Finn was ahead of me, and I hurried to catch up to him. The sound of the wind in the trees and the river flowing echoed through the bluffs, but over that I heard laughter. I walked around a hedge and saw a pond that inexplicably included a small waterfall.
I found the source of the laughter on two curved stone benches poised around it.
Rhys lay on his back on one bench, laughing and looking up at the sky, and Finn stood next to him, admiring the sparkling pond. A girl looking a little bit older than me sat on the other bench, a Mountain Dew bottle in her hand. Her hair was shiny red, her eyes sparkled green, and she had a nervous smile. When she saw me, she stood up and paled a little.
“You got here just in time, Wendy.” Rhys smirked, sitting up. “We were having a show. Rhiannon was just about to burp the alphabet!”
“Oh, my gosh, Rhys, I was not!” the girl protested, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment. “I just drank the Mountain Dew too fast and I said excuse me!” Rhys laughed again, and she looked apologetically at me. “I’m sorry. Rhys can be such an idiot sometimes. I wanted to make a better first impression than this.”
“You’re doing okay so far.” I wasn’t used to the idea of anybody trying to impress me . . . ever, and I couldn’t imagine that this girl would have to try too hard. She already had a certain likable quality to her.
“Anyway, Wendy, this is Rhiannon, the girl next door.” Rhys gestured from one to the other of us. “Rhiannon, this is Wendy, future ruler of everything around you.”
“Hi, nice to meet you.” She set down her pop and came over to me so she could shake my hand. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
“Oh, yeah? Like what?” I asked.
Rhiannon floundered helplessly for a minute, looking to Rhys for help, but he just laughed.
“It’s okay. I was just kidding,” I told her.
“Oh. Sorry.” She flashed an embarrassed smile.
“Why don’t you come have a seat, Rhiannon, and relax for a bit?” Rhys patted the seat next to him, trying to ease her discomfort. She felt awkward because of me, and I still couldn’t wrap my head around the concept.
“Is this new?” Finn asked Rhys and pointed to the pond.
“Uh, yeah.” Rhys nodded. “I think Elora had it put in while you were gone. She’s getting everything all fancied up, ’cause of everything that’s coming.”
“Mmm,” Finn said noncommittally.
I went over to inspect the pond and waterfall myself. The waterfall should’ve drained the pond, since the pond had no other water flowing into it. I admired the way it sparkled brightly under the sun, and thought it shouldn’t even be possible. But then again, none of this should be possible.
Rhys continued to tease Rhiannon about everything, and she kept blushing and making apologies for him. Their relationship resembled a normal healthy sibling relationship, and I had to push the thought away before I had a chance to think of Matt.
I sat down on the bench across from them, and Finn took a seat next to me. Rhys tended to dominate the conversation, with Rhiannon interjecting when he said things that were categorically untrue or apologizing when she thought he was being rude. He never was, though. He was funny and lively and kept things from ever feeling awkward.
Occasionally Finn would look over at me and make quiet comments when Rhys and Rhiannon were otherwise engaged in some kind of debate. Every time he did, I felt his knee brush against mine.
At first I assumed it was a simple accident because of our close proximity, but he had actually tilted himself toward me, leaning in closer. It was a subtle move, one that Rhys and Rhiannon probably wouldn’t catch, but I definitely had.
“You are such a pest!” Rhiannon grumbled playfully after Rhys had flicked an unwanted flower at her. She twirled it in her hands, admiring the beauty of it. “You know you’re not even supposed to pick these flowers. Elora will kill you if she finds out.”
“So what do you think?” Finn asked me, his voice low. I leaned toward him so I could hear him better, and his dark eyes met mine.
“It’s really lovely.” I smiled, gesturing to the garden around us, but I couldn’t look away from him.
“I wanted to show you that it’s not all cold and intimidating,” Finn explained. “I wanted you to see something warm and beautiful.” A small smile played on his lips. “Although, when you’re not around, it’s not quite as nice here.”
