This time we’re not in a sitting room but at an actual table, this long slab of polished mahogany that’s been cleared of everything. Dozens of Alex’s ancestors glare down at us from the wall, and I remind myself that I could always cut them out of their frames with those special knives.
Like you guys never did anything super embarrassing and scandalous, I think as I look at a painting of a guy in a poufy white wig. At least no one ended up decapitated.
I look at Queen Clara’s face where she sits at the head of the table.
Yet.
“I don’t think I have to tell everyone what a disaster this is,” she starts, and Seb, still holding an ice pack to his jaw, mutters a series of pretty filthy words.
Alex is still flexing his fingers, his knuckles a little swollen, but his other hand is clutching El’s firmly as she sits at his side, and that makes me happy to see. No matter what went wrong today, they’re still good.
Which is kind of a miracle, really.
Miles sits across from me, and every once in a while, he gives me a little smile, but mostly he studies the table, his fingers drumming, his brow wrinkled. He’s the one with the most to lose here, though, so I can’t blame him.
I’m sorry, I mouth when he looks up at me again. Glynnis is still going on about “optics” and “getting ahead of the story,” and I already know where that kind of talk leads. At this rate, I’ll probably have to marry Miles on the top of the Scott Monument to make people forget about this story.
Miles only shakes his head in reply, one corner of his mouth kicking up.
I’m sorry, he mouths back, and I wish we could sit next to each other like Ellie and Alex are.
“Daisy, are you listening?”
I snap my head up, looking at Glynnis, and am about to guiltily confess that no, I wasn’t, and await whatever public shaming ritual she devises for me when Ellie suddenly stands up, her hand still in Alex’s.
“I’d like to speak to my sister alone if that’s all right.”
Queen Clara, sitting at the head of the table, waves a hand. “Of course,” she says, “as soon as we’re done—”
“We’re done now,” El says, and she sounds every bit like a queen, her chin high, her shoulders back.
The queen actually sits back in her chair a little, clearly stunned by this show of backbone.
So am I, actually, but Ellie just turns her gaze on me and signals for me to get up. Once I do, and walk over to her, she says, “Change into something comfortable and meet me by the servants’ entrance in ten minutes. We’re going for a walk.”
* * *
• • •
And that’s how I find myself just a few minutes later, following my sister up a volcano.
Okay, it’s not an active volcano, and these days Arthur’s Seat is really just a big hill behind Holyrood Palace, a place where people go to eat their lunch on nice days. I was surprised when we just walked out the door, no car, no bodyguards, El in track pants and a T-shirt, her hair in a ponytail, face hidden by giant sunglasses.
I follow her up the rocky path now, trying not to let on just how hard I’m breathing, especially when there are little kids practically frolicking up the hillside in front of us.
The sun is doing its normal thing of sliding in and out of the clouds, making the light shift and change over the green grass and gray rocks. Turning on the path, I look back down at the city, getting smaller beneath us. I can see Holyrood Palace and the Scott Monument, shooting up in the sky, but it suddenly feels very far away. Hard to believe a place like this could exist in the middle of the city. The breeze is strong, smelling like growing things and the distant ocean without a hint of exhaust or the cold smell of stone buildings.
Seeing me stop, El comes to a halt, too.
“I come up here a lot when we’re in Edinburgh,” she tells me, and I nod at her big sunglasses.
“Do you always ditch the bodyguards?”
El flashes a grin, surprising me. The biggest disaster of my trip so far, and she’s smiling at me?
“Whenever I can,” she confesses, and I find myself smiling back.
We don’t say much more as we continue to make our way up, and there’s a fine sheen of sweat on my skin that cools rapidly in the wind. My hair is blowing all over the place, and as we go to sit down on a grassy flat space, El pulls an extra ponytail holder out of her pocket and hands it to me.
I thank her, wrangle my hair, and we sit. Nearby, there’s a guy on a chair playing a cello, and I stare at him, wondering how he managed to haul that thing up here.
Ellie doesn’t turn around but clearly knows what I’m looking at. “He’s here a lot,” she says. “It’s nice.”
The music is nice. It’s also nice to sit here with my sister, just the two of us. We’re quiet, the wind blowing our ponytails, rippling through the grass, filling up all the silent space between us.
“I’m sorry,” Ellie says finally, and I turn to her, surprised.
“What?”
She’s not looking at me, her gaze focused below us. I wonder what she’s thinking, if she’s looking at the city and thinking how pretty the view is, or imagining a day when she’ll be queen of this country.
“I’ve asked you to do so much, Dais,” she says on a sigh. “Go here, go there, don’t do this, don’t do that. Don’t spend time with Seb’s friends, but now spend time with Seb’s friend because it’ll make the queen happy, and that’s all I care about these days.”
She turns to me then, golden ponytail brushing her shoulder. “I’ve been the worst big sister ever. I’m very aware of that.”
“I saw a thing on the true crime channel about a girl who tried to kill her younger sister with a blender,” I tell her, shrugging. “You have competition, is my point.”
El laughs at that, and then, shocking me, she leans over and rests her head on my shoulder. “It’s all just so mad. I love Alex so much. I do.”
“I know you do,” I tell her, laying my cheek on her sun-warmed hair.
“But everything that comes with him scares the shit out of me,” she says. “And I feel like two different people all the time. Maybe even three. I want to be your sister, and Mom and Dad’s daughter, and just . . . me. But I want to be Alex’s wife, too. And being Alex’s wife means being a princess.”
“A duchess, technically, settle down.”
She laughs again, then lifts her head to look at me. I can’t see her eyes behind her glasses, but I feel her gaze on me.
“I’m trying so hard to be everything to everyone that I feel like I’m actually screwing it up. I haven’t been a good sister to you, I basically told Mom and Dad they embarrass me, and Alex . . .” She heaves a sigh. “I didn’t tell him about Seb because I thought it would upset him.”
“With good reason,” I remind her. “Alex punched Seb in the face.”
A sudden smile splits her face. “He did, didn’t he? So unlike Alex,” she muses, turning her gaze back to the city. “It was hot.”
“Okay, gross,” I laugh, nudging her with my elbow.
She nudges back, and a brief silence falls again. I wonder if we’re done when she says, “I have to do this. Be this. And for me, the gains outweigh the losses. But you didn’t choose this, Dais, and I never should’ve made you play along with any of it. I have Glynnis for that, and the Flisses and the Poppys of the world, but I just . . . I want you to be you. I like you. And I’ve missed you, Daisy.”