Princess for Hire

by Lindsey Leavitt

Back to Karl. I’m not quite sure if I’ve broken through with him yet. Sometimes he seems to let his guard down, and he obviously cares a lot about you because he keeps coming by, and he seems really conflicted—like he can’t let you go. Trust me, I know how it feels to like a guy and not be able to act on it. I really want to help. Action might just be the way to go.

  More later!

  Desi

  Karl was sitting on the couch when I made it downstairs. I grabbed his hand and led him onto the covered porch. Dieter drove up in the limo. Time was almost up. I had to convince Karl that he wanted Elsa and get him out of there before she returned.

  Still, despite the rush, the mood was very black-and-white movie. Two people unable to say what they really felt, time running out, and the rain…the rain was classic.

  I could feel Karl watching me.

  “Thanks for helping me save Nana Helga tonight,” I said.

  “Of course.”

  “I was kind of hoping we could finish our conversation.”

  Karl lowered his gaze. “Yes?”

  “Yeah, I just…I really need to know what you’re thinking.”

  He looked up at me again, and the look was enough to make any girl blush. Even if he was kind of short and not quite cute, his eyes could sure smolder. “Elsa, I…I care about you a great deal. A very great deal. But I have other people to think about. I have an image and a country and my parents and…I can’t let my personal feelings cloud my duty and judgment.”

  Part of me, most of me, wanted to cry. Everything had been so great today at his house; why was he acting so formal and stuffy again?

  We stared at each other for a moment, and suddenly something clicked in me. Looking at him, it was like my own heart started whirring, started filling with this need to show him he was wrong. Until I realized the whirring wasn’t me, it was something farther off in the distance. Something like a traveling bubble about to appear. I rushed on as the rainy good-bye scene from Breakfast at Tiffany’s flashed in my head. “You know what’s wrong with you? You’re chicken. You’re staying with a girl because…because you’re scared to break away from the expected. Is this what you, Karl—not your family or your country or the tabloids—really want?”

  “No. It’s what I…She’s what I’m supposed to want. So please, let’s make this as easy as possible. I know I initiated our contact, and I will cherish our time together, but everything has to go back to how it was. How it should be.”

  The whirring turned into a roar, like a helicopter was above us. Karl’s hair swirled around his brown eyes, and his look was so confused, like he was smiling but sad and scared all at the same time.

  There was only one way to convince him to let go of Olivia and find true happiness with Elsa. I just needed the guts to do it. “Things are not going to go back to how they were. Not once I do this.”

  And right in the middle of a wind tunnel, with a bubble crashing down next to us, I leaned in and gave him a kiss.

  It—kissing—was a lot better than I’d ever imagined. Even if I wasn’t in my own body, even though Karl thought I was someone else, and even though Meredith was about to wring my neck, it felt nice. Like it was only us. Karl, the rain, and me.

  And Karl kissed me back! Well, for maybe five seconds he kissed me back, before pulling away and slapping his forehead.

  “Elsa! That was wonder…but what are you…I thought today I…I have to think. Please excuse me.” Karl turned and ran to his car.

  I rubbed my still-buzzing lips. How could I have thought a kiss from me would convince him to leave a girl like Olivia? How could I have been so far off?

  The bubble door opened and Meredith marched out onto the porch. Her green hair wisped loose from a ponytail. The only makeup she had on was mascara that was clearly left over from the night before. Most frightening, her green T-shirt—oh my gosh, she was wearing a T-SHIRT—was halfway tucked into faded black yoga pants.

  “Desi, what are you doing?” She grabbed my shirt and almost lifted me off the ground. “It isn’t your place to change things. THIS CAN HAVE GLOBAL REPERCUSSIONS!”

  “I know, but I had to do something. Karl doesn’t really like Olivia. He loves Elsa. I know it. And Elsa loves Karl. I might have changed things for the better. I’m sorry, but I was only trying to help.”

  “WHO CARES?” Meredith pushed me into the bubble. “Changing it for the better isn’t any different from changing it for the worse. It’s instability!”

