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“And how are Leon and Theresa?”
“Still dating,” I said, taking a moment to rest my arm from stirring. “I was a little worried she was just trying to make Jin jealous at first, but she and Leon really have a lot of fun together.”
“Well, good for them,” Mrs. Stotts said. “Here, let me have that.”
The first week of October was coming to an end. No green remained on the trees, and the falling leaves paired with a constant chill in the air reminded all that winter was on its way. It was perfect weather for spending time in a warm, cozy kitchen with Mrs. Stotts, surrounded by simplicity and memories, catching up and baking cookies while Licht and the kids played outside.
“It’s a shame Prince Nokto couldn’t come,” Mrs. Stotts commented. She’d rolled her sleeves up past her elbows, as had I, and the muscles in her bared forearm bunched and flexed as she stirred. “You said their birthday is in a few days?”
I nodded as I licked some cookie dough from my finger. “Nokto and Luke are in Benitoite on business, but Luke said he’ll make sure they’re back in time for the party. I just don’t have the strength to stir like that anymore.”
“Of course you don’t,” she said, smiling knowingly. “You can’t keep muscles if you don’t use them. Why don’t you take over dropping the cookie dough?”
I ducked my head to hide my blush while I took up the spoon. Now and then, she or Belle or Theresa would say something like that, and although I knew they just meant I didn’t have to work anymore, it sounded like they were calling me lazy. Or spoiled. Not that anybody could accuse me of being lazy. I wasn’t doing manual labor anymore, but I still heard complaints at least once a week that I was too busy and I studied too hard.
Spoiled, on the other hand…
That was definitely accurate.
It came with being a princess engaged to the king, of course, and even more so since we actually loved each other. Whenever I tried to complain about it, Chevalier unapologetically told me he wanted to spoil me. And I couldn’t say I didn’t like his attention.
“Are you still going to church?” Mrs. Stotts asked.
“Yes, I am,” I confirmed, dropping the next dollop of dough on the baking sheet. “I feel too out of place all dressed up like a princess in a chapel full of servants, though, so I’ve started wearing my plainer dresses when I go.”
“So, you’re still going alone?”
I shrugged. “The royal family hasn’t been religious for a long time. Occasionally, visiting nobility comes to church, but otherwise, it’s just me and the servants. But I don’t mind,” I hastened to add, noticing the unintended downturn in my tone. “Chevalier may not believe the same things I do, but he knows how important this is to me.”
“Hm.”
“I still don’t know what to get him for his birthday,” I hurried on, not wanting to linger on that pensive hum. “But I found out he’s the only one, other than Licht, who doesn’t have birthday parties. It’s just because he doesn’t like them, though, and now that he’s the king, he really should have a party—if not for him, then for everybody who wants to show their appreciation for him. So, maybe I could plan one he’d like. And we could have a private dinner before the party, or maybe on another day, just the two of us.”
She chuckled. “If you’re planning it, I’m sure he’ll love it.”
“Do you think so?” I asked, looking up at her hopefully.
Her dark chocolate eyes sparkled as she set the bowl on the table and picked up her oven mitts. “If you’re involved in any way, he’ll love it, Ivetta. I think the first batch is ready.”
I smiled and dropped the last dollop on the tray. “And the second batch is ready to bake.”
These visits to see the Stotts felt like a return to my old life, in a way. I was still a princess, still wearing a dress plainer than anything else in my wardrobe but fancier than anything I’d ever dreamed of owning as a commoner, still accompanied by my personal coachman, two of my guards, and Licht, of course. If Chevalier wasn’t with me, that was the standard minimum security detail. Two guards and one of his brothers. Even so, talking to Mrs. Stotts in this familiar little kitchen, drinking a mug of apple cider, baking desserts or cooking a normal, basic meal—for a few hours, I didn’t have to worry about impressing anybody. I was just me. A girl of humble origins enjoying the simpler things in life.
“Mommy! Mommy! Come look!” Rachel cried, running into the kitchen as Mrs. Stotts slid the second tray into the oven.
