Page 57 of The Winter Princess

“The one she was holding hands with?” Alma asks.

Ella, with a mouth full of spice cake, nods.

“And, yes, he kissed me.”

Spice cake crumbs fly out of Ella’s mouth, and she leans forward, coughing. She swallows, grimacing. “Shut. Up. Are you being serious with me right now?”

“You said you knew we were kissing,” I counter.

“I was teasing!” She looks shocked, as though someone cut her Wi-Fi in the middle of a boss battle. “You looked like you were about to throw up.”

“Ladies, ladies,” Alma shouts, mimicking our British nanny, the profoundly plain but enormously loveable Poppy Fforde-Hughes. “A polite princess is a pleasant princess.”

Ella subsides against the carved pilaster. “My honor as a Girl Tracker,” she says, holding her hand up in the shape of a long-eared dog–the tracker sign, “I didn’t know. I wouldn’t have teased you quite so hard about it. My deepest apologies.”

I can’t help the smile which tucks my cheek. The thing I like best about Ella is that she always says sorry.

“It was hardly a kiss,” I say, ready to brush the whole thing away. It’s not too late to laugh it off. “It was more like a dare.”

“Did he dare you to kiss him? Or did you dare him to kiss you?” Clara asks. “I just want to understand the logistics.”

I shoot her a glare. “The logistics don’t matter. The point is that we exchanged a brief kiss.”

“How did you even have time to meet up last night? We had the gala all evening. Weren’t you tired?”

I give Clara a level look. She spent the summer conducting a late-night clandestine romance with a man who lives in the back of beyond.

“He was already at the palace for the gala. You meet Max after events.”

“Yes, pet, but I love Max.” She places her elbows on the arm of the chair and tucks her hands under her chin. “Do you have anything to share with us?”

I share a throw pillow, launched from across the room. It dislodges her arms, and she smacks herself in the face.

“Enough of that,” Alma admonishes. “I don’t think I saw him.”

Ella scratches Smit between the ears. His purr is low in his throat. “The short version is that he’s Pavian, so he’s an absolute smoke show.”

“Speak Sondish, please,” Alma says.

“It means he’s so hot there’s a danger Sondmark’s last ancient forest will be burned to the ground.”

I stifle a laugh and shake my head. “It was only a kiss. Not even a very good kiss.” Much too short, for one thing.

“It doesn’t have to be a good kiss,” Clara interjects.

“Hm?”

“I mean, if you like him, it takes very little in the technical department to get the job done.”

Ella scoots Clara’s chair with the tip of her foot. “You’re telling us Max is a bad kisser?”

Clara smiles a feline smile. “I am not telling you that.”

Ella, Alma, and I share the kind of look that must pass between fellow hostages.

Ella clears her throat. “The question, Freja, is do you want it to happen again?”

Vede. Yes. So much.My subconscious answers lightning fast, the rest of my body rushing along at blistering speed.