  “So…now what?”

  “Now what?” A vein throbbed in Meredith’s neck. “So now this prince thinks Elsa is in love with him, that’s what. You don’t think that’s going to change things for Elsa? Plus, I have to somehow explain to her why her life’s a mess!”

  “She has a Karl love notebook. This is what she wanted. I promise.”

  “But she never acted on it. Wanting something and getting it are two different things.”

  “Look, I tried to e-mail you and check on this. It did-n’t go through because the server was down, and I had to go with my gut.” Wait, maybe all wasn’t lost. Meredith said she might keep me if I had good remarks. My Princess Progress Reports had to have something helpful and positive in them. They could save me! “Did you get my progress reports yet?”

  “No! Carol’s wedding was so crowded with subs it only jammed up the system more. I’ve never seen anything like it. Absolute nightmare. Besides, kissing Karl was a huge mistake. Big enough for them to rush your trial without PPRs. You’re probably done for.” She buried her face in her hands. “And you’re so self-centered; who do you think is going to get blamed? The same person who gets blamed for every mistake you make. The same person who made the same stupid mistake and will spend the rest of her life paying for it.”

  “Wait, who are you talking about?” I asked.

  “Me!” Meredith stomped her foot. “Me! Me! Me!”

  Her phone rang. She checked the caller ID then dangled phone from her fingers like it was a dead rat. “Oh no.

  No no no. Not this. Not yet.”

  The ringing continued.

  “Are you going to answer it?”

  Meredith glared at me. “Yes. Plug your ears.”

  “What?”

  “PLUG YOUR EARS!”

  I stuck my fingers into my ears, and Meredith flipped open her phone. It made no difference. The voice on the other end nearly burst my eardrums.

  “MEREDITH!”

  “Oh hello, darling. How is your—”

  “Court of Royal Appeals. Five minutes. And she’d better be ready to plead her case.”

  Chapter

  22

  Meredith didn’t say a word to me as we zoomed away in the bubble. Which was so typical—send a girl to the depths of the Amazon or the middle of the Alps or the Court of Royal Appeals and give her no clue what to expect. Like I should just know. Like this was all something I’d been prepared for.

  The shake, rattle, and roll of the bubble signaled our entrance into headquarters. The motion was nothing compared to the anger bouncing around inside me. Finally, when the bubble door opened and Meredith stepped out into the parking garage without so much as a glance in my general direction, I exploded.

  “I didn’t do anything wrong!”

  She turned around slowly. Deliberately. “Let’s rewrite that sentence. Desi, you did EVERYTHING wrong. I gave you a second, no, a third chance, and you blew it. So let’s just get this hearing over with so I can take you home.”

  “Are you going to let me explain?”

  “That’s what the court is for.”

  We rushed up the parking garage incline. The rain in Paris was almost as thick as it had been in Metzahg. Meredith’s umbrella was only big enough for her, so of course I got soaked all over again.

  “Well, help me get my…my defense ready,” I said, panting as we cut across a busy street.

  “Desi, the fact that you even think you need a defense is the problem. During a normal Level Two trial, they analyze PPRs and
debate whether you should advance. This is different. Another agent is assigned to investigate whether you should even remain with the agency. They show video to prove their point. The council deliberates. The end.”

  I froze. “You’ve videoed me?”

  “Oh, keep walking. Of course we did. Not every minute, but random snippets are recorded by our Level One surveillance team. Plus, your magic sends signals to us when there are moments of high emotions. We just caught the tail end of the Nana Helga disappearance and were about to intervene when you found her. Then there was the little smoochie interaction you just had.”

  “And if I don’t advance?”

  “They pay you for your services and send you on your way. Once you’ve been sub sanitized, of course.”

  We reached the building, and cute and dry Meredith whisked us through security and the modeling agency lobby, where I got a few sneers. Sure, I was a talent, but I also looked like I’d just stepped out of a dunk tank. Again.