“Rachel,” her mother chided, closing the oven door and straightening up to survey her daughter. “Look at all the mud you’ve tracked in.”
Rachel craned her neck to look over her shoulder at the trail of footprints, then she looked back at us with big hazel eyes, clearly worried about something she felt was far more important than the mess she’d made. “But Mommy,” she said, tugging on Mrs. Stotts’ skirt, “the boys buried my Prince Charming.”
I covered my mouth with my hand to hide my smile. Her mother, better at keeping a straight face in front of her children, sighed heavily and shook her head. “Well, we’d better check this out, Ivetta.”
We followed Rachel outside into the crisp autumn air. Past the grinning guards by the door, past the shed that used to be my home, four of her brothers were laughing and jumping into a pile of reds, oranges, yellows, and browns. The breeze teased their brown curls and blew a few leaves away, and when we got closer, there was Licht, lying on his back and covered up to his neck with leaves and boys. Laughing.
I’d never heard him laugh before.
It was a rich, full sound, alive with pure, unfettered joy. Henry, Ron, Fred, and George were laughing, too, piled on top of him as they would if he were Jason or their father, throwing leaves, tickling, grappling, and just having fun. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry watching them. It was such a heartwarming and heart wrenching scene. I was glad he finally felt free to relax and have fun like this, if only for a little while, but this display made it all the more apparent to me how much he’d tortured himself and tried to kill his own happiness for fifteen years, all for something that wasn’t his fault. He should have been laughing and smiling every day, not locking his emotions away for fleeting, momentary release with a secret dagger in a dark room.
But when five-year-old Rachel stormed up to the pile, her hazel eyes flashing, her lips set in a severe frown and her little fists clenched tightly at her sides, the scene became nothing short of comical.
“Stop it!” she shouted.
To her credit, everybody froze for a moment. Less than a second, really. Then the oldest boy, eleven-year-old Henry, shouted, “Get her!” and she disappeared with a shriek into the chaotic tumble. Mrs. Stotts and I gave into laughter as her surprised squeals melted into peals of giggles and half-hearted protests.
I couldn’t think of a better way to spend an afternoon.
Eventually, Mrs. Stotts wiped the tears from her eyes and steadied her voice to announce, “Well, I guess nobody wants cookies.”
Children and leaves exploded like popcorn. Mrs. Stotts was back in authoritarian mode, cutting the stampede off with stern orders before her unruly, messy boys destroyed the cleanliness of her home. Only Rachel remained with Licht, who was sitting upright now, holding the writhing, giggling girl on his lap as he tickled her relentlessly. Leaves stuck out of his shaggy gray hair and her long, dark brown curls. I walked up to them and squatted down, plucking a leaf from Rachel’s hair.
“Don’t you want cookies?” I asked.
“Stop,” she squealed. “I want cookies!”
“My little princess wants cookies?” Licht asked. There was a light in his usually dark crimson eyes, and even his voice sounded more alive than I’d ever heard it. He stood, throwing her over his shoulder, and said, “Then let’s get cookies.”
“Not this way!” she laughed, pounding on his back with her hands. “Hold me right!”
He laughed, too, and readjusted her to hold her at his side, her knees gripping his torso and her arms hugging his neck. I watched them walk away, my heart full to bursting. He wasn’t like that with anybody else. I wasn’t sure what magic Rachel held over him, but I was glad she did.
I hugged my arms and looked in the other direction, toward the river. The dark water would be running cold now, too cold for swimming and bathing, bordering on too cold for laundry. I remembered washing clothes in the big wooden tub Mother and I would borrow from the Stotts, kneeling in the dead grass on the riverbank, my fingers growing numb as I worked the faded, worn fabric against the rough scrubbing board, a stiff wind stinging my cheeks. Laughing. Because Mother was laughing. Probably at my attempt to imitate the foreign words in the song she sang, or at a story I’d told her about little Jason confessing his love to me when I was watching the boys to give a pregnant Mrs. Stotts a break.
“Princess Ivetta?”
I turned back and gave Julius a forced smile. “I’m coming.”
