Chapter 26

“I should have the girl forcibly removed for ruining Prince Nicholas’s date,” Lena said, voice sharp. “I’m sure Prince Nicholas himself is furious.”

“Nick-lass is mad at me?” Elva sniffed.

“No,” I said at once.

“He should be, if he isn’t,” Lena snapped. “You are a very nasty little girl, who –”

“That’s enough.”

“—shouldn’t even be here.”

“I said, that’s enough!” I stepped forward, approaching Lena. “You will not talk to my daughter like that.”

“Fine,” Lena said, shifting her rage-filled gaze onto me. “Then why don’t we talk about you instead, Piper. You know you and your daughter don’t belong her but you insist on wasting everyone’s time and efforts by continuing to stay.”

I could easily defend Elva until my dying breath. It was much more difficult to defend myself.

What she said wasn’t wrong, either. I didn’t belong here. I was wasting everyone’s time. But, while I was here, Elva would get the treatments she so desperately needed.

These past several days, she had been the healthiest she had ever been, and that was only thanks to the care and attention of Nicholas’s personal physician.

If we left, Elva would go back to receiving base-level care, and only then if I could afford to pay the bills.

For Elva, I would stay. I would face any amount of humiliation or degradation or indignity. I would waste everyone’s time.

“You would do everyone here a favor by leaving, especially Prince Nicholas,” Lena said. “He deserves better than to have his every moment intruded upon by you and your… baggage.”

Even though Lena was rude and crass, in this, I could understand where she was coming from. Nicholas and the princes had much to lose or gain with this competition, more than anyone.

For Elva and I to purposefully put ourselves in the way of him finding the perfect Luna was unfair.

“We’ll be more careful in the future,” I conceded. “We’ll make sure not to bother Prince Nicholas while he is on his dates.”

Lena grunted. “At least you can see some reason. If I can’t convince you to leave, I’m glad you can see how bothersome you are. Hopefully soon, none of this will matter and you will be eliminated.”

I knew I would be eliminated the first round, but I felt nothing but distain for her pointing it out so crudely.

“I’ll leave when either the rules of the game dictate it, or the royal family asks me to,” I said. “Not before.”

Lena narrowed her gaze. “I hope you enjoy your last few days in the palace, then.” Without another word, she turned and marched out the door.

The maids that had stood at attention in her presence quietly returned to work. A subtle look of understanding passed between the quiet maid and I. At least I knew she was on my side.

The newer maid, however, remained suspicious. In Lena’s absence, she smiled and smiled, as if the head maid hadn’t just tore me down.

Elva near the window began to cry in earnest. I rushed to her at once.

When I was before her, I dropped to my knees and pulled her into my arms.

“It’s okay, Elva,” I whispered. I stroked her hair, hoping to soothe her. “The cranky lady is gone now.”

“She said such mean things…”

“She did, but it’s not your fault. She’s upset at me, that’s all.”

“And Nick-lass…?”

“We’ll have to give him some space, okay? Not all the time. Just when he’s… spending special time with other people.”

I’d only wanted to gently tell Elva that we needed to not bother Nicholas while he was on dates, but Elva began loudly sobbing and trembling.

I held her tighter. “What’s the matter, honey? It’s only sometimes.”

“Nick-lass… doesn’t… like me… anymore.” Her voice shook, words broken with sniffles and sobs.

My whole heart shattered. “No, no, that’s not true. Prince Nicholas likes you a lot.”

Elva pulled away to look up at me with large, watery eyes. “But she said Nick-lass is mad at me. She said I was naughty.”

“We can’t listen to her, okay?”

Her cupped her face with my hands and wiped away her tears. New ones just kept falling. My anger for Lena renewed, and I half wanted to chase her down the hall to give her a piece of my mind.

No one makes my little girl cry like this!

“She’s just a mean lady who doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Nicholas likes you. He’s not mad. He waved at you, didn’t he?”

The words seemed to placate Elva somewhat. Her tears lessened, though her sniffling remained. Her brows furrowed like she was thinking it through.

“He did wave…”

“Because he likes you.”

“…Okay.” Her voice was small. It didn’t seem like I had fully convinced her, but I doubted I could say anything that would.

She would have to hear it from Nicholas himself.

Maybe if I could talk to him alone, I could convince him to spend some time with Elva.

Lena would hate it, and so would the other girls. I’d have to make sure it happened at a time that didn’t conflict with any of his other obligations.

Surely he would meet with her though? If