  “Sub sanitized?” I asked once we’d entered the second lobby and stepped into another elevator I hadn’t noticed before, this one with one button. Down. “So I get a bath?”

  “They wash your memory. You’ll be put back in the dunk tank, and you won’t remember me, or that prince, or any of this. You’ll think some rich uncle died and left you the money. You’ll go back to old Desi.”

  “They…they can’t do that!”

  “It’s in the contract. In the fine print. Where we say we can do whatever we want.”

  I gasped. No. That couldn’t happen. That could not happen. I did not walk through an Amazon fire and put myself out there for Elsa and the others for nothing. I would not go back to a life of fearing Celeste and trailing after Hayden. Forgetting everything I’d experienced would lead me back to vapor.

  I was not vapor.

  I mattered.

  I spread my feet apart and firmly planted them on the elevator floor. I stared Meredith down. “No, Meredith. No. I’m going down kicking and screaming.”

  Kicking and screaming. Yes! I’d stage a protest. I plopped down on the ground. She would have to drag me out of here.

  Meredith nudged me with the toe of her shoe. “Oh, don’t be ridiculous. Get up.”

  “Look, you have been nothing but rude to me.” I knocked her foot away. “You boss me around, treat me like I’m an idiot, and never say anything positive. And I’m sick of it. Lilith would have never been like this. I am not going to let you or this court or any princess take away from me what I just went through. So…there.”

  Meredith stepped back against the elevator wall like she’d been pushed. “Desi—”

  “Save it. I’m done talking to you.”

  Meredith plopped down next to me. She didn’t say anything for a little bit; I think she was still kind of shocked I’d stood up to her. Finally, she sighed, and when she spoke, her voice was soft. “Okay. Then I’ll talk. I don’t usually say this, but I’m…sorry.” Her face pinched when she said that word. “I pushed you because I see more promise in you than I’ve seen in a long time. I knew you could take it. I was preparing you. You’re right. Lilith wouldn’t have treated you like this. She would have flitted in every ten seconds to tell you what to do, and would’ve never let you figure things out for yourself.”

  I snorted. “Yeah, a lot of good that did, right?”

  “Look, either you have it in you to sub or you don’t. That’s the bottom line. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have seen the ad. Millions of girls out there are not you. They couldn’t do this. That girl at the mall the other day wishes she had your princessing skills.”

  “Celeste? How do you know about Celeste?”

  “I know pretty much everything about you.”

  “I, but…” My voice cracked. I looked away so she wouldn’t see me cry. “I don’t want to forget all this. But I can’t deny what I did. I kissed him and still think it was the right thing to do. Why even go to court? I’m obviously not going to pass.”

  “Persuade them that this subbing philosophy of yours actually works. You know, I was a lot like you at your age. There were some who strongly opposed my desires to change things within this agency, and they won out when I…I made a mistake. A big one. Like, take what you just did and multiply it by a million.”

  “You kissed a million princes?”

  She laughed softly. “No. Just one. More than once, though. I…I fell in love with him. He was a friend of a princess I’d matched for, so I got to see him a lot, got to know him, and, well. When he told me he felt the same way, I finally told him who I really was. You can imagine how that went down with the agency. I’m lucky to have a job.”

  “Meredith, I had no idea. Wait, so where is he now?”

  “Where he’s always been. I had to turn him away after that, of course. All for the best. But hey, you’re different.” She leveled her gaze. “You were acting for your client, right?”

  “Sure. Of course.”

  “Then make that clear in your trial. If you can reach inside yourself, there’s quite a bit of grit you can pull out. And you’ll need it. You’re ready for this.”

  And then Meredith hugged me. Well, she put her arm around my shoulder and gave it an awkward squeeze. And if I could get someone like Meredith Pouffinski to show emotion, maybe I had a chance in this court after all.

  The elevator pinged open, and cold rushed in, swirling around me and grabbing my bare arms with force. The torch-lit room was dark. Dark as a dungeon. Oh, so maybe this was a dungeon. The eerie silence only broke with the occasional plunk of dripping water. We turned one corner, and the doors to the Court of Royal Appeals loomed before us.