My heart throbbed painfully as I climbed the hill. Greg, or maybe Fred, burst through the Stotts’ door and ran into the shed I used to call home, and I froze in my tracks as the afternoon sunlight vanished in the face of a black night and a pool of blood in the doorway. The breath caught in my throat. They were right there, on the ground, the dead guards, throats slit and sightless eyes staring up at nothing. Ropes biting into my wrists and ankles, choking on vomit held in by the gag—
“Princess Ivetta.”
The night vanished as quickly as it came at the sound of Julius’ concerned voice. I gasped in a breath, my heart beating a frantic rhythm in my chest, and then a grumbling seven-year-old boy emerged from the shed with a broom and mop.
“How come Rachel made the mess, but I have to clean it up?” he complained. It was definitely Greg. He looked at me and stopped mid-step. “Ivetta? Are you okay?”
I nodded. “I-I’m fine, just c-cold. L-let’s get inside.”
My shaky voice wouldn’t fool my guards, I knew, and I avoided eye contact with them as I followed Greg into the warmth of the Stotts’ house. Cheerful voices led the way to the kitchen, where the warm cookies were disappearing at an alarming rate. Mrs. Stotts glanced at me with a quick smile, and then her gaze snapped back to me, her brows knit together and a frown on her lips.
“Ron, get up. Ivetta, you sit here,” she directed. “What’s wrong? You’re white as a sheet.” She pressed her hand to my forehead. “Henry, pour her some apple cider.”
“I’m fine,” I tried to assert, although my trembling gave me away.
Rachel slid off of Licht’s lap and clambered onto mine. She sat facing me with a very serious expression. “Do you need a hug?”
I gave her a small smile at that. “It wouldn’t hurt.”
Licht met my eyes over her head as she hugged me. I realized with a pang his smile was gone. “Do we need to go?”
“No,” I said quickly.
“What are those?” Ron interjected. I followed his pointing finger and met another sickening realization. He was talking about the scars on my arms.
“It’s rude to point,” Mrs. Stotts chided him as I jerked my sleeves down. “Why don’t you all finish your cookies outside? You, too, Rachel.”
“But—”
“Unless you’d like to hear adult talk,” she interrupted her daughter.
Rachel’s face screwed up in disgust as Fred exclaimed, “Yuck! Boring adult talk!” The others echoed that sentiment, and in a matter of seconds, the kitchen was devoid of children and most of the cookies. Mrs. Stotts sat beside me and pushed a plate with the few she’d somehow salvaged toward me.
“Thank you, but I just need a minute,” I said.
“Did something happen?” she asked.
I bit my lip, wondering how to answer that. Something happened—almost six months ago. She didn’t know about the panic that still struck me from time-to-time because of that, and I hadn’t wanted her to know. Explaining the physical scars on my arms was easier than explaining that.
“You remembered something, didn’t you?” Licht asked quietly.
I nodded. Mrs. Stotts engulfed me in a tight embrace.
“You poor thing,” she murmured.
I closed my eyes as a chair scraped across the floor. Booted footsteps crossed the room to the door and faded away. Licht, probably going outside to tell Charlie and my guards to get ready to leave. I wanted to stop him, to say I didn’t need to go, but I knew better. This wasn’t my home anymore. When I needed to feel safe, this wasn’t where I needed to be.
Mrs. Stotts bundled me into my coat and into the carriage, along with the cookies I hadn’t eaten, and she promised to convey my goodbyes to the children, and then we left. I looked down at my lap instead of at Licht.
“I’m sorry,” I said softly.
“This was for my birthday, wasn’t it?” he asked in an equally subdued voice.
I nodded.
“I haven’t had that much fun in a long time, and…” He paused, leaving that word to hang in the air for a moment. “And I’m glad I can help you this time. Thank you, Ivetta.”
I took a deep breath and looked up at him, sitting on the seat opposite me. He was smiling. It wasn’t a wide, toothy grin like the one he’d worn while he was playing with the Stotts’ children, but it was no less genuine for its smaller size.
“Happy birthday, Licht."19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7CJp6Za9s9