“You think so?” I asked, trying to make my voice sound sexier somehow, but I completely failed. Finn smiled wider, and my heart nearly hammered out of my chest.
“Sorry for interrupting your playtime,” Elora spoke from behind us. Her voice wasn’t that loud, but somehow it seemed to echo through everything.
Rhys and Rhiannon immediately stopped their fighting, both of them sitting up rigidly and staring down at the pond. Finn moved away from me, at the same time turning around to face Elora, making it look like that had been his intention. The way she looked at me made me feel guilty, even though I was pretty sure I hadn’t done anything wrong.
“You weren’t interrupting anything,” Finn assured her, but I sensed nervousness below his calm words. “Were you planning to join us?”
“No, that’ll be quite all right.” Elora surveyed the garden with distaste. “I needed to speak with you.”
“Would you like us to be excused?” Rhys offered, and Rhiannon promptly stood up.
“That won’t be necessary.” Elora held up her hand, and Rhiannon blushed as she sat back down. “We will be having guests for dinner.” Her eyes went back to Rhys and Rhiannon, and Rhiannon seemed to cower under Elora’s gaze. “I trust that you two will find a way to make yourselves useful.”
“When they come over here, I’ll go over to Rhiannon’s,” Rhys suggested cheerily. Elora nodded at him, indicating that his response was sufficient.
“As for you, you will be joining us.” Elora smiled at me, but couldn’t mask the unease behind it. “The guests are very good friends of our family, and I expect you to make a good impression on them.” She gave Finn that intense look, staring at him so long I felt uncomfortable, and he nodded in understanding. “Finn will be in charge of preparing you for the dinner.”
I nodded, figuring that I had better say something. “Okay.”
“That is all. Carry on.” Elora turned and walked away, her skirt flowing behind her, but nobody said anything until she was long gone.
Finn sighed, and Rhiannon practically shivered with relief. She was clearly even more terrified of the Queen than I was, and I wondered what Elora had done to make the girl so afraid. Only Rhys seemed to shake it off as soon as she had left.
“I don’t know how you can stand that creepy mind-speak thing she does with you, Finn.” Rhys shook his head. “I would freak out if she was in my head.”
“Why? There’s nothing in your head for her to get into.” Finn stood up, and Rhiannon giggled nervously.
“What did she say to you, anyway?” Rhys pressed, looking up at him.
Finn dusted off his pants, ridding them of dirt and leaves from the bench, but he didn’t respond.
“Finn? What’d she say?”
“It’s nothing to concern yourself with,” Finn admonished him quietly, then turned to me. “Are you ready?”
“For what?”
“We have a lot to go over.” He glanced warily at the house, then back at me. “Come on. We better get started.”
As we walked back to the house, I realized that whenever Elora left, I was able to breathe again. Whenever she was present, it was as if she took all the oxygen from the room. Breathing deeply, I ran my hand up and down my arm to stifle the chill that ran over me.
“Are you holding up all right?” Finn asked, noticing my unease.
“Yeah, I’m great.” I tucked some of my curls behind my ears. “So . . . what’s going on with you and Elora?”
“What do you mean?” Finn looked at me from the corner of his eye.
“I don’t know.” I shrugge
d, thinking of what Rhys had said after she’d left. “It just seems like she looks at you intently a lot, and like you understand exactly what she means.” As soon as it came out of my mouth, it dawned on me. “That’s one of her abilities, isn’t it? Talking inside your head? Kind of like what I can do, but less manipulative. ’Cause she’s just telling you what to do.”
“Not even telling me what to do. She’s just talking,” Finn corrected me.
“Why doesn’t she talk to me like that?” I asked.
“She wasn’t sure if you’d be receptive. If you’re not accustomed to it, hearing another person’s voice in your head can be unsettling. And she didn’t really need to.”
“But she needed to with you?” I slowed down, and he matched my pace. “She was talking to you privately about me, wasn’t she?”
Finn paused, and I could see that he was considering lying to me. “Some of it, yes,” he admitted.
