Page 20 of The Winter Princess

“Trial period? Numbers?” His mouth splits into a grin. “This isn’t my first trip through the Sonderlands, Your Royal Highness. Where are your hard numbers? What’s your firm timeline?”

I miss the sensation of Oskar Velasquez at my back, holding my shoulders so I don’t fall, butNeerTorbald has given me the opening Mama told me to watch for. I have to take it.

“Two hundred thousand visitors,” I offer. “By the end of the year.”

As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I want to cram them back inside. Two hundred thousand. By New Year’s Day. That number is insane.

“Or?” he presses

It hurts to speak. “We cancel the exhibit—”

He shakes his head, a gust of laughter telling me to try again.

“—and we cut a third of the staff,” I finish. No, no, no, no. Stop, Freja. This is insane. Insane. “I’ll make The Nat the most popular destination in Sondmark, or you’ll get to make serious cuts without taking a political hit for it.”

A calculating light leaps into his eye and he reaches out. “Two hundred thousand.”

He clasps my hand in his, shaking it hard. I try not to throw up on his shoes.

8

Less Cranky

OSKAR

I’m working at the hot table when I get a text from Princess Freja.

Talked to the PM. Good and bad news.

My brows gather. I told her she could call. I never tell anyone they can call. Why did she text?

I pull up the tiny typing screen and painstakingly tap out a reply, fumbling over the keys.

I am working on a tricky painting. I will be here until 9 or 10. Come to tell me the news when you’re free.

Send.

I turn off the phone, lay out the webbing, and slide the canvas into position. Pulling a layer of mylar over the face of the work, I begin taping it down to create a vacuum seal, beginning the process to reactivate the glue in the canvas, stabilizing flakes of paint, and flattening out ripples. It’s not really tricky, but I refuse to do that thing where we volley texts back and forth for the next hour. Does she think I have nothing else to occupy my time? If I have to use money with her mother’s face on it, the least she could do is call.

She arrives after dusk, and my first thought is that a text thread would have been better for my concentration. Freja is wearing an old-fashioned cashmere coat, the kind every woman in mid-century pictures wore to a party or as a going-away outfit on her wedding day. It’s draped over a long gown, and the sequins around her hem catch the low light as she walks across the workroom. She holds paper bags with Chinese characters printed on the side.

“What’s that?” I ask, clearing my throat.

“You didn’t answer my texts, so I got a little of everything,” she says, looking around at the surfaces. She pivots toward my desk—government-issue from the early years of the Cold War—and sweeps behind it, setting out white boxes and cellophane-wrapped fortune cookies. To keep from watching her, I turn on my phone and hastily scroll through a string of messages delivered over the course of the past hours.

I have an evening event.

Velasquez?

Is this Oskar Velasquez of The National Museum?

Okay, I’ll come after. 8-ish.

Do you like Chinese food? I do.

Do you have nut allergies? I don’t.

Have you ever wondered how much less cranky you’d be if you just picked up your phone?