by Thorne, Gigi
“Sure about what?”
“Taking me with you.” My heart beats faster and faster. The hair, the makeup, the gown—it all seemed like playacting. I didn’t truly believe there would be an encore performance of this caliber. “I’m no one.”
He turns on his heel, taking my chin in his hand. Those glacial blue eyes search mine. “You’re not no one.” Am I imagining the note of possession in his voice? “You’re mine, little thief. Now come with me to my sister’s wedding.”
* * *
The moment the gates open, the crowd senses us.
It’s like sharks drawn to blood in the water, and a shrill scream rises up from the assembled people. “Bastian!” One woman’s voice is louder than all the others. “I love you!”
He gives a noncommittal wave, smiling at no one in particular, and I feel a certain throb of pleasure that I’m the one on his arm.
Even if it’s only a game we’re playing. Even if my crystal carriage is about to turn into a pumpkin.
I do my best to smile, giving a little wave, too.
And then we’re through the doors of the cathedral, into the relatively dim narthex. A woman in an elegant afternoon dress rounds on us, her blue eyes flashing. I’ve never curtsied in my life, but I bend automatically, because it’s the queen. Bastian’s mother.
“Bastian,” she hisses. “I’ve been standing here waiting. You’re going to throw the schedule off.”
Nearby, his sister is surrounded by her bridesmaids, who are all making minor adjustments to the fall of her dress.
The queen notices me. “Who is this?”
“My companion for the ceremony,” Bastian says smoothly, letting me go. “Are you ready to go in, Mother?”
“It’s so lovely to meet you,” says the queen in an icy tone, and takes hold of Bastian’s arm. They turn to enter the sanctuary, and music swells. At the last moment, Bastian turns around and mouths wait here.
I don’t move.
In fact, it takes me far too long to come out of the curtsy and get out of the open doorway. Now I’ll be in the photos, too, which is awful—nobody from the royal family will want me there. A man like Bastian doesn’t need evidence of his games and dalliances.
That’s what I try to tell myself, but I don’t feel it. I feel his stickiness between my thighs and the emptiness where he used to be inside me. And I want more of that. God help me, I do. I’m greedy for it. So greedy that if he pinned me up on the altar in front of the priest, I’d let him do it.
No. I wouldn’t go that far.
Maybe.
I have a swift moment of panic that he’s not coming back for me—that I should just fade back out into the crowd—and that’s when Bastian reappears in the narthex area. Relief washes over me like holy water. He closes the distance between us, leaning in until our lips are nearly touching and murmurs, “Are you ready for your penance?”
“I haven’t paid enough?”
“You’ll never pay enough.” Then he presses his lips against mine so gently I want to bite him. I want to push him against the wall, right in view of everyone.
But he pulls back and offers his arm, and then he’s escorting me to the front of the cathedral, to the pew reserved for the immediate royal family.
I can’t think. I can’t breathe. Everyone’s eyes are on me until Princess Charlotte makes her entrance, and I gulp for air as everyone makes quiet sounds of appreciation for her dress. It’s absolutely lovely. I drink in as many details as I can—it’s a miracle to be standing this close—but all of them are tinged with the scent of Prince Bastian. When it’s time to pray for the new couple, I pray instead for a few more minutes with him after the ceremony.
If I can survive. If I don’t melt underneath all these burning gazes. I can practically hear them thinking Who is she? and Has Prince Bastian lost his mind? and Should we prepare for another wedding?
No. I’m not imagining it. Those are actual whispers rising into the air of the cathedral all around us. Prince Bastian reaches over and takes my hand, giving it a possessive squeeze.
Suddenly the ceremony is concluding, the groom is kissing his bride, and another swell of cheers, this one more restrained, lifts over the congregation. The string quartet accompanies a soaring choir as Princess Charlotte and her new husband sweep gracefully out, and then it’s my turn.
It’s my turn.
I’m leaving on Prince Bastian’s arm, my heart in my throat.
The narthex is a crush of people and bodyguards, and with everyone talking at once I can’t distinguish anything except that the reception is being held on the Grand Lawn, there are cocktails, there will be food, and it will be wonderful.
“Time to go, little thief,” Prince Bastian says, and I thank God for answering my prayer.
But out on the lawn, the sun betrays me.
It’s too bright, and I’m too noticeable, and we’re almost to the Grand Lawn when someone catches me by the elbow. It happens at the same moment that Bastian turns his head. Someone is calling him. His father, the king?
But when I turn, it’s not someone out of this royal game.
It’s Portia. She cocks her head toward the east wing of the palace, where the bridal suite is. “Come on. Hurry.”
My mouth drops open. “Hurry for what?”
“The women.” She looks at me like I’m crazy. “All the ladies need to be redone for the reception. They’re already filing in, and Marissa wants you back.”
The bubble of warmth and joy I’ve been carrying with me bursts. I whirl around, searching the crowd for Bastian, but I can’t see him. Maybe that’s for the best. Another few hours with Bastian won’t pay my rent, and if I get fired for dallying with him—
“All right.” I try my best to cling to what I’ve been granted already. To not get greedy. “All right.”
