Lady Brice shook her head. “That’s rather unfair to Erik. He has a family, a job. He didn’t sign up to possibly be stuck at the palace for the next five years. What if he wants to find a partner of his own?”
I wanted to shoot back that she was wrong . . . but I couldn’t. Erik didn’t know how long the Selection would last when he agreed to come, but he certainly didn’t go into this thinking he’d live at the palace until his charge was fluent in English. And it would be unkind to ask him to do just that.
“He’d stay. I know it,” was all I said.
There was a silence after that, like Lady Brice knew I was in the wrong and was debating calling me on it. Instead she sighed.
“Who’s left? Ean?” she asked.
“Ean’s a little trickier, but trust me, he’s important.”
Neena squinted. “So then . . . they’re all front-runners?”
I sighed. “I guess so. I’m not sure if that means I chose well or chose poorly.”
Lady Brice laughed. “You chose well. Really. I may not understand Ean’s appeal or how you’d make things work with Henri, but they all have their merits. I think what we need to do at this point is step up their training, really start grooming them for the throne. That will help elevate some of them, I’m sure.”
“Grooming? That sounds creepy.”
“I don’t mean it like that. I’m simply saying—”
Lady Brice’s next words were lost because, without any warning, Grandma flung the door open.
“You really need to ask permission first,” a guard warned her in a hushed tone.
She kept walking toward me. “Well, my girl, it’s time for me to head out.”
“So soon?” I asked, embracing her.
“I can never stay too long. Your mother is recovering from a heart attack, and she still has the audacity to order me around. I know she’s the queen,” she conceded, raising her hands in the air in surrender, “but I’m her mother, and that trumps queen any day.”
I laughed. “I’ll remember that for down the road.”
“You do that,” she said, rubbing my cheek. “And if you don’t mind, get yourself a husband as soon as you can. I’m not getting any younger, and I’d like to see at least one great-grandchild before I’m dead.” She stared at my stomach and shook her finger. “Don’t let me down.”
“Ooooookay, Grandma. We have to get back to work here, so you head on home and make sure to call when you get there.”
“Will do, honey. Will do.”
I stood in silence, basking in the insanity that was my grandmother.
Neena leaned over. “Now, which of your top five do you think would be the most eager baby maker? Should we put that on a checklist?”
Even my most violent glare did nothing to diminish her giddiness. “Don’t forget, I can call in a firing squad at any moment if I like.”
“You can call that firing squad whenever you want, but I’ve got Grandma on my side, so I’ve got nothing to worry about.”
I slumped, letting the silliness of it all settle in. “Sadly, Neena, I think you’re right.”
“Don’t feel too bad. She means well at the heart of it all.”
“I’ll try and remember that. So are we okay for now? I need to go learn some Finnish.”
“Sorry, sorry, sorry!” I said, bursting into the library. The boys cheered at my entrance, and I scurried over to an open seat at a table with Henri, Hale, and Ean. “Duty called.”
Erik chuckled, placing a small packet of papers in front of me. “You’re excused. Don’t worry. We haven’t gotten too far. Look over the first page, and Henri will help you with pronunciations while I check how everyone else is doing. Then we’ll move on.”
“Okay.” I picked up the paper—a copy made of Erik’s handwritten notes with hand-drawn pictures in the margin—and smiled. First task of the day was learning to count to twelve, so we could tell time. Staring at this simple lesson made me instantly embarrassed. All I could think of was that it seemed there weren’t enough vowels in the words, and the ones that bothered to show up were all in the wrong places. “All right,” I said, looking at the first word: yksi.
“Yucksey?”
Henri giggled and shook his head. “Is said yoo-ksi.”
“Yooksi?”
“Yes! Go, go,” he encouraged, and though I couldn’t be anything close to perfect, it was still nice having my own personal cheerleader. “Is said kahk-si.”
“Kahk-si . . . kaksi.”
“Good, good. Now, is kolme.”
“Coolmay,” I tried.
“Ehhh,” he said, still trying to be positive. “Kohl-may.”
I tried again, but I could see I was getting it wrong. I was being foiled by the number three. Ever the gentleman, he leaned in, preparing to take as much time as I needed.
“Is said oh. Kohl-may.”
“Ooh. Ooh,” I tried.
He lifted his hand and gently put his fingers on my cheeks, trying to change the shape of my mouth, and it tickled. I broke into a smile, unable to even make the sound he was going for in the first place. But he held my face all the same. After a moment, the humor left his eyes, and I recognized the look in them. I’d seen it before, in the kitchen, when he’d turned his shirt into an apron for me.
It was such a captivating stare, I completely forgot there were other people in the room.
Until Erik dropped a book on the other desk. “Excellent,” he said, and I pulled away from Henri as quickly as I could, praying that no one had noticed what had nearly just happened.
“It looks like you’re all doing well with the numbers, so we’re going to start using them in sentences. If you’ll look up at the board here, I’ve got a written example; but as I’m sure you’ve already guessed, the pronunciation is a bit tricky.”
The boys laughed, seeming to have struggled with the numbers as much as I had . . . and also seeming to have been too engrossed to have noted my almost kiss. I focused my gaze on the board, trying to take in the phonetics of the words in front of me instead of focusing on how close Henri was sitting.
CHAPTER 12
THE FIRST FREE MOMENT I had that day was lunch, and I knew I needed to use the time to focus on damage control. While everyone headed off to the dining room after our Finnish lesson, I went back to my office and pulled Marid’s card from my desk drawer. It was clearly made from expensive paper. I wondered what his family was doing now to afford that. They must have done well for themselves, wherever their path had taken them.
I dialed the number, kind of hoping he wouldn’t pick up.
“Hello?”
“Yes, um, Marid?”
“Eadlyn, is that you?”
“Yes.” I fidgeted, straightening out my clothes, even though he couldn’t see me. “Is this an okay time?”
“Absolutely. How can I help you, Your Highness?”
“I just wanted to say, I saw some speculation about our relationship in the press the other day.”
“Oh, yeah. I’m sorry about that. You know how they can take a thing out of context.”
“I do,” I nearly exclaimed. “And really, I wanted to apologize to you. I know what an upheaval it can be when someone’s life is caught up in mine, and I’m sorry you’ve been going through that.”
“Eh, let ’em talk,” he replied with a laugh. “Really, no apology necessary. But while I’ve got you, I wanted to run an idea past you.”
“Sure.”
“I know you’ve been worried about the post-caste violence, and I thought it might be good for you to have something like a town hall session.”
“What do you mean?”
“You could choose a handful of people from various backgrounds to come to the palace and sit down with you personally. It would be a unique opportunity to hear from your people, and if you invited the press, it might also be a rather spectacular opportunity to show how well the palace listens to its people.”
I was stunned. “Actually, that’s a w
onderful idea.”
“If you want, I can take care of most of the arrangements for you. I have a few links with some families that used to be Eights, as well as some that have had a hard time letting go of their Two status. Maybe we could plan on inviting a dozen or so people, so you wouldn’t be overwhelmed?”
“Marid, that sounds perfect. I’m going to have my lady-in-waiting call you. Her name is Neena Hallensway, and she’s as organized as you seem to be. She knows my schedule and would be the best person to talk to about a time and date.”
“Excellent. I’ll wait to hear from her.”
There was a long silence, and I wasn’t quite sure how to break away.
“Thank you,” I tried. “Now more than ever, I really need to prove how much I care about my people. I want them to know that, in a few years, I’ll be as able to lead them as my father.”
“How anyone could doubt that is a mystery to me.”
I smiled, thrilled to have added another ally to my arsenal. “Sorry to rush off, but I must be going.”