“Now that I can believe.” Elora sighed and started walking away. “Go change out of those clothes. You’re dripping all over everything.”
Finn watched her retreating figure for a minute, and I waited next to him until I was certain she was out of earshot. Although, if I thought about it, I wasn’t sure that Elora was ever out of earshot.
“What was that about?” I whispered.
“Nothing.” Finn shook his head. He glanced over at me, almost as if he’d forgotten I was there. “You need to change before you get sick.”
“That wasn’t nothing. Is there going to be an attack?” I demanded, but Finn only turned and started walking toward the stairs. “What is it with you people? You’re always walking away from questions!”
“You’re soaking wet, Wendy,” Finn said matter-of-factly, and I jogged to catch up to him, knowing he wouldn’t wait for me. “And you heard everything I heard. You know what I know.”
“That’s not true! I know she did that creepy mind-speak with you.”
“Yes, but she only told me to keep quiet.” He climbed the stairs without looking back at me. “You’ll be safe. You’re the Princess, the most important asset this kingdom has right now, and Elora won’t risk you. She just hates the Chancellor.”
“Are you sure I’m safe?” I asked, and I couldn’t help but think of that painting in Elora’s hidden room. The one that showed me terrified and reaching for nothing.
“I would never do anything to put you at risk,” Finn assured me when we reached the top of the stairs. He gestured down the hall to my room. “We still have much to go over. It’d be best if you forgot about this and changed into something warmer.”
FIFTEEN
education
After I had changed, Finn directed me to a sitting room on the second floor, down the hall from my room. The vaulted ceiling had a mural, all clouds and unicorns and angels. Despite that, the furniture looked modern and normal, unlike the expensive antiques that filled most of the house.
Finn explained that this had once been Rhys’s playroom. When he’d outgrown it, they had turned it into a room for him, but he rarely used it.
Lying on my back on the couch, I stared up at the ceiling. Finn sat in an overstuffed chair across from me with a book splayed open on his lap. Stacks of texts sat on the floor next to him, and he tried to give me a crash course on Trylle history.
Unfortunately, despite the fact that we were some type of mythical creatures, Trylle history wasn’t any more exciting than human history had been.
“What are the roles of the Markis and Marksinna?” Finn quizzed me.
“I don’t know. Nothing,” I replied glibly.
“Wendy, you need to learn this.” Finn sighed. “There will be conversations at the ball, and you need to appear knowledgeable. You can’t just sit back without saying anything anymore.”
“I’m a Princess. I should be able to do whatever I want,” I grumbled. My legs were draped over the arm of the couch, and I swung my feet back and forth.
“What are the roles of the Markis and Marksinna?” Finn repeated.
“In other provinces, where the King and Queen don’t live, the Markis and Marksinna are the leaders. They’re like governors or something.” I shrugged. “In times when the King or Queen can’t fulfill their duties, a Markis can step up and take their place. In places like Förening, their title is mostly just a way of saying that they’re better than everyone else, but they don’t really have any power.”
“That is true, but you can’t say that last part,” Finn said, then flipped a page in the book. “What is the role of the Chancellor?”
“The Chancellor is an elected official, much like the prime minister in England,” I answered tiredly. “The monarchy has the final word and wields the most power, but the Chancellor serves as their adviser and helps give the Trylle commoners a voice in the way the government is run.
“But I don’t get it,” I said, looking at him. “We live in America, and this isn’t a separate country. Don’t we have to follow their laws?”
“Theoretically, yes, and for the most part Trylle laws coincide with American laws, except that we have more of them. However, we live in separate pockets unto ourselves. Using our resources—namely, cash and persuasion—we can get government officials to look the other way, and we conduct our business in private.”
“Hmm.” I twirled a lock of hair on my finger and thought over what he was saying. “Do you know everything about Trylle society? When you were talking with Garrett and Elora, it was like there was nothing you didn’t know.”
I’m sure he would’ve easily won the Kroners over if he had tried. Instead he had assumed it was his role to hide in the background when they were around, so he’d kept his mouth shut. But everything about him was more refined than me. Cool, collected, intelligent, charming, and handsome, he seemed much more like a leader than I did.
“A foolish man thinks he knows everything. A wise man knows he doesn’t,” Finn replied absently, still looking down at the book.
“That’s such a fortune-cookie answer,” I said with a laugh, and even he smirked at me. “But seriously, Finn. This doesn’t make any sense. You should be a ruler, not me. I don’t know anything, but you’re all set to go.”
“I’ll never be a ruler.” Finn shook his head. “And you are right for the job. You just haven’t had the training that I’ve had.”
“That’s stupid,” I grumbled. “It should be based on your abilities, not lineage.”
“It is based on abilities,” Finn insisted. “They just happen to come with lineage.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, and he shut the book on his lap.
“Your persuasion? That comes from your mother,” Finn elaborated. “The Markis and Marksinna are what they are because of the abilities they have, and they are passed down through their children. Regular Trylle have some abilities, but they’ve faded with time. Your mother is one of the most powerful Queens we’ve had in a very long time, and the hope is that you will continue the tradition of power.”
