Page 73 of The Dandelion Princess

“Manage what?”

“When you got married,” I say, biting my lip. “Who zipped you up? The intern?”

Her hands drop. “The dress had ties I could manage on my own.”

“Alone?”Vede.

“Who else would I have?”

Me. Clara. Alma. A knot of sisters. My throat burns with emotion, but I execute a little spin. “Well?”

She smiles. “You look like a fairytale.”

Freja’s dress has a tiny bodice, a long sweep of fabric falling from under her bust, and she wears Princess Marel’s bandeauacross her forehead. It should be shapeless and weird, but she has a kind of magical intuition about these things.

“You look like something out of a Russian novel,” I say. Her brow lifts. “What? I’ve readWar and Peace.”

Her brow lifts higher.

“The manga.”

Her lips pinch with a smile and she tugs the door of the closet closed, muffling the sounds of music and laughter beyond. When she takes both of my hands in hers, I fidget under the brilliant spotlight of Freja’s attention, given to me all at once. It never happens like this. I’m the one always throwing myself at her chilly walls—ever so high, ever so thick—and I feel a momentary disorientation.

“Ella.” Her breath hitches. “I’ve been trying to talk to you.”

“We talk.”

Her look convicts me. “It’s my birthday,” she tells me, as though I wasn’t there for it. “You have to give me what I want and I want to talk.”

Oskar has made her bolder. Teasing. More audacious. I try to blunt her intensity. “I guess I could return the fridge magnets.”

She flicks my forehead, and I rub the spot before she recaptures my hand. “I’m never going to regret getting married exactly as I did. You can’t wait for that.” What did I expect? Freja is still Freja. She’s still as abrupt as ever. She’s still pushing me away. My feet shift but she goes on. “It might have killed me if Oskar had been deported.”

“Killed you?” I scoff.

“I can’t apologize for my wedding and mean it, but I hope you know I hated walking into that church without you.”

I’ve imagined Freja a hundred times, marching away from me with brisk certainty, chin up, back as straight as she can manage, eyes clouded by the stupidities of love. I’ve imagined it like she smashed a jeweler’s window and ran off with her bag of loot. I’veimagined her posing for theatrical photographs, more concerned with a photo spread than having her sisters at her side.

Her smile wobbles and I look away. I know what the politics were. The prime minister was targetingNeerVelasquez. Time was running out, and there was no way the entire Sondish royal family could have packed into a Vorburgian church for a clandestine wedding without a national uproar. I know all that. But something frozen in my heart starts to thaw at the knowledge that Freja didn’t charge into the chapel all sunshine and show tunes. She wanted us.

Her mouth pulls on one side. “I could not have done it if you hadn’t shown me how. Remember when you told Mama you were going to school halfway around the world? You had the acceptance letter in your hand before you ever said a word.”

“You’re blaming this on me?” I choke, turning these tender feelings into something we can laugh at.

She resists my retreat, gripping me tightly. “I know I’m not always what you need,” she says, taking a deep breath, “but I wanted you to understand me.”

Not “forgive me”. Understand me.Dominanstid.Freja has a way with her.

I want to run away from royal life but, holding Freja’s hands, I hear Alma bellowing down the hall and Clara’s answering laugh. The air is pregnant with our mingled scents, sharp and sweet.

23

Cut Steel

ELLA

I kiss a folded over tissue and a knock sounds at the door. My mother’s secretary, dressed in the depressingly plain black cocktail dress we’ve seen dozens of times that allows her to move around royal events and provide her own brand of unobtrusive organization, dips a respectful nod as my sisters pass out of the room. She enters with a tiara-shaped box.