Page 39 of The Dandelion Princess

“Employees don’t count,” she says, dragging me as cheerfully as a kid with a cricket bat. “What do you mean ‘do the best you can’? Have you seen my public approval numbers? You’re looking at Sondmark’s favorite princess, eight years running.”

The polls could reverse tomorrow. She’d still be my favorite.

I stretch, folding my arm behind my head. Her face tips away and she emits an exasperated growl. “Stultes es, Marc, can you put on a shirt?”

I grin but reach for a robe, propping the phone up on a side table. Once covered, I sink against the green silk headboard the same color as Ella’s eyes. Above it, contrasting fabric is gathered in a sunburst, and when I settle myself, it sets the tassels on the canopy lightly swinging.

“I like your room,” she says. “I like how old it is.”

“That’s silly. Parts of the Summer Palace are a thousand years old.”

“Yeah, but my things are all modern. My bed is huge.”

“Oh,nowit’s huge,” I taunt.

“I’ve always wondered how you manage to sleep in an antique four-poster at your size.”

I grip the sheet. We can’t be talking about sleeping accommodations. We’re friends. Friends.

She goes on. “You’ll have to change it out when you do find a woman.”

“I’ll get one who likes to snuggle.”

Her cheeks flush, washing pink through her freckles. “Be serious, Marc. What do you mean ‘do the best I can’?”

She’s the only one who ever scolds me for not taking things seriously enough. Everyone else expects me to carry the burdens and risks, to have the answers, and know what to do. To them, I’m as funny as a stroke.

I clear my throat. “The press loves you. You give them all kinds of copy being the rebel of the royal family, but how often do they talk about your work?” I burrow into the pillows and a line forms between Ella’s brow. If she were here, I’d smooth it away with my finger. I’d chase it with my lips.

“I’ve been working for Seong—”

“Beautifully,” I break in. “You’ve been creative and unorthodox, and it’s paid dividends. But have you ever given that kind of energy to the Queen’s Animal Trust, Fairy Godmothers, or the Veterans of the Motovian War Society? Your patronages deserve your best.”

“I thought you were going to help me with the succession crisis?” She bites her lip.

Dominanstid. I force myself to concentrate. “Your mother would have more bandwidth to deal with Freja if she didn’t have to worry about you.”

I roll over, propping my phone on the silk sheet, and stuff a pillow under my chest. Ella mirrors me, hopping off the treadmill, and perches her phone on the ground to do some stretches on a yoga mat.

“Your wish is going to turn me into a robot,” she grouches. “Why bother showing up for engagements when royalty-trained predictive text would do a better job than I do?”

I gaze upward, my eyes catching the riot of stripes, flowers, tassels, and fringes, each surface decorated with unnecessary pillows and ornate molding. Above the bed, there’s a cupola carved in wood and covered in gold leaf. It should be eye poison. It should be frilly and excessive. Too much.

I wouldn’t change one stick and, heaven willing, when I have lived to a great age, I hope to draw my last breath in this room.

I wouldn’t change Ella either.

An eternity sinks between one breath and the next. It’s not as simple as what I want. Ella isn’t just Ella. She is also Her Royal Highness Princess Ella and she has to make her way in the life she was born into, not run away to some other life, forever out of reach.

I flick the screen “You asked for my wishes.”

“You want me to give in to them.”

“Your family isn’t the enemy.”

She moves briefly out of frame to adjust her pose and replace the camera. “Agree to disagree. I’ll try to do better with my assignments,” she says, returning, slightly breathless.

Her bright green eyes catch me by surprise, the shock of them landing hard against my heart. I have to brace myself for her now. Every time.