by Emma Lea
I snorted a laugh and saw Meredith’s lips twitch. Was this girl for real? Elena’s mouth flattened into a thin line and I didn’t know if it was because I laughed at her sister or because Athena was as spoiled as that remark made her sound.
“It’s easier not to wear it,” I said. “Especially at work.”
“You work?” Athena asked, appalled.
“I did, yes,” I replied.
“But surely you’ve resigned now that you’re getting married?”
“Um.” I looked at the others to gauge their reactions but they were all watching me carefully. I swallowed. “I won’t be going back to the bar, no,” I said. It was not a lie, not really. I probably would get another job in a bar when this was all over, but I probably wouldn’t be going back to Drinks. “When I finish my Ph.D. I hope to find a job in my field of study, though.”
“And what field of study is that?” Meredith asked.
“Sociology,” I replied. “With a bit of psychology and anthropology thrown in. I was hoping to write my thesis on Kalopsia and what is happening as it rebuilds.”
Meredith smiled and the tension I’d felt in the room lightened. “I think that’s a wonderful idea,” she said. “The people of Kalopsia are wonderful and I think you’ll find lots of them eager to help you with your research.”
I exhaled and grinned. “Perfect,” I replied.
Jet lag was kicking my butt, and I held out as long as I could, but the siren song of my bed called to me relentlessly. I tried to stifle my fifth yawn in a row when the queen finally took pity on me.
“Do you need a nap?” she asked with a wink.
“I apologize,” I said, giving myself a shake. “It was a long flight and I haven’t quite adjusted to the time difference.”
“We’re about seven hours ahead of Boston, right?” Meredith asked.
I nodded. “Yes. So right now it feels like it’s two o’clock in the morning, even though it’s only about nine in the morning at home.”
“You should go and nap,” Meredith said.
“I…uh…”
“Were you waiting for me to tell you it was all right to leave?” Meredith asked with a cocked eyebrow.
“I wasn’t sure of the protocol,” I replied. “I figured that if the queen wanted to chat with me, I would be required to stay and chat for as long as she wanted me to. Isn’t that a thing? I mean, I heard that no one can leave the Queen of England’s dinner table until she has finished eating and when she is finished everyone else has their plates taken away too, if they’re finished or not.” Oh, oops…jet lag was making me forget that I was supposed to be polite and gracious and royal. Maya would be appalled.
The queen laughed. “I so understand why Alyssa hated this for so long,” she murmured and then shook her head.
“Um, Alyssa?” I asked. I was already yawning and babbling in front of the queen, impertinent questions couldn’t make it much worse.
“Queen Alyssabeth of Merveille. I was part of her royal guard…Jamie and I both were. That’s how we met. My father is the Prime Minister of Merveille and my brother is a duke in the queen’s court. You will meet them eventually, especially when this little bean is born,” she said, resting her hand on the barely there baby bump.
“Oh, um, okay. I don’t think I’ve heard of Merveille,” I said hesitantly.
Meredith waved my comment away. “Few people have. Now, off you go, have a nap. Don’t bother coming down to dinner if you’re not up to it. Sleep for as long as you need and then tomorrow we can discuss your dissertation in a bit more detail. You’ll want to speak to Jamie?”
I nodded. “Yes, if he has the time. I’d also like to explore the island and talk to the people who lived through the occupation of the usurper.”
Meredith’s smile turned brittle. “Anastas,” she spat. “He has a lot to answer for and if we ever catch him, we will hold him to account.” She shook herself and her smile returned. “I’m sure Jamie will make time for you and your questions and feel free to interview whoever you like, I just ask that you be respectful and get consent. Not everyone is comfortable talking about that tragic time.”
“Of course,” I said, standing and trying my hand at another curtsey.
Meredith laughed. “Please never do that again,” she said. “You’re worse at curtseying than even me.”
My cheeks flushed with embarrassment, but I grinned. She wasn’t wrong about how bad I was and I would be forever grateful to never have to curtsey ever again in my life.
