Page 59 of The Winter Princess

I had opinions about that, once.

But here we are now.

“I’m filming your interview today,” she says, slipping into my office chair which has become her office chair, and unpacking her bag on my desk which has become her desk. “You got my email?”

She’s wearing a fitted black turtleneck and camel-colored skirt with a heavy seam down the front. A pair of gold chains loop around her neck. Her shoes have slim straps banding her ankle, and I fend off the impulse to tell her to sit for me so I can pick up a pencil and get each detail just right.

I run a finger over the canvas, checking for bumps. “I’ll give you ten minutes.”

“I’ll take all day,” she counters. When I look up, she smiles. “Erik wanted lots of footage.”

I rest my arms on the table, sending a forbidding gaze into the weave of the canvas. I don’t need a whole day of Freja, of that almost imperceptible smile, of her direct gaze, of being reminded that an immigrant can be a guest at the palace but he can’t be at home there.

Freja braces her own arms against the table. “We need to attract guests to the museum and these videos are drawing far more of them than your current program of—let me check my notes,” she says, glancing around the room, “scowling at a canvas in a basement.”

Vede.I like her even when she’s insulting. “I said I’d do it.”

“Then try not to look like I’ve dragged in an iron maiden and the branding irons. I’ll film while you expound—”

“Expound?”

“Stop being difficult, Oskar.”

I scowl harder. “You’re being very familiar.”

She chokes on a laugh. “We’re not mortal enemies.”

“No?” My hands are heavy.

“We can’t be. You’ve been disagreeable since the moment I walked through the door, and I didn’t think once to pitch you out a window.”

I shift the canvas, absorbing myself in meticulousness. “Nice to see the monarchy turning over a new leaf,” I answer, not smiling. I won’t smile. “It’s never too late to kick the defenestration habit.”

Her eyes narrow. “It was theonetime. King Victor went on a pilgrimage after. It’s sorted.”

“I know I’m inspired.” I check another smile.

She shakes her head. “Anyway, we’re not enemies.”

“Then what are we?” This is a stupid question. I regret it. I would go on pilgrimage to wash away the foolishness of it, put up stone conciliation crosses, and wear a hairshirt against my skin.

“Friends,” she declares, more and far less than I want. Her smile peeks out. “We have a common enemy.”

“Prime Minister Torbald?” In the last weeks, he’s rolled out his immigration reform bill with a slate of interviews and vague, menacing statistics. Newspapers report that he’s cracking down on members of his own party for being insufficiently enthusiastic about slowing the trickle of new citizens.

She laughs. “I thought you were going to say Erik the Walking Quiff.”

I can’t stop the whole smile. “Quiff?”

“That fluff of hair he has. You know—” She reaches acrossChild with Beads and Rinkelbel, 1622, lacing her fingers through my hair and tufting up the front. I reach up to smooth it. Our fingers touch, and I feel each point of contact at a microscopic level. I feel it in my elbows and the backs of my knees.

Her hand contracts. Then she takes a breath and holds it out again.

I look at it and back to her face.Vede.More expressions I want to paint.

“What’s this?”

“We have to shake on it,” she prods. “To seal the friendship.”