“No, no. Wear this,” she insists, and hands me a deep purple gown embroidered with golden tulips. “I made it for you. Iker will love it.”
I take the dress, running the lush silk between my fingers. “Thank you,” I say. “It’s beautiful, but I couldn’t. Can you imagine everyone’s faces? Me in this? What will the townspeople say?”
“Maybe something nice, for once,” Annemette replies with a smirk.
I know she’s wrong, but I can barely take my eyes off the dress. It’s stunning, the workmanship so intricate, it truly could only have been achieved with a spell. And then it hits me. We have magic. “Annemette . . .”
“Yes?” she says, weaving her golden strands into an ornate bun.
“Can’t you use your magic . . . on Nik? I mean, only if things don’t go as planned. He can love you; I can see it. It’s just . . . three days—now almost two—there’s no t—”
“No,” she says, sticking the last pin in her hair. “It has to be real when the clock strikes midnight after the ball. That’s it. Magic can masquerade as love, but none has ever satisfied Urda before. These little things, dresses and such, are as far as I’ll go. He has to love me as me. No tricks. Promise me you won’t do anything to interfere, Evie.”
I nod, my lips closed tight. Of course she’s right. I don’t want to manipulate Nik’s feelings either, but the consequences are just so steep.
I step into her gown, the cool fabric sliding over my skin, its shape fitting me perfectly. I barely recognize myself as I stare in the mirror, looking so much like one of the nobles. Perhaps a costume is all I ever needed.
“You look like a princess,” Annemette says, giving me a kiss on the cheek. “Let’s go. Our princes await.”
I grab her hand, and we walk down through the palace and out the gates. This night, the third night, is what everyone always mentions when Lithasblot comes up. When it is perfectly normal, possibly even a compliment, to toss a slice of rye or a dense roll at your neighbor.
Predictably, Malvina Christensen lives for this night. It gives her a chance to show off, and gods know she would never shy away from that. Not one for needlepoint or whatever komtesses are supposed to learn, Malvina chose to take up baking instead, always underfoot of her cook as a girl. I’ll admit, she became rather good, that blue monstrosity aside, though I’ll take partial responsibility for its demise. She’s eager to tell anyone questioning her that baking is a hobby, even though it’s beneath her, an activity more befitting someone like me. “If you feed a man right, he’ll be true to you for life,” I’ve heard her say many times. It’s strange, she so wants me out of her way, too crude for her class, and yet here she is parading her lowbrow achievements. I guess when you have power, you can be whoever you want.
Though the sun has yet to set and the townspeople are still wandering the offering tables in search of their suppers, Malvina has snagged herself a prominent spot by the bonfire. Around her is a literal sea of treats—petits fours, scones à la Brighton, out-of-season fried aebleskiver, and crusty rolls of rye and soft rolls of sweet Russian wheat, both in the shape of the sun wheel. There’s a massive blueberry pie as well, juices glistening from under a golden lattice crust.
“Malvina, my, you’ve outdone yourself yet again,” Nik says with a royal smile as we come upon her.
The girl beams at him. “Why thank you, Nik. It would be an honor if you enjoyed something before the throwing begins.”
Nik waves her off. “That’s not—”
“I insist. Please take something, there is more than enough here for Urda.”
Training and practice with Malvina’s forcibly charitable nature are enough to keep Nik from fighting her one word more. “If that is the case, then yes. Something small would be greatly appreciated.”
Her still-beaming smile grows larger as she dips to the blanket and chooses a petit four, done in perfect French style. “There’s plenty for your friends, too,” she adds as an afterthought.
I’m shocked. Malvina has never offered me anything, and then I realize, she may not recognize me. It’s the dress. It must be sewn with the most powerful sorcery to deceive a shark like Malvina.
“How kind of you,” I say, taking a scone and watching her pewter eyes for recognition. And then there it is, a slight snarl.
“Oh, Evie,” she says. “My, that’s quite a dress. Where did you—”
“It was a gift. From me, Friherrinde Annemette,” Mette interrupts while plucking a sweet roll. “For being a good friend and the most gracious host.” And then she does the unthinkable—she links her arms right through mine and Nik’s, pulling us close on either side.
Malvina smiles so tightly I can see the veins in her neck. “Well, from a komtesse to a friherrinde, a word of advice. If you treat your help to such finery, they’ll get used to it.”
“I hope so,” says Annemette. “I have plenty more where that came from. Thank you for the sweets.”
And then we walk away. Just like that. Nik seems a little stunned, ever the proper prince, but even he can’t help but laugh. “You really do look lovely, Evie.”
“Seconded,” Iker says, grabbing my hand.
I thank them both for probably the third time that night, and then we walk the boys to the platform for tonight’s celebration of the grain crop. Annemette and I take our seats in the little white wooden chairs reserved for the nobility—another new view for me, having only sat on the sand before. As the sky darkens, Nik begins to speak, but I can’t focus, my mind on so many things. The Lithasblot festival was always something I knew so well, every year the same, and for a time, I didn’t go at all.
The Lithasblot after Anna drowned, I never left the house. Nik, Tante Hansa, and Father all tried to draw me from my bed, sure that a measure of festival fun would go a long way toward cheering me up.
But song and dance cannot close a wound like that. More like it pours salt on it—watching other people sing and dance like nothing had happened, all the while blistered with grief.
I didn’t go. Not that year nor the next.
I’d tried to spend the time reading Tante Hansa’s spell books—the only thing that’d kept me sane in those days—but even that took too much effort. All the strength I had went to shutting out laughter and song.
It was only last year that I agreed to go with Nik again.
He’d lost his friend too but had to make a show of being at the festival immediately—the day of her death—duty and title forcing him to walk around in his nice clothes and accept the people’s offerings to Urda. He didn’t have to speak as he does yet again tonight, but it was still painful enough just to stand up in front of everyone while so broken.
We are far from that now—not healed, of course, but with just two days left, this festival has felt like the last one we attended when Anna was alive. Iker came that year, arriving with his parents from Rigeby Bay, fourteen and suddenly very tall. Anna and I mooned over him every night, whispering about his eyes and laughing while huddled up in her mansion bedroom. It would be a year before she told me that she actually preferred Nik to Iker and my mind filled of dreams of us as twin queens, the friherrinde-to-princess and the pauper-to-princess loves of ?ldenburg kings on both sides of the ?resund Strait.