I left the room and took a deep breath. That went a hell of a lot better than I expected, and Meredith was nothing like what I’d prepared for.
I strode through the palace, trying not to get lost. It wasn’t easy to remember the way through the long corridors and too many archways. I finally found my suite but passed my door and knocked on Lucas’ door. I wanted to know how his first meeting with the king went. He would probably need to be talked off a ledge and hopefully he wasn’t already packing and making plans to leave. Not because I thought he would have made a mess of the meeting, but because I knew how his anxiety worked. If the choices were flight, fight, or freeze, then Lucas was fully in the flight camp.
I pushed the door open after knocking again. I didn’t know where his valet was, but I didn’t think Lucas would mind me coming unannounced into his room. I stepped into the suite and closed the door behind me. When I turned back to the sitting room, I saw the back of Lucas’ head as he sat on the couch.
“Hey, so how did it go?” I asked as I crossed the room.
He didn’t answer, and I frowned.
“Lucas?” I asked as I rounded the couch.
Lucas was sound asleep sitting up, a document folder open on his lap with rows and columns of numbers that I couldn’t make heads or tails of. I smiled. Maybe his meeting had gone well after all.
I folded the documents back into their file and moved it to the coffee table. I gently removed his glasses and sat them on top of the documents before I kicked off my shoes and climbed onto the couch beside him. I laid my head in the crook of his shoulder and breathed him in. My body relaxed and my eyes drooped and I surrendered to the call of sleep.
Chapter 12
Lucas
I woke slowly. I could feel the sun on my skin and a crick in my neck and my arms were full of soft, pliant, and warm woman. Frankie. I smiled to myself in that dreamy way of being between awake and asleep.
I don’t remember how I fell asleep next to Frankie, but it wasn’t the first time we’d curled up together to watch a movie and fallen asleep. I shifted slightly to find a more comfortable position and tugged Frankie a little closer. We would both wake up soon and we would go through our day as normal, but I wanted to relish this little bit of…not-normal sounded negative, and this was not negative in the slightest. This was better than normal…super-normal, or hyper-normal. Whatever it was, it was definitely outside our normal and I wanted to soak up every minute of it for as long as I could.
I dozed. The sun was delightfully warm on my face, but not too warm and not too bright. There was a cool salt-laden breeze filling the room with all the Mediterranean goodness travel blogs waxed poetic about. If the Mediterranean had a smell, this would be it. I could even hear the soft susurration of the waves breaking gently on the shore below the castle. There was a private beach and a steep stone staircase that led down to it. Jamie had given me a small tour of the castle the day before. Just the highlights, really. We discussed the financial position of the country and the monarchy and what he would like me to do. He knew all about me, although knowing I had a degree in economics wouldn’t have been hard to find out.
Frankie sat straight up suddenly and swiveled her head before looking back at me with bleary eyes. Her short, curly hair stuck up all over her head, except for the one side where she’d been pressed against my chest. That part of her hair was flat and her skin was a little smooshed and creased in the most adorable way. She blinked at me and I waited. This was how
Frankie woke up all the time. There was no slow surfacing from sleep, no stretching languidly and yawning delicately. Frankie woke up as if she was ready to go into battle at a moment’s notice. Although her body might be ready for battle, it took her mind a couple of beats to catch up. She blinked at me again and I could almost hear the click in her mind as it booted up and came online. She smiled back at me and then wiped her face with both her hands and groaned.
“Jet lag is seriously kicking my butt,” she mumbled behind her hands. After a moment she dropped her hands and looked around the suite. “What time is it? And why am I in your suite? And why did we sleep on the couch?”
I shrugged, shifting so I could sit up as well. “I was hoping you could tell me,” I said, my voice scratchy from sleep. “I don’t remember much after I came back here.” I peered around for my glasses before finally seeing them on the coffee table.