“Come on.” Portia takes me by the arm and pulls me through the crowd. This time, nobody notices me. Nobody bothers to look, except to note the color of my dress. Without Bastian by my side, they’ve already forgotten me.
Back at the bridal suite, the room hums with activity, and Marissa stands in the center of it all. “I hope you enjoyed yourself,” she says to me as Portia rushes up to her for marching orders. “Now get out of that dress. You know we wear black.”
11
Bastian
I can’t find her.
It seems my little thief has taken what’s mine and run, and I’m not talking about the dress.
I’m talking about all of her.
The moment my father released me from a completely unnecessary lecture on upholding the family honor and participating fully in the monarchy that has given me my life I went back to the place Adele was standing. Only she wasn’t there.
And her yellow dress, which is like a sunray on a cloudy day, was nowhere to be found.
I searched for her until I had to stop, until my mother was ready to haul me bodily into the tent where the reception was being held, and even now I can’t stop looking. Maybe some Good Samaritan took her under his wing and brought her to the tent. Maybe she’s sitting at one of these tables right now, surrounded by our country’s best and brightest and richest.
“Bastian,” my mother hisses from the other side of the high table. “Speak.”
It’s time for me to talk about my sister.
I tear my eyes away from the sea of people, from the search for a flash of yellow or a fall of dark hair, and approach the microphone with a confidence borne of all my years of participating in the monarchy.
Only now nothing in my speech seems right.
It’s all a bunch of thinly disguised barbs, the sort Charlotte and I have always exchanged from the corners of our mouths, friendly smiles plastered on to give the impression of friendship. Loyalty, yes—we had that in spades. Still do. But friendship? No. We have different outlooks on life, on what it means to participate in the monarchy, and she never appreciates when I make the papers for grabbing my own life by the throat and wringing all t
he possible pleasure out of it.
There’s nothing I want to take in my hands more than Adele right now.
I greet the assembled family and friends and a hush falls over the tent, punctuated by clinking glasses and silverware against the priceless china Charlotte insisted on using for place settings. They’re expecting my usual. Charlotte certainly is. She leans back in her chair—she’d never slump, not a princess and heiress—but she does get her body as far as she can from me and grit her teeth. For her, this is a moment to be lived through.
“I’ve never had the privilege of being in my sister’s mind,” I begin, and a little laugh swells and floats away on the air. “But I can imagine how it was to meet Henry.” The last of the laughter dies, and I see people all across the tent turning to look at me. “I can imagine that it was like the dawn breaking after the darkest part of the night.” Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Charlotte leaning forward. “I can imagine that it was like seeing the world in technicolor when you’d only seen it in black and white before. These moments—”
I might have a heart attack, honestly, because the vision swimming up to the front of my mind has nothing to do with Charlotte and Henry and everything to do with Adele. “These moments come like a shock to the system, and there’s a moment when you can feel how the axis of the earth shifts underneath you. Like diving into cold water,” I say, and everyone laughs again.
“Those few moments when you’re deliciously, wholly alive, and freezing, and then the joy of breaking the surface and taking your first breath of air.” Adele, turning to face me, the ruby dropping out of her hand. Adele, back arched, hands and knees on the bench in my closet, begging me for more. Adele, blushing with pleasure, while the country cheered for the mysterious girl in yellow on my arm. I have to clear my throat.
“That’s what falling in love is like.” And now I have to bring it around again to the point of all this. My sister. “And I’m so happy that Charlotte has found that in Henry.” I turn to face her and look into those eyes so like my own. “May you always dive into clear, cold water together and come up joyfully into your life. To the new bride and groom!”
Applause. Thunderous applause, and Charlotte stands up, coming to embrace me for the first time in years. It’s a genuine hug, her arms thrown around my neck, a tear running down her cheek.
“That was beautiful,” she says into my ear. “What happened to you? Did someone knock you about the head?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
I break off before things get awkward and take my seat at the high table next to my mother, who pats my hand. “Bastian, that was the most kind,” she says in a choked voice, and I absently pat her hand back. But I’ve gone back to searching.
I can’t let her leave here.
And yes, there are resources at my disposal that will make it possible to find her, even after this day ends and Adele goes back out into the city. But I don’t want it to end without her. I want her by my side well into the night, and into the next morning, and I want time to discover everything there is to know about her, beginning with the reason she tested that ruby in her hands like a girl in a candy shop. It’s not all antique furniture and freshly washed linens where she comes from, I can tell you that.
With every moment that passes, my heart grows more desperate.
I hate being desperate.
I like having things go my way. I like bending the world to my whims. And right now, with her out of my sight, it’s bending in the opposite direction.
When the dinner dishes are cleared away and it’s time to dance, I take the first partner my mother shoves toward me and spend every turn around the dance floor looking for her. God, why won’t she appear at the end of the floor, looking a little awkward and absolutely perfect? I’d sweep her into my arms right now, press and family and friends be damned.
“Who is she?” says my dance partner, and I look down to discover that it’s Princess Edie. “That girl in the yellow dress?”
“The girl in the yellow dress,” I say, because I don’t have a lie ready at hand. My little thief.
She looks at me thoughtfully. “Do you know her from somewhere? I have the sense that your speech was more about her than about Henry.”
