Page 27 of Grand Romantic Delusions and the Madness of Mirth, Part One

“I love this collection,” Camille says, pulling my attention back to the runway currently dominated by dark cherry and faux leather. She’s making notes on her phone.

“Devon is on my list.” Chloe leans forward deeply to glare at her twin across my lap.

Her protest is a little too loud, because she draws even more attention than Tereza did.

“That’s still under negotiation,” Camille says, more quietly and through clenched teeth.

I quash an involuntary smile. I get involved in too many charities and spend way too much time writing thank-you notes. But Chloe and Camille consider themselves muses. Not for hire. They do the so-called sponsoring.

Acid-green structured jackets and full-length dusters overtake the runway, and I finally give in — just enough to peer at my phone while keeping it mostly tucked in the depths of my purse.

I’m not making a list of my own. The color currently being highlighted on the runway would literally make my skin look green, and I have no idea what it would do up against my purple eyes.

No. I accepted Chloe and Camille’s invitation in the hopes that I might also run into a friend. A friend I’ve semi-ghosted for far too long. Because he’s inextricably tied to me through Armin. And it hurts. It still just hurts.

He hasn’t returned my text message yet. Which is fair, because being mired in grief but not wanting to be a perpetual emotional burden, I didn’t respond to his last three texts either.

He might not even be in Paris.

Trying to be subtle, I cast another gaze around the vaulted, stone-walled nave. I don’t know what color his hair is right now. And that thought squeezes round my heart because it makes me realize he hasn’t sent me a recent selfie.

Again, my fault.

But if Salvatore is even at the show — presumably styling it — he’s backstage right now.

And honestly, despite Camille and Chloe’s patronage and the extremely pretty clothing, I’m not certain these designers are …

interesting enough to have captured my Sully’s attention.

Plus it’s a busy time of year for fashion.

Still, I pretend to be enraptured as the final round of models linger on the stage, then all the designers come out for a group bow. But really, I’m looking for pink or green hair, and a tall, lean, sharp-featured mage with an impossibly wide smile in a bespoke suit.

And I ache.

I ache, missing Armin.

I ache, missing Salvatore. My Sully.

And I hurt because I’m the asshole who hasn’t been returning messages.

I’m the asshole who suddenly doesn’t want to be wearing the subtly wrong shade of light pink, or even beige, so it washes out my eyes and makes me appear less threatening. Not that I’m at all threatening compared to the rest of my family.

I’m the more accessible royal, the face of the family. Though admittedly, that’s a position I wedged myself into, to be useful. Because the power I’ve smothered so effectively that I might not even be able to access it anymore is the opposite of useful .

I have no idea how the matching event has remained under wraps so far — though it’s possible that everyone invited is just that wary of my father. That confidentiality can’t possibly hold for long, and certainly not beyond the ball on the upcoming equinox.

I have a little less than three weeks to wrestle my innermost self back into the role I chose when the role I was born into became …

not an option. A pretty princess in pink with beautiful handwriting, the perfect smile, and who voices her opinions, wants, needs as little as possible— and only when requested.

Armin made all that more than bearable. He made it feel, me feel, natural. We were two halves of the same picture. With Sully, and honestly even Bolan, as our … counterpoints.

Without Armin, I’m not sure I can have Sully.

And I never had Bolan at all.

So I tuck my phone away, stop scanning the stage and the crowd beyond, paste on a carefully perfected smile, and stand to politely clap when the rest of the audience sweeps to its feet.

I slowly shift my way across the room until the stone wall of the church is firmly at my back, and it’s hopefully less noticeable that I’m not actually drinking from the champagne flute in my hand.

Chloe and Camille are arm and arm with their chosen designers and making the rounds to introduce them to potential patrons.

Five more minutes, and I’ll catch Anne’s eye. She’s caught up in conversation with the twins’ mother, Irene, and two other people I don’t recognize on sight but would probably know by name.

Tereza appears from the midst of the crowd. One of the two companions trailing her downs a glass of champagne, then snags two more from a passing server. The two males then linger near another server with a tray of appetizers, but don’t take anything.

Tereza flashes my security a big grin— Roz and Greg are both just a few paces away — then pointedly toasts both of them, one at a time, with her own glass of champagne.