Frankie slumped back against the couch and screwed her eyes shut as she tried to remember while I reached out to snag my glasses and slide them on.
“I came here after meeting with the queen—who is uber-cool by the way—and you were asleep with some financial papers on your lap. I sat down beside you and that’s the last I remember.” She groaned. “God, I need coffee. STAT.”
I opened my mouth to speak when there was a knock at the door.
“Come in,” I called.
Maddox came in pushing a trolley of covered dishes and the unmistakable aroma of fresh coffee.
“You are a lifesaver,” Frankie said getting up to hover around Maddox as he set everything on the table on the balcony.
I took a moment to collect my thoughts before pushing up from the couch to join Frankie at the table. Frankie sighed audibly as she swallowed her first sip of coffee and I couldn’t help but smile at her.
“What time is it?” she asked again before taking another sip.
I checked my watch, surprised to see it was still relatively early. “Just after eight,” I said.
Frankie frowned as she did the calculations in her head. “We slept for fifteen hours?”
I shrugged, accepting the cup of coffee from Maddox. “Seemed like we needed it.”
“No wonder I’m starving,” Frankie said, reaching for the covered dish in front of her. “We missed dinner.”
“Thank you, Maddox,” I said to the valet. “Who do I need to speak to about visiting my family’s compound?”
“Ms. Lazos said you may want to tour the estate today. She said just to let her know when you were ready and she would organize a car and driver for you.”
“Ms. Lazos?” I asked, trying to remember who that was in all the myriad of names I’d learned yesterday.
“Danika Lazos, head of security.”
I nodded, “Right. Thank you. Could you let her know we’ll be ready to go in…” I looked to Frankie with a raised eyebrow. “An hour?”
“Make it an hour and a half,” Frankie replied with her mouth full.
“An hour and a half,” I repeated to Maddox.
“Certainly,” Maddox replied with a slight bow. “I’ll lay out some clothes for you and instruct Ms. Davenport’s maid to do the same.”
“Oh, you don’t need to—” I started, but he was already gone.
“It’s so weird having servants,” Frankie murmured. “I don’t even know what to call them and I feel like I should tip them or something.”
I smiled. “I think they would be offended if you did that. The palace pays them well, probably better than what the bar paid you.”
“It still makes me uncomfortable to have someone assigned to just fetch and carry and pick up after me.”
“I agree,” I said, “although I could get used to breakfast being delivered to me every morning.”
Frankie smiled. “Yeah, that is a perk I could get used to, too.”
I stepped out of the car and stood before the gates of the compound where I grew up. I was fourteen when we escaped and I think I must have blocked out a lot of what happened as a self-preservation tactic. My parents never spoke about that period of our lives. Or, at least, they didn’t discuss it when I was in hearing vicinity.
Frankie stepped up beside me and laid her hand on my arm. I lifted my arm and pulled her close to my side. The ground beneath me felt unstable, but holding onto Frankie gave me a solid footing.
“It’s beautiful,” she murmured.
It was, if a little neglected. The large villa was built on the side of a cliff and overlooked the Aegean Sea and the small unpopulated islands scattered close by. The estate stepped down the edge of the cliff in terraces and parts of it were built into the side of the cliff, as in underground. The cellar was completely underground and at the lowest level of the compound. We couldn’t see any of that from where we stood at the large gates…or rather, gate posts. The gate was gone. All we could see from our vantage point was the cobblestone drive, and the overgrown and weed-infested gardens, and the entry of the villa. The sea was a constant backdrop and stood out stark blue against the yellowing color of the villa.
I didn’t know how to feel as I faced the ghosts of my past. Our life in America was so completely removed from the life we had here. My parents had changed…not that they had ever been the hugs and kisses type of parents. A staff of nursery maids, and eventually a governess, raised Effie and me. But all that changed when we ran from Kalopsia. My parents had reveled in their positions in court, but once we moved to America, they had to find a new social circle; they had to work for the same respect that the people of Kalopsia had afforded them. They went from being big fish in a small pond to small fish in a big pond and the transition hadn’t been easy, or kind. I suppose that was what happened when someone put their value in their position in society rather than in who they were as a person.