“Can she read minds?” I felt slightly horrified at the thought.
“No. Very few can.” When he looked over at me, he smiled crookedly. “Your secrets are safe, Wendy.”
We went into the dining room, and Finn set about preparing me for dinner. As it turned out, I wasn’t completely socially stunted and had a basic understanding of manners. Most of what Finn said amounted to commonsense things, like always say please and thank you, but he also encouraged me to keep my mouth shut whenever possible.
I think his task had been less about preparing me for the dinner and more about keeping me in line. The secret things Elora had been telling him had just been a warning to babysit me—or else.
Dinner was at eight, and the company was arriving at seven. About an hour or so before that, Rhys popped in to wish me good luck and let me know he was heading over to Rhiannon’s, in case anybody cared. Shortly after I got out of the shower, Finn came in, looking even sharper than usual.
He was clean-shaven for the first time since he’d stopped going to school, and he wore black slacks and a black button-down shirt with a narrow white tie. It should’ve been too much with all that black, but he managed to pull it off, all the while looking incredibly sexy.
I had on only my bathrobe, and I wondered why nobody here thought it was inappropriate for boys to barge in when I wasn’t dressed. At least I was doing something semi-sexy: sitting on the edge of my bed putting lotion on my legs. I did it every time I showered, but since Finn was in the room, I tried to play it off as being sensual when it really wasn’t.
Not that Finn even noticed. He knocked once, opened my bedroom door, and only gave me a fleeting glance as he headed straight to my closet. After a little while, I sighed in frustration and hurriedly rubbed the rest of the lotion in while Finn continued to rummage through my clothes.
“I don’t think I have anything in your size,” I said and leaned farther back on my bed, trying to see what he was doing in there.
“Funny,” he muttered absently.
“What are you doing in there?” I asked, watching him, but he didn’t even look at me.
“You are a Princess, and you need to dress like one.” He went through my dresses and pulled out a long white sleeveless gown. It was gorgeous and much too fancy for me. When he came out of the closet, he handed it to me. “I think this might work. Try it on.”
“Isn’t everything in my closet suitable?” I tossed the dress on the bed next to me and turned to look at him.
“Yes, but different things are better for different occasions.” He came over to the bed to smooth out the dress, making sure it didn’t have any wrinkles or creases. “This is a very important dinner, Wendy.”
“Why? What makes this one so important?”
“The Stroms are very good friends of your mother’s and the Kroners are very important people. They affect the future.” Finn finished smoothing the dress and turned to me. “Why don’t you continue getting ready?”
“How do they affect the future? What does that mean?” I pressed.
“That’s a conversation for another day.” Finn nodded toward the bathroom. “You need to hurry if you’re going to be ready in time for dinner.”
“Fine.” I sighed, getting up off the bed.
“Wear your hair down,” Finn commanded. My hair was wet, so it was behaving now, but I knew that as soon as it dried, it would turn into a wild thicket of curls.
“I can’t. My hair is impossible.”
“We all have difficult hair. Even Elora and I. It’s the curse of being Trylle,” Finn said. “It’s something you must learn to manage.”
“Your hair is nothing like mine,” I said dourly. His hair was short and obviously had some product in it, but it looked smooth, straight, and obedient.
“It most certainly is,” Finn replied.
I meant to prove him wrong, so impulsively I reached out and touched his hair, running my fingers through the hair at his temple. Other than being stiff with product, it felt like my hair.
It wasn’t until I had done it that I realized there was something inherently intimate about running my fingers through another person’s hair. I had been looking at his hair, but then I met his dark eyes and realized exactly how close I was to him.
Since I was short, I was standing on my tiptoes, leaning up to him as if I were about to kiss him. Somewhere in the back of my mind I thought that would be a very good course of action right about now.
“Satisfied?” Finn asked. I retracted my hand and took a step back. “There should be hair products in your bathroom. Experiment.”
I nodded my compliance, still too flustered to speak. Finn was unnaturally calm, and at times like that, I really hated how aloof he could be. I barely even remembered to breathe until I was in my bathroom.
