Page 79 of The Midnight Princess

“Freja—” I gasp.

“Oskar did them,” she beams. In a pair of exquisite miniature portraits, the newlyweds face one another in separate gilded frames. But what might have been a stiff, formal arrangement is made endearing by his arm reaching out of his frame to hand her a cookie.

“It says, “Plus one.” Clara holds up her card. She looks around the room. “We’re not invited all together…we’re invited as separate people. Like, I am a person, and I can bring whomever I want to?”

Mama’s displeasure electrifies the air.

“Yes.” Freja’s answer is blithe. We say she never notices undercurrents, but maybe it’s more accurate to say she doesn’t care about them. “We can’t fit very many people into our flat, so it will be some of Oskar’s aunties and uncles, my immediate family, and their special guests.” She smiles at Clara as she adds this last bit.

“Let me RSVP right now. I’m bringing Max.”

Mama clears her throat—as though Max is an unfortunately situated piece of chicken she can’t dislodge. “Is it safe?” she asks, running her fingers over the uneven surface of Freja’s scrolling calligraphy and Oskar’s hand-painted art. “We won’t fall through the floor?”

“We’ll weigh the guests at the door,” Freja replies.

Mama gives a cool smile. “Your father and I are honored to be your guests.”

Freja nods. “Excellent. Oh, Mama. His Majesty King Giles extends his warmth and greetings.”

“When did you see Uncle Giles?” I breathe.

“On our honeymoon. Mama suggested a visit since we were so close.”

“Pavieau?” Père shouts. “You sent our daughter to Pavieau?”

Our father grips Freja’s hand, but we are all in a similar state of shock. The only place we ever meet Père’s family is in Switzerland, carefully away from the spotlight.

The cords of Mama’s neck tighten. “It was merely a suggestion.” She swallows and strides off, Caroline in her wake.

Awkward silence grips the room, and then Père stalks toward Mama’s office.

Clara watches him go. It’s a topic too serious to gossip lightly about, and when she returns to the subject of the party, we follow. “You aren’t going to bring a Chanel model, Noah. You can’t.”

He bops her on the head with his invitation. “Who said I was?”

She slips out of his reach and gathers her things. “You should bring Caroline. She’s practically family.”

In a blink, he goes from teasing big brother to our future king. “I will not bringVrouwTiele. She has her own life beyond being at our mother’s beck and call.”

Karl has been practically vibrating in her presence these last weeks—like a Venus flytrap waiting for the soft brush of an insect’s wing—and I stifle a laugh. “That’s for sure.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he snaps. He shakes his head. “Forget it.”

My family disperses and I tap out a message on my phone.

Where are you?

In seconds, Jacob sends me a picture of a pile of sawdust. That’s all. Just the picture. There are 93,000 square meters of palace. Is he breaking one of them?

I grab a coat and find a footman. Palace staff are trained to fade into the background, no more remarkable than an 18th century vase, until needed, and this one starts when I fetch up next to him.

He bows, “May I help you, Your Royal Highness?”

“Hej.” I pull out my phone and tilt the screen. “Do you possibly know where this is?”

He cranes his neck. “That looks like the restoration workshop, ma’am.”

His directions are simple, but the afternoon is cold. Snow flurries swirl across my path, and I keep my head bent against the low clouds and dark skies. When I arrive at my destination, I find Jacob in the shop, bent over a whirring machine, guiding a metal tool down a length of spinning wood. Tiny flecks of sawdust fly back over his wrist, catching on his skin and hair, and a grimy radio picks up a BBC broadcast, the show hosted by an earnest, lisping historian discussing the Suez Canal.