a pleasure to meet you. ” Aurora’s words had a syrupy tone that made me wonder whether or not I should trust her. A few dark curls fell artfully from her elegant updo, and her chestnut eyes were large and stunning.
Her husband, Noah, gave me a small bow, as did her son, Tove. Both Noah and Aurora looked appropriately respectful, while Tove looked vaguely bored. His mossy green eyes met mine very briefly, then darted away, as if eye contact made him uncomfortable.
Elora ushered us into the sitting parlor to talk until supper. The conversation was overly polite and banal, but I suspected there were undercurrents that I didn’t fully understand. Elora and Aurora did most of the talking, with Noah adding very little. Tove said nothing at all, preferring to look anywhere but directly at anyone.
Finn was more in the background, speaking only when spoken to. He was poised and polite, but from the disdainful way Aurora looked at him, I gathered she didn’t approve of his presence.
The Stroms were fashionably late, as Finn had predicted they would be. He’d briefed me extensively on both them and the Kroners earlier in the day, but he was much more familiar with the Stroms and talked of them in much more affectionate tones.
Finn had been a tracker for Willa, so he knew her and her father, Garrett, quite well. Garrett’s wife (Willa’s mother) had died some years earlier. Finn claimed that Garrett was easygoing, but that Willa was a tad high-strung. She was twenty-one, and prior to living in Förening, she’d been privileged to the point of excess.
When the doorbell rang, interrupting the irritatingly dull conversation between Aurora and my mother, Finn immediately excused himself to answer the door and returned with Garrett and Willa in tow.
Garrett was a rather handsome man in his mid-forties. His hair was dark and disheveled, making me feel better about my own imperfect hair. When he shook my hand with a warm smile, he immediately put me at ease.
Willa, on the other hand, had that snobby look as if she were simultaneously bored and pissed off. She was a waif of a girl with light brown waves that fell neatly down her back, and she wore an anklet covered in diamonds. When she shook my hand, I could tell that her smile was at least sincere, making me hate her a little less.
Now that they had arrived, we adjourned to the dining room for supper. Willa attempted to engage Tove in conversation as we walked into the other room, but he remained completely silent.
Finn pulled my chair out for me before I sat down, and I enjoyed it since I couldn’t remember a single time that anyone had ever done that for me. He waited until everyone was sitting before taking a seat himself, and this deference would be the standard for the evening.
As long as at least one person was standing, so would Finn. He was always the first to his feet, and even though the chef and a butler were on staff tonight, Finn would offer to get anyone anything they needed.
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The dinner dragged on much more slowly than I had imagined it could. Since I wore white, I barely ate out of fear of spilling anything on my dress. I had never felt so judged in my entire life. I could feel Aurora and Elora waiting for me to screw up so they could pounce, but I wasn’t sure how either of them would benefit from my failure.
I could tell that on several occasions Garrett tried to lighten the mood, but his attempts were rebuffed by Aurora and Elora, who dominated the conversation. The rest of us rarely spoke.
Tove stirred his soup a lot, and I became mildly hypnotized by that. He’d let go of his spoon, but it kept swirling around the bowl, stirring the soup without any hand to guide it. I must have started to gape because I felt Finn gently kick me under the table, and I quickly dropped my eyes back to my own food.
“It is so nice to have you here,” Garrett told me at one point, changing the entire topic of conversation. “How do you like the palace so far?”
“Oh, it is not a palace, Garrett,” said Elora with a laugh. It wasn’t a real laugh, though. It was the kind of laugh rich people use whenever they talk about new money people. Aurora tittered right along with it, and that quieted Elora down somehow.
“You’re right. It’s better than a palace,” Garrett said, and Elora smiled demurely.
“I like it. It’s very nice. ” I knew I was making bland conversation, but I was afraid to elaborate more.
“Are you adjusting here all right?” Garrett asked.
