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“Maybe we should add more pins.” I turned to Gelula and my hairdresser.
“Miss, if we add any more, it might tear your hair out when we try to remove it later,” my hairdresser said, coming up beside me one more time to show me how she’d secured it. “See, it shall make it through the night.”
I exhaled one more time. “Okay, thank you.”
Gelula spoke to her for a moment as I looked in the mirror. I stood in a fitted, strapless, red mermaid gown, no necklace but earrings matching the crown on my head. I had worn crowns before, and I’d seen my mother wear them all of her life, but seeing this one on me now was different. Once again, it hit me, really and truly hit me that Gale was a prince—a future king, and I was going to be his queen.
“You look beautiful as always,” Gelula replied as she came up beside me. “And much more at ease now.”
I glanced at her, and we both shared a smile. The first thing we had done when I finally had a spare moment was to take the test. Luckily it came out negative. I was right. There was nothing to worry about.
Knock.
Knock.
“Miss, we need to be going now, so you are not late,” Wolfgang said from the other side of the door.
“Coming,” I replied. I turned to the door, and Gelula rushed in front of me to open it.
As I walked, I tried to pretend that this wasn’t any different from the days when, I would practice my walk with my mother. It wasn’t any different than how she would walk in our living room—head high, stomach in, shoulders back, and a secret smile. I kept repeating those four things to myself until I reached the golden grandfather clock at the top of the red-carpeted grand staircase where Gale stood, not as Prince Charming but Prince of Ersovia. His hair was styled best as it could be, the gold buttons of his royal black jacket were polished, and a pair of gloves were deliberately placed in his pocket.
When he turned to me, my mind went blank. I was lost in his blue-green eyes. My stomach and heart started to do gymnastics. He walked up to me and lifted my hand, kissing the back of it.
“Bevilën,” he whispered as his lips left my hand. His gaze drifted to the crown on my head, and he smiled. “A perfect choice.”
I couldn’t respond.
“Odette?” he called again.
“Hmm?”
“Breathe.”
I inhaled deeply and then exhaled, causing him to chuckle. “You listened without arguing, which means you must be truly terrified right now.”
“Can you blame me? You all keep upping the stakes like we are going through levels of Super Mario Brothers.”
“Super Mario Brothers?” He looked at me, confused.
And I tilted my head to the side. It was like the time he didn’t know how to fan the smoke detector. “Seriously? The video game?”
“What video game?”
I turned to see Eliza come down dressed in green with a sliver pearl tiara on her head. It looked more like a hairband of peals. She hopped right in front of us both, looking between us, and asked again. “What video game?”
“Super Mario Brothers,” I replied.
“Oh, Arty and Gale used to play that all the time.”
“Is that so?” I looked back at Gale, who looked at his sister tiredly.
“Has anyone ever told you that you have horrible timing?” he asked her.
“No, not that can recall,” Eliza shot back.
“Do better to recall. You have horrible timing,” Gale repeated, to which Eliza just rubbed her ear as if she couldn’t hear him before winking to me and walking over to talk to Wolfgang.
“Why did you pretend you didn’t know?” I asked Gale.