“But I can barely do anything!” I sat up. “I have mild persuasion, and you said it wouldn’t even work on you!”
“Not yet, no, but it will,” Finn corrected me. “Once you start your training, it will make more sense to you.”
“Training? What training?”
“After the ball this weekend. Then you will begin working on your abilities,” Finn said. “Right now your only priority is preparing for the ball. So . . .” He flipped open the book again, but I wasn’t ready to go back to studying.
“But you have abilities,” I countered. “And Elora prefers you to me. I’m sure she’d like it better if you were Prince.” I realized sadly that that was true, and I lay back down on the couch.
“I’m sure that isn’t true.”
“It is too,” I said. “What is the deal with you and Elora? She definitely likes you better than me, and she seems to confide in you.”
“Elora doesn’t really confide in anyone.” Finn fell silent for a moment, and then exhaled. “If I explain this to you, do you promise to get back to studying?”
“Yes!” I answered immediately and looked over at him.
“What I say to you cannot leave this room. Do you understand?” Finn asked gravely, and I nodded, gulping, afraid of what he was going to tell me.
I had been growing more and more preoccupied with Finn and Elora’s relationship. She was an attractive older woman, and he was definitely a foxy guy, and I could see her digging her cougar claws into him. That was what I was afraid of, anyway.
“About sixteen years ago, after your father was gone, my father came under the employ of your mother. He had retired from tracking, and Elora hired him to guard her and the estate.” His eyes darkened and his lips tightened, and my heart raced.
“Elora was in love with my father. No one knew, except for my mother, who is still married to him. Eventually, my mother convinced him to leave.
However, Elora remained quite fond of my father and, in turn, rather fond of me.” He sighed and continued casually, as if he were talking about the weather. “She has personally requested my services over the years, and because she pays well, I have accepted.”
I stared at him, feeling nauseous and nervous. Since his father became involved with my mother after I was born, I could safely assume that we weren’t siblings, so at least that was something.
Everything else made it feel rather disturbing, and I wondered if Finn secretly hated me. He had to hate Elora, and he must only be here because of how much she paid him. Then I wondered if he was some kind of glorified gigolo, and I had to fight to keep from vomiting.
“I am not sleeping with her, and she has never made any advances of the sort,” Finn clarified, looking at me evenly. “She is fond of me because of her feelings for my father. I don’t blame her for what happened between them. It was a long time ago, and my father was the one who had a family to think of, not her.”
“Huh.” I looked up at the ceiling because it was easier than looking at him.
“I have distressed you. I’m sorry,” Finn apologized sincerely. “This is why I was hesitant to say anything to you.”
“No, no, I’m fine. Let’s just go on,” I insisted unconvincingly. “I have a lot to go over and all that.”
Finn remained silent for a minute, letting me absorb what he had just told me, but I tried to push it from my mind as quickly as possible. Thinking about it made me feel dirty, and I already had too much on my mind.
Eventually Finn continued on with the texts, and I tried harder to pay attention. If I was thinking about what exactly a Queen’s job entailed, I wasn’t thinking about my mother crushing on his father.
Frederique Von Ellsin, the dress designer, came over the next day. He was excited and flamboyant, and I couldn’t tell for sure whether or not he was Trylle. I wore only a slip as he took my measurements and sketched like mad in a notepad. Finally, he declared that he had the perfect gown in mind, and he dashed out of my room to get working on it.
All day long there was an irritating succession of people. They were all staff of some kind, like caterers and party planners, so most of them ignored me. They just trailed after Elora as she rattled off an inconceivable amount of information about what she expected them to do, and they all scurried to write it down or punch it into their BlackBerrys.
Meanwhile, I had the pleasure of camping out in my sweats all day. Whenever Elora saw me, she glared at my apparel with disgust, but she was always too busy making demands on somebody else to complain about me.
Everything that I managed to overhear only made my coming-out festivities sound even more terrifying. The most horrific thing I heard as she zipped by: “We’ll need seating for at least five hundred.” Five hundred people were going to be at a party where I would be the center of attention? Splendid.
The only upside of the day was that I got to spend the entire thing with Finn. But that became less enjoyable because Finn refused to talk about anything that wasn’t related to my performance at the party.
We spent two hours going over the names and pictures of the more prominent guests. Two whole hours spent poring over a yearbook-type thing trying to memorize the faces, names, and notable facts of about a hundred people.
Then there was the hour and a half spent at the dinner table. Apparently I did not know how to eat properly. There were certain ways to hold the fork, tilt the bowl, lift the glass, and even place the napkin. Up until that time I had never mastered any of those skills, and from what I gathered about the way Finn regarded me, I still hadn’t.
Eventually I gave up. Pushing my plate back, I laid my head down and pressed my cheek against the cold wood of the table.
“Oh, my God, has he killed you?” Willa asked, sounding appalled.
I lifted my head to see her standing at the end of the dining room table, hands on her fashionable hips. She wore too much jewelry, her necklaces and bracelets overly adorned and jangly, but perhaps that was part of being a troll. They all seemed to have a fondness for trinkets, something I had somehow missed, other than my obsession with my thumb ring.
