1
AMARYLLIS
Ballet is much better than princes. Ballet will never call you ugly, or force you into a marriage. It won’t say your breasts look better in your portrait, or pinch your backside when it thinks the guards aren’t looking.
Ballet can’t get you pregnant.
Not that I’d ever let a prince put a baby in me. It’s not possible anyway – not unless Father agrees to the match and you marry them first.
I’ve had thetalk; I’m not an idiot.
So when Father announced that a new prince would be visiting tomorrow, I couldn’t wait to throw on my dance gown. Out here, beneath the moon, the stone floor of our dance circle glows silver under my pointe shoes. My violet tutu skirt flutters around me.
I barely notice my sisters as they trickle in through the garden gate – first the older girls in their colourful tutus, then the younger ones in their dainty pastel gowns.
Together, all twelve of us step and turn, step and turn, step and?—
“Dahlia, your fouettés are much too fast again.” Blossom’s scolding makes me fall out of my arabesque.
I shoot her a look before noticing Dahlia twirling by the hedgerow. My third sister spins effortlessly, her long black hair whipping around her crimson tutu.
“The musicians have left us for the night, and now there is no music,” she sighs. “So perhaps, dear Blossom, my fouettés are in fact too slow?” Grinning, she twirls in a way that makes her appear more like a whirlwind than a dancer.
The move makes a few of the girls giggle, but with the moon so high in the sky, I can’t find it in me to laugh with them.
It’s getting late. Father will want us inside soon. Any second now, a guard will burst through the little iron gate that separates us from the rest of the palace grounds and demand that we return to our bedchambers.
I can tell some of my sisters have noticed the time too. The younger ones pass nervous glances at the gate as we leap and glide across the stone floor. Even the dainty flowers surrounding our circle begin to sway restlessly. Still, while the gate stays closed, we stay dancing.
At least until the moon crosses midnight.
“Stop that.” Blossom glares at her spinning sister. “And you’ll completely ruin your shoes if you keep stomping out of your turns like that. With your clumsy technique, it’s a wonder they even last a few hours.” She folds her arms over her pink tutu. “You know it’s not easy for me to keep getting you new pointe shoes so often. Everyone else makes theirs last a week.”
“Oh, hush, Blossom, you should be grateful,” Dahlia sings, finally slowing her whirlwind spin. “The more Istomp, the more time you get to spend with your handsome shoemaker boyfriend. What was his name again?” She grins, swinging her arms in a mockingly lovestruck way. “Oh, that was it… lovely, lovely Gilbert.”
I snort as the rest of us erupt into a fit of laughter – all apart from Blossom, whose brown cheeks redden.
“He is not my boyfriend!” The second-eldest’s jaw tightens. “And you keep his name out of your big mouth. Why, if Father were to hear, he’d?—”
She’s cut off by the abrupt sound of Dahlia scraping the tip of her shoe along the stone floor, over and over again.
“Why, you disrespectful little?—”
Sensing someone’s about to get their hair torn out, I grab Blossom’s wrist before she can do any damage. “That’s enough now.” My tone silences the group.
It’s not easy being the eldest of twelve princesses. Even without being the heir to the throne, there are far too many responsibilities. And considering none of our mothers are around, I’m the next best thing for most of the girls. Still, at least my sisters respect me – or at leastmostlyrespect me.
Dahlia rolls her eyes while Blossom just shrugs off my hand.
“Let’s talk of more pleasant things,” Heather suggests.
“Yes, like the prince arriving tomorrow!” Liliana, our youngest sister, chimes in.
Shaking my head, I turn to face her – but then my brows shoot up. I can’t believe it. She’s grown again!
Messy brown ringlets frame her face while her yellow dance gown swings high above her knees and digs into her shoulders.
“You’re fourteen,” I remind her with a tight smile, making a mental note to call for the seamstress tomorrow. “So the only princes you should be getting excited over are the ones in your fairy tales.”