“Yes, I think so,” I said. “I haven’t been here that long, though. ”
“It does take time. ” Garrett looked at Willa with affectionate concern. His easy smile returned quickly and he nodded at Finn. “But you’ve got Finn there to help you. He’s an expert at helping the changelings acclimate. ”
“I’m not an expert at anything,” Finn said quietly. “I just do my job the best I can. ”
“Have you had a designer come over to make the dress yet?” Aurora asked Elora, taking a polite sip of wine. It had been a minute since she’d last spoken, so it was time for her to assert herself once more in the conversation. “That dress the Princess has on is very lovely, but I can’t imagine that it was made specifically for her. ”
“No, it was not. ” Elora gave her a plastic smile and cast a very small but very distinct glare at my dress. Until just that second it had felt like the most beautiful thing I had ever worn. “The tailor is set to come over early next week. ”
“That is cutting it a bit short for next Saturday, isn’t it?” Aurora questioned, and I could see Elora bristling just below the surface of her perfect smile. “That’s just over a week away. ”
“Not at all,” Elora said in an overly soothing tone, almost as if she were talking to a small child or a Pomeranian. “I am using Frederique Von Ellsin, the same one who designed Willa’s gown. He works very quickly, and his gowns are always impeccable. ”
“My gown was divine,” Willa interjected.
“Ah, yes. ” Aurora allowed herself to look impressed. “We have him on reserve for when our daughter comes home next spring. He’s much harder to get then, since that is the busy season for when the children return. ”
There was something vaguely condescending in her voice, as if we had done something tacky by having me arrive here when I did. Elora kept on smiling, despite what I now realized was a steady stream of polite barbs from Aurora.
“That is one major benefit of having the Princess come home in the fall,” Aurora continued, her words only getting more patronizing as she spoke. “Everything will be so much easier to book. When Tove came home last season, it was so difficult to get everything just right. I suppose you’ll have everything you want on hand. That should make for a stunning ball. ”
Several things were setting off alarms in my head. First, they were talking about both me and Tove as if we weren’t even there, although he didn’t seem to notice or care about anything going on around him.
Second, they were talking about something going on next Saturday that I apparently needed a specially designed dress for, and yet nobody had bothered to mention it to me. Then again, this shouldn’t surprise me. Nobody told me anything.
“I haven’t had the luxury of making plans a year in advance the way
most people do, since the Princess came home most unexpectedly. ” Elora’s sweet smile dripped with venom, and Aurora smiled back at her as if she didn’t notice.
“I can certainly lend you a hand. I just did Tove’s, and as I said, I’m already preparing for our daughter’s,” Aurora offered.
“That would be delightful. ” Elora took a long drink of her wine.
Dinner continued that way, Elora and Aurora’s conversation barely masking how much they detested each other. Noah didn’t say much, but at least he managed not to look awkward or bored.
Willa and I ended up watching Tove quite a bit, but for entirely different reasons. She stared at him with unabashed lust, although I couldn’t figure out what he’d done to deserve that, other than being attractive. I kept watching because I was certain he was moving things without touching them.
The Kroners didn’t linger after dinner, but the Stroms did. I assumed that was because Elora actually liked Garrett and Willa.
Elora, Finn, and I walked the Kroners out, with Finn coming along only to open the doors for them. When saying their good-byes, Aurora and Noah bowed before us, making me feel quite ridiculous. There was absolutely no reason why anyone should bow to me.
To my astonishment, Tove gently took my hand in his, kissing it softly when he bowed. When he straightened up, his eyes met mine, and very seriously he said, “I look forward to seeing you again, Princess. ”
“And I, you. ” I was so pleased that I had said something that sounded completely perfect for the moment. And then I smiled much too wide, I’m sure.
Once they departed into the night, oxygen seemed to return to the house, and Elora let out an irritated sigh. Finn rested his forehead against the door for a moment before turning back around to face us. I felt much better knowing that everyone else had found the evening exhausting too.
“Oh, that woman. ” Elora rubbed her temples and shook her head, then pointed at me. “You. You do not bow to anyone, ever. Especially not that woman. I know you thrilled her endlessly, and she’s going to be telling everyone about the little dim-witted Princess who didn’t know enough not to bow before a Marksinna. ” I looked at the floor, feeling any sense of pride vanish. “You don’t even bow before me, is that clear?”
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“Yes,” I said.
“You are the Princess. Nobody is higher than you. Have you got that?” Elora snapped, and I nodded. “Then you need to start acting like it. You need to command the room! They came here to see you, to gauge your power, and you need to show them. They need to have confidence that you will be able to lead them all when I am gone. ”
I kept my eyes locked on the floor, even though I knew that probably offended her, but I was afraid I would cry if I looked at her yelling at me.