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“If you were, I would like more than six hours to prepare, Gale,” his mother snapped at him. “Everyone in the palace has been running around since dawn, preparing for something that should have been arranged at least three weeks before. Normally, this would have been on the calendar for months. Poor Julianne nearly had to run down 12th Street in her pajamas, screaming bloody murder to find me this purple dress! It does not even zip! I am wearing a coat because it did does not zip! Look what you have brought me to!”
He snorted when he noticed the top of her back as she showed him.
“You are laughing? Laughing at your mother? Your mother, who has had her entire day thrown for a loop because you decided six hours and fifteen minutes ago that you wanted to bring your fiancée here!”
“Mother, forgive us,” he said with a large grin on his face. “However, I had to act quickly, or she would most definitely have left me.”
“She should leave you now! You gave her no time to prepare, no instruction, no guidance, no practice. Let us thank heaven that she had received some formal training she could rely on before she met you.” Her blue eyes snapped to me. “Your wave and smile were very well done, my dear. However, your curtsy needs a bit of work. It does not need to be so low; nevertheless, it will do.”
“Thank you—”
“Do you know what would have happened had there been any mistake?” Her attention and lecture returned to Gale. “It would have been news for days. The last thing you both need is a further spectacle!”
“Yes, Mother, I understand, and it will not happen again.”
“Of course, it will not happen again. You only get one introduction. That is why it is so important!”
“Mother, I beg of you, spare me.” Gale reached out, taking her hands. “If not for my sake, then for Odette’s. I believe you are scaring her.”
“I’m good. I’m glad someone else yells at you. She is absolutely right,” I said louder, and when I spoke, everyone who was there, with the expectation of the guards, turned their eyes to me. Was I not supposed to speak yet?
“And she is wise, I see. That is very good.” The queen nodded at me.
He gasped. “Odette has not even called her own mother.”
“Did you give her time?”
“You did not give me time.” We both spoke at the same time.
“Dear God.” He looked between the both of us in horror. “I am marrying my mother.”
“If you could only be so lucky.” The queen sighed.
“And I did give you time, Odette. You said you were saving your energy,” Gale said to me.
I looked away, scratching my ear as if I did not hear him.
“Oh, okay, I see you are taking sides with my mother?”
I looked down at the dog, now sniffing at my heels. “Hi, boy.”
“It’s a she,” Eliza said as I glanced back up to find her arms crossed over her body and her head held high. “And both she and I are wondering what changed your mind so quickly? Yesterday, you were all high-and-mighty about how you would not be here, and yet here you are. So, were you messing with me yesterday? Or did you just want to see the palace before leaving him?”
“Eliza—”
“I am definitely here for the palace,” I said, interrupting Gale before he spoke up. “Will you be giving me the tour?”
Again, a few eyes fell on me in shock. And I really wished I would stop talking so I could figure out what I should be saying, but I guessed it was still the adrenaline pumping through me. Eliza’s eyes narrowed on me.
“I will give you a tour if you sing for me.”
Gale tried to cut in again. “Eliza, she is not your personal—”
“My voice is worth more than a tour, so we will have to come to some new arrangement. But if you are in, I am in.” I held out my hand to her.
She looked at it and then me.
“I knew you would be cool.” She shook it once and bent down to pick up the dog. “Persephone, say hi to our new sister.”