Being that near to him made me forget everything but his dark eyes, the heat from his skin, his wonderful scent, the feel of his hair beneath my fingers, the smooth curve of his lips . . .
I shook my head, clearing it of any thoughts of him. That had to be the end of that.
I had a dinner tonight to worry about, and somehow I had to do something with my hair. I tried to remember what Maggie had used in my hair before I went to the dance, but that felt like a lifetime ago.
Thankfully, my hair magically decided to behave itself tonight, making the whole process go easier. Finn seemed to think my hair looked better down, so I left the length of it hanging in the back and pulled the sides back with clips. To top off the ensemble, I got a diamond necklace from my jewelry box.
The dress turned out to be trickier than my hair. It had one of those stupid zippers that refused to move higher than my lower back, and no matter how I contorted myself, I couldn’t win. After struggling with it so long my fingers hurt, I had to get help.
Tentatively, I pushed open the bathroom door. Finn had been looking out the window at the sun setting over the bluffs. When he turned, his eyes rested on me for a full minute before he finally spoke.
“You look like a Princess,” he said with a crooked smile.
“I need help with the zipper,” I said meekly, gesturing to the open slit down my back.
He walked over, and it was almost a relief to have my back to him. The way he looked at me made my stomach swirl with nervous butterflies. One of his hands pressed warmly on my bare shoulder to steady the fabric as he zipped me up, and I shivered involuntarily.
When he had finished, I went over to the mirror to investigate for myself. Even I had to admit that I looked lovely. With the white dress and the diamond necklace, I almost looked too lavish. Maybe it was too much for just a dinner.
“I look like I’m getting married,” I commented and glanced back at Finn. “Do you think I should change?”
“No, it’s perfect.” He looked pensively at me, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say he looked almost sad. The doorbell chimed loudly, and Finn nodded. “The guests have arrived. We should greet them.”
TWELVE
introductions
We walked down the hall together, but at t
he top of the stairs, Finn deliberately fell a few steps behind me. Elora and three people I guessed were the Kroners were standing in the alcove as I descended the stairs, and they all turned to look up at me. It was the first grand entrance I had ever made in my life, and there was something wonderful about it.
The Kroners consisted of a stunningly beautiful woman in a floor-length dark green dress, an attractive man in a dark suit, and an attractive boy about my age. Even Elora looked more extravagant than usual. Her dress had more detailing and her jewelry was more pronounced.
I could feel them appraising me as I walked toward them, so I was careful to keep my steps as smooth and elegant as possible.
“This is my daughter, the Princess.” Elora smiled in a way that almost looked loving and held her hand out to me. “Princess, these are the Kroners. Aurora, Noah, and Tove.”
I smiled politely and did a small curtsy. Immediately after, I realized that they were probably the ones who should be curtsying to me, but they all continued to smile pleasantly at me.
“It’s such a pleasure to meet you.” Aurora’s words had a syrupy tone that made me wonder whether or not I should trust her. A few dark curls fell artfully from her elegant updo, and her chestnut eyes were large and stunning.
Her husband, Noah, gave me a small bow, as did her son, Tove. Both Noah and Aurora looked appropriately respectful, while Tove looked vaguely bored. His mossy green eyes met mine very briefly, then darted away, as if eye contact made him uncomfortable.
Elora ushered us into the sitting parlor to talk until supper. The conversation was overly polite and banal, but I suspected there were undercurrents that I didn’t fully understand. Elora and Aurora did most of the talking, with Noah adding very little. Tove said nothing at all, preferring to look anywhere but directly at anyone.
Finn was more in the background, speaking only when spoken to. He was poised and polite, but from the disdainful way Aurora looked at him, I gathered she didn’t approve of his presence.
The Stroms were fashionably late, as Finn had predicted they would be. He’d briefed me extensively on both them and the Kroners earlier in the day, but he was much more familiar with the Stroms and talked of them in much more affectionate tones.
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