The lynx shifter stops a proper two meters from me, bobbing in a perfunctory curtsy.

I contemplate not addressing her. Will she break protocol again and speak without me starting the conversation? Then I instantly feel ridiculous, even thinking about playing such games. To what end?

“Lady Landenberg,” I say, “did you enjoy the show?”

“Indeed. Delightful, Your Royal Highness.” Tereza’s golden eyes narrow mockingly.

Not mocking me, I don’t think. Just the formalities.

With Tereza three years ahead of me at school, we haven’t often crossed paths since, and certainly not so informally.

She’s currently all but running the board of the Phrontistery in Prague, where we all matriculated.

Even with her mother still the nominal head of the board, and their household, Tereza has assumed more and more responsibility for both despite her relatively young age.

She’s also not the eldest in her line, yet she uses the Landenberg title — Lady Landenberg, not Lady Tereza. Presumably, there’s some succession reason that the title fell to her from her grandmother, but I’m not usually privy to that sort of gossip.

Tereza sips her champagne, pointedly eyes me for not sipping mine, and visibly chafes at standing still. Most shifters prefer to be in perpetual motion, with cats even more so. Even if only executing a slow stalking of their prey.

“How is the school?” I finally ask because I can’t think of anything else we have in common.

“Running smoothly,” she says. Then, as if remembering that she wanted to be playful, rather than actually doing so because she felt like it, she smiles and adds, “Ready for the next generation.”

I deliberately mistake her meaning. “Oh, are congratulations in order?”

She blinks, then laughs a little harshly. “I have elder brothers to take care of that bit of responsibility for me.”

Her mention of brothers — living brothers — knocks me back a bit, so I smile wider to compensate.

Tereza takes a step closer, then pauses, her gaze angled sharply to the left. “Your security is jumpy today.”

“Are they?” I ask rhetorically.

She grimaces. “I apologize if I startled them earlier. I didn’t realize that … after the invitation, I assumed I would have been cleared for …” She doesn’t bother to finish the thought, presumably because her implication is clear.

“I imagine you are,” I say, trying to not seem all stiff, though I’m uncomfortable with the subject. “However, we’re currently in a public space filled with at least a hundred people, so their jumpiness is expected.”

“Even appropriate.” Tereza grins, relaxing. “Can’t have the princess being kidnapped before she chooses her bond mates.”

“Or after,” I say, a touch pointedly.

“Right.”

I’m not sure what makes me say what comes next. My back is up, and I’m uncomfortable in my own skin. I have been since I lost Armin. But I open my mouth and speak.

“Bolan’s father died during a kidnapping attempt when Armin was eight years old. He was traveling with his mother. They kept us apart when we traveled anywhere when we were younger. So as not to risk losing two heirs at the same time.”

Tereza stares at me, unblinking. Her arm hangs at her side, the champagne dangling from her fingers, forgotten.

I barrel on, not certain why the fuck I’m running my mouth.

“He killed two of the kidnappers himself. Bolan’s father.

” It’s inappropriate, so inappropriate, but I step closer and speak earnestly, as if we’re friends, as if her two companions aren’t eavesdropping and eyeing me over her shoulder.

“He held the rest off until my father arrived. But he died of his injuries. So …”

I shrug affectedly, feeling utterly rotten inside. Mostly about spilling the private details of Bolan’s family. “The royal guard tend to take all of our security fairly seriously.”

Do I have an actual point? Or am I just spewing all my raw emotion over Tereza because she wants to tease me? Tease me about being kidnapped. Or being auctioned off to the highest bidder.

Lady Landenberg has gone terribly still.

I step back, turning slightly away to hold my still-full glass of champagne out to the nearest server. Keeping my gaze turned away from Tereza, I murmur, “Thank you,” as the server steps over to take my glass, then moves away to deal with the needs of the next person waving at them.

Tereza clears her throat quietly. “I didn’t know that, Your Highness. Or I wouldn’t have teased you about it.”

“No matter,” I say. “It was inappropriate for me to bring it up. I’m tired and need to be back … tonight.” I stumble over not saying ‘back home.’ I’m not certain where Anne is actually flying us, but I doubt I’ll get to sleep in my own bed. Not for some time, if ever again.