  “Do we knock?” I whispered to Meredith. My voice echoed against the rock walls.

  “They’ll come.” She wiped her hands on her yoga pants, her eyes darting around the room as if she was…as if Meredith was nervous.

  The doors—imported from some European castle, I guessed—were heavy, dark wood, with ornate, fairy tale–like carvings of dragons and knights and princesses, vines draping around the borders. For every carving of a princess, there was another girl nearby, peeking out from behind a tree, leaning out of a window. Watching. And waiting to start her next gig.

  “They don’t tell you about this part during orientation,” I said.

  Meredith brushed her fingers over the wood, her hands trembling. “There’s a lot they don’t cover in orientation. And half of what they tell you is just propaganda. Like the stuff about Woserit, the priestess who died for her queen. Everyone knows she just tricked the murderer into drinking his own potion. But no, the martyr story fits perfectly with their silly save-the-queen theocracy and totally downplays how important the sub is, how we couldn’t even exist without MP.”

  “So there’s a whole different agency history?”

  “Oh yeah. We totally had higher sub fatalities, harsher consequences. This was all before we were even located in Paris, and well before this building went up right on top of our underground offices. They introduced the court a few centuries ago to bring some order to the agency. They used to punish Sub Spottings by burning the poor girls at the stake.”

  “Do they…” I gulped. “Do they still do that?”

  “It hasn’t been abolished or anything.”

  “But subs are important. You don’t want to lose them, right?” I asked.

  “Subs have MP. And the ability to manipulate magic is what makes this agency money. At the end of the day, that’s what they care about. They’re very…careful to make sure MP is only used on royals.”

  “So…why not see how else magic could—”

  The doors cracked open. A deep voice called out, “Desi Bascomb. ENTER.”

  I reached for Meredith’s wrist. “Come on.”

  “No. No, I’ve got some work to take care of. I wonder if I could…” Tiny beads of perspiration formed on her forehead. Wait, Meredith sweats? “You go in.”

  “You’re not coming in?”

  “It�
�ll be fine. I’ll make an appearance later. You’ll get by.”

  “Get by? I don’t want to get by! My butt is on the—”

  “Desi Bascomb? Now.”

  I clasped my hands like I was praying. “Meredith. Please help. I don’t want to forget.”

  She was already walking away. I sighed and stepped into the room, looking back in time to see Meredith turn the corner before the giant doors slammed shut.

  Chapter

  23

  I stood in a cavernous room with curving stone walls. In the flickering light of two torches, I could see only a few feet ahead of me. My footsteps echoed on the cobblestones as I stepped forward.

  “Um…hello?”

  The firelight went out, leaving me in complete darkness. Then I was flooded in a circle of light, which burned my eyes like eggs on a skillet.

  “Desi Constance Bascomb. You are here to face the Court of Royal Appeals. Sit.”

  An invisible force pushed me into a wooden chair that appeared out of the blackness. The spotlight on me dimmed to darkness. Seven more spotlights lit up seven people seated at a crescent-shaped stone desk. The room was larger than I’d imagined—so big I could barely make out the features of the seven judges. Three men, four women, all identically dressed in black suits. Really, the only difference was their hair. Every head sported a different color of the rainbow. The woman in the center, whose seat was raised slightly higher than the rest, had every color incorporated into her style. I recognized her from the portraits I’d seen before. Genevieve.

  The blue-haired judge spoke first. “Lilith will review the charges against you. After which, you will be given a sufficient amount of time to defend your actions. The court will then deliberate what your future holds. Do you have any questions?”

  “Yes, well—”

  “The correct answer is no.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, really. I don’t want to overstep my bounds here.” Oh no, I am as dense as a drunk duke. Stop talking, Desi! “I didn’t mean—”

  “Just say no, Miss Bascomb.”

  “No. No questions. Sorry, I’m a little nervous here. None. Sir.”