“He bored me to death too.” Willa smiled at me, and I couldn’t believe I felt relieved to see her. No way would she try to drill me about the names of the past three hundred monarchs.
“And yet you look as alive as ever,” Finn said dryly, leaning back in his chair. “Perhaps I didn’t try hard enough with you.”
“Is that some kind of burn, stork?” Willa pulled back her lip in some kind of snide grimace, but she didn’t completely pull it off.
“If you’re feeling a burn, I suggest you look to your former sexual partners.” Finn gave her a small smile, and I gaped at him. I’d never heard him speak like that to anyone before.
“Funny.” Willa tried to keep a straight face, but I got the impression she was amused. “Anyway, I’m here to rescue the Princess.”
“Really?” I asked a little too brightly. “Rescue me how?”
“Fun stuff.” She shrugged in a cute way, and I looked to Finn to see if I could leave.
“Go.” He waved vaguely at me. “You’ve worked hard and you need a break.”
I didn’t think I’d ever be happy to get away from Finn, but I nearly scampered after Willa. She looped her arm through mine, leading me away from the dining room and toward my room. I instantly felt bad about leaving Finn, but I couldn’t take another lecture on silverware.
Willa chatted with me the whole way to my room in one endless stream of commentary about how dreadful her first few weeks were. She’d been certain that Finn would stab her with a fork before they even made it through the dining service, or vice versa.
“This is the worst part,” she said solemnly as we walked into my bedroom. “The whole boot camp before the ball.” She wrinkled her nose. “It’s horrid.”
“Yeah, I’m not enjoying it,” I admitted tiredly.
“But I made it through, so you’ll definitely make it through.” She walked into my bathroom, and when I didn’t follow, she looked back at me. “Are you coming?”
“To the bathroom with you?”
“To practice hairstyles.” She gave me a duh look, and reluctantly I walked in after her. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.
“Hairstyles?” I asked as Willa ushered me over to the stool in front of the vanity.
“Yeah, for the ball.” She sifted through the hair products on the counter and stopped, meeting my eyes in the mirror. “Unless your mother is going to help you with it.”
“Not that I know of.” I shook my head.
“She’s definitely not the nurturing type,” Willa agreed, somewhat sadly. Picking a bottle of something and a brush, she turned to me. “Do you want your hair up or down?”
“I don’t know.” I thought back to when I’d first met Willa, and Finn had told me to wear it down. “Down. I guess.”
“Good choice.” She smiled and pulled out my hair tie, painfully taking my hair down. “So, did Frederique come today?”
“Uh, yeah, a few hours ago,” I said between gritted teeth as she raked a comb through my hair.
“Excellent,” Willa said. “When you have your fitting, you should take a picture and send it to me. I’d love to see what it looks like.”
“Yeah, sure thing.”
“I know how ridiculous and confusing everything is at first.” Willa teased and primped my hair, all the while chatting happily. “And Finn knows pretty much everything, but he can be a little . . . cold, at times. And I’m sure the Queen isn’t much better.”
“Not really,” I admitted. But cold wouldn’t be how I described Finn. Sometimes he was standoffish, but other times, when he looked at me just so, he was anything but cold.
“I’m just letting you know that I wanna help you.” She stopped pulling at my hair long enough to meet my eyes in the mirror again. “And not like that backstabbing bitch Aurora Kroner, or because my father told m
e to, although he did. Or even like Finn because it’s his job. I just know what it’s like to be you. And if I can help, I want to.”
She gave me a crooked smile, and the sincerity in it startled me. Underneath her vapid pretense, she was actually a kind person. So few people here seemed to genuinely care about anyone else, and it was nice to have finally found one.
Immediately after that moment, Willa launched into a lengthy monologue about gowns. She could describe every gown she’d seen since coming to Förening three years ago, and she only liked one or two of them.
So my training with Willa didn’t turn out to be that much more interesting than that with Finn. She had a lot more gossip, about who dated whom and who was engaged and all that. But since I didn’t know who any of the people were, it wasn’t that interesting.
Willa was thus far single, and it didn’t sit well with her. She kept saying that her father needed to arrange something, and mentioned a few guys she’d had her eye on who’d slipped by. She spoke very fondly of Tove Kroner. Although she did point out that by missing out on him, she’d also miss out on a monster of a mother-in-law.
Still, by the end of the day I had a hairstyle picked out, a makeup “plan” in order, and I felt like I knew a little bit more about Trylle royalty. She made it all sound a lot like high school, which would’ve been comforting, except I hadn’t done that well at high school.
SIXTEEN
further instruction
They had taken an interest in me, and I knew I should feel flattered, but I wished they’d just left me alone. Elora and Aurora Kroner stood on the opposite side of the table. A seating chart stretched across the giant oak surface, and they both leaned over it, staring with intense scrutiny.
I had a feeling Elora had just dragged me with her because misery loves company. As for Aurora, I didn’t really get why she was interested in me. The best I could figure was that she hoped to understand me in order to bring about my demise. The too-big way she smiled at me kept making me want to cringe.
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