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I shook my head. “Not at all. No two sunrises are the same.”
“And what is your other special talent?” Grace asked.
I leaned closer. “Okay, don’t tell anyone, but I am also a magician.”
“I want to see!” a young girl said. “Do a trick for us!”
“Great thinking, Beatrice!” Grace encouraged, surprising me she knew her name. “I want to see, too!”
I nodded. “Very well . . . I will just need a cookie to perform my trick. Does anyone know where I could find one?”
All the children pointed to the cookies on the table. “There!”
Grace shot me a playful glance as she reached over and handed me a cookie. “Here you go, Prince Oliver.”
“Okay, watch carefully as I make the cookie disappear,” I said, waving the cookie in front of my face, left, right, up, down. “Now you see it, and now you don’t!” I theatrically made the cookie vanish into my mouth.
The children laughed and pointed at me.
“You ate it!”
“It’s in your mouth!”
I threw my palms up, pretending I didn’t know what they were talking about, then tried to chew the cookie and swallow it without laughing, which was quite a laborious task.
“I think we all know that trick!” Grace said, laughing with the kids. “Let’s show Prince Oliver we can do it even better than him!”
Everybody rushed to Grace and grappled for a cookie. A minute later, the boxes were empty, as they all continued to perform the disappearing cookie trick.
As we prepared to leave, I pulled Grace aside. “You were really wonderful with the children.”
She looked surprised. “Oh, thank you. You weren’t so bad yourself, Mr. Cookie Monster. I just want them to have some fun.”
“It’s more than that,” I said. “You really connected with them. Few people can do that, especially with kids who have health issues.”
Grace smiled modestly. “Well, they make it easy. Their spirits are so resilient, and I think sometimes they just want to feel like children, not patients.”
I nodded. “I never thought about it that way, but it makes sense.”
One worker asked if she could take a photo of Grace and me with the children. Grace and I stood close together, and I caught the scent of her lovely floral perfume, with a hint of chocolate chip.
“Hmm, is it lavender you’re wearing?” I guessed.
“It is not,” Grace said, opting to not tell me any more than that.
We said our goodbyes and headed to the car. On the drive back, I continued trying to identify Grace’s scent, playfully quizzing her.
“Orange blossom?” I said, wiggling my nose.
She smirked and shook her head.
“Rose?” I tried.
“Sorry—not even close,” Grace said, clearly enjoying that I was wrong so many times.
“Your Highness—how long will Princess Veronica be staying on her visit?” Dante asked, clearly trying to pull me away from my conversation with Grace since he already knew the answer to the question.
“She will be here a week before she needs to return to Kastonia,” I said, wondering if he thought I was flirting with Grace.