“It was. And no. I only met her today.”
Edie tilts her head, pursing her lips. “And you’ve fallen for her already?”
“Edie, do you ever know, deep in your soul, that if you let someone run away from you before you’ve explored each other completely, you’ll be making the biggest mistake of your life?”
She cracks a smile. “That’s surprisingly romantic, for a man like you.”
“I dove in, Edie. I’ve resurfaced a new man. And the air is clean for the first time in a long time.”
The princess shoves me playfully away. “What are you doing here, then? Where’s your breath of fresh air?”
“I lost her before the reception started.”
Her mouth drops open. “Lost her? On palace grounds? Are you sure she wasn’t spirited away?”
She’s kidding, but a twist of dread knots my gut. “She wasn’t, I’m sure—”
“Go find her,” Edie commands. “Don’t spend another second at this party without her.”
“I have my duties to fulfill.” Even as I say it, I don’t mean it.
“To hell with the duties,” she says, stepping back off the dance floor. “Find her. Find her now. Before it’s too late.”
12
Adele
The fatigue of the day—and the rest of the evening—presses heavy on my shoulders by the time I’ve swept the last of the hairdressers’ detritus from the floor in the bridal suite. Marissa set me on the task, and I kept my mouth firmly shut, though I very much doubt that the palace doesn’t have its own people that clean. She insists on leaving it spotless, and most of that work has fallen to me.
Tomorrow, a truck will arrive to cart back all the chairs and mirrors and workstations, but tonight I’m alone in the empty bridal suite.
I pick up the dustpan one more time and tip it into the bin, then pause to look out at the Grand Lawn.
The reception tent is massive, so massive that it looks like it’s being held up by magic. The fabric is somehow delicate and sturdy all at once, and all of it glows with fairy lights. Below the roof, shadows are projected onto the white walls of people dancing and laughing.
I catch sight of the shadow of a couple, the man tall and broad, and with a twist in my gut, I realize that it must be Bastian. If not that shadow, then another one of them. Men like Bastian never stay still for long. And me—I’m a faded memory by now.
My vision shifts and I’m looking at my own reflection in the window. The makeup is still perfect—of course it is. The people at Marissa’s salon are the best in the business. But the yellow dress is hanging up, alone on a barren rack in the center of the room, and I’m swimming in the borrowed shirt from one of the other girls.
Marissa wasn’t too pleased about the loss of my clothes.
“It was at the request of the prince,” I told her, my eyes on the floor. After a pause laden with her disapproval she fired off the rest of the orders for the night. Sweeping. Cleaning. Penance.
I wish it was the kind of penance I’d gladly pay.
And I would.
How am I supposed to go back into my bleak, colorless life after this? Keep clawing my way out toward a modicum of stability when I know what it’s like behind the palace walls? When I know who is behind the palace walls?
I washed Prince Bastian off of my thighs in the bathroom hours ago, but I wish I hadn’t.
I take one more turn around the room, tucking a stray curling iron into one of the workstations, and then...that’s it. There’s nothing left for me to do but go.
Guards linger at the exit of the east wing of the palace. I’m tempted to go right back in. I’m tempted to stay where he could find me, if he wanted. But the hallway is dimly lit and suddenly it seems too forbidden. My job h
ere is over. I’ve paid my penance for the day. And now I have to pay it for the rest of my life.
It’s a longer walk this way, from the east wing to the palace gates, and my feet feel heavy. I’m tired, of course, but every step in this direction takes me farther from him. It’s like walking through wet sand. I hitch my bag up on my shoulder and listen to the lonely clink of my lanyard and badge against the rivets in my borrowed jeans. I have a shift tomorrow at the salon. I’ll have to be up early.
Today was supposed to be my day off.
I laugh at that thought. It was hardly a day off, but it was also a whirlwind vacation, all at once.
I’m twenty feet away from the gates, eyeing the clutch of bodyguards and dreading the moment I pass through the gates and step back into my old life, when someone snags my elbow.
My entire soul crumples inward. Marissa. It has to be Marissa, with some other task for me to do. The thought of walking back in there and sweeping the already clean floors—well, chin up. That’s my lot in life.
I turn, dejected, but I’m met with the sight of a tuxedo.
I trace the lines of the jacket up to Bastian’s radiant face, glowing with promise even in the dark. Draped over one arm is the yellow dress.
“My little thief,” he says, and there’s such warmth in his voice that I very nearly buckle at the knees. “Look at you. Stealing yourself from me already? How could you?”
I can’t help but beam back at him. “It was a terrible mistake,” I say, my voice low. “That I was walking this way. But Prince Bastian—”
“Yes, my little thief?”
“I would never steal myself from you. As long as you wanted me, I swear. I swear. Let me show you. I’ll pay any penance.”
He sweeps me into his arms then, kissing me long and hard, tasting of freedom and future and champagne and celebration. The moment explodes like a firework and I don’t care about anything but his lips on mine. Not the fact that it might not work. Not the difficulties posed by his royal status. Nothing, nothing, nothing except that tongue curling against mine, the hand tightening at my waist, the hard body commanding mine.