“Are we going in?” Frankie asked.
“Yeah,” I breathed, stepping across the property line and into the estate. I expected to be assaulted by the memories, but it wasn’t as brutal as I worried it would be. Yes, there were memories, but they were hazy and soft, like old photographs.
“Wow,” Frankie breathed as she stepped into the foyer.
The big double wooden door was barely holding onto its hinges and was soft with rot, but the view from the foyer was as spectacular as I remembered it. From the doorway you could see straight through and out to the balcony that overlooked the sea. The wide archway perfectly framed the view and the stone balustrade was low enough to not interfere with it.
As for the house itself, it was dirty and dusty and none of the paintings or tapestries that I remembered were where they used to be. The walls—the entire villa—was stripped and only bits and pieces of broken furniture and other detritus remained.
It was sad, but it was also foreign enough to give me a sense of disconnectedness. There was no familiarity of a well-loved couch or a vase that the housekeeper always filled with bright-colored blooms. All of those little touches—the touches that made a house a home—were gone and what was left was an empty shell.
“I can’t believe you grew up here,” Frankie said as I joined her on the balcony. She leaned against the stone balustrade…leaned over the balustrade, enough so that my heart picked up in panic.
“Frankie, step back,” I said.
“What? Why?”
“You could fall,” I said, reaching for her and pulling her into my chest, winding my arms around her waist to keep her close and away from the edge. “We don’t know how stable that wall is.”
Frankie huffed, but didn’t move out of my embrace. “That wall has been there for generations,” she said. “It was probably built a thousand years ago.”
“Exactly,” I replied, although I wasn’t sure the villa was quite that old. “Which is why it needs a structural audit before you lean on it.”
Frankie sighed and melted against me. “It is so beautiful here,” she murmured. “It must have been hard for your parents to leave it behind.”
“I don’t know if they found it
hard or not. I know they were scared. They were losing everything and I think by the time we finally escaped it was more of a good riddance. They knew they could survive the invasion and thrive somewhere else. I don’t know if my parents ever spared another thought for Kalopsia. At least not until the king contacted them.”
Frankie turned in my arms and looked up at me. “How did your meeting with the king go?” she asked, blinking up at me, her face open and curious.
I wanted to kiss her.
I also knew I shouldn’t.
“It was good,” I replied, dragging my eyes away from her lips before my willpower dissolved. “He wants me to help with the economic situation.”
“And how do you feel about that? I know you prefer to be in the background doing all the data entry and not the predicting stuff. Do you think you’ll want to stay?”
There was an odd note in her voice that I didn’t recognize and didn’t want to try to decipher.
“I think I do, actually,” I replied. “I feel good being here and when the king asked me to look over the finances, I was excited to do it and not the least bit nervous.”
“Number nerd,” Frankie said with a nudge to my chest before she turned around again to look out to the view.
I chuckled. “I am and proud of it,” I said. “I feel really different being here. I don’t even know how to explain it.”
Frankie tipped her head up to look at me. “You look different too,” she said, her eyes scanning my face. “More relaxed and less stressed. Kalopsia looks good on you.”
I gazed down at her, a whole lot of words on my tongue that I knew I couldn’t say. “I’m glad you’re here with me,” I said.
“Me too,” she replied.
Francesca
Lucas was in a somber mood after visiting his family’s compound—not that I could blame him. I’d never moved house. The closest I’d come was moving from my childhood bedroom upstairs to the third floor in Mom and Dad’s brownstone. I couldn’t even imagine what it was like for Lucas to see his childhood home in such disrepair. It was a beautiful building and I could speculate that in its heyday it was spectacular. Seeing it looking so unloved and abandoned had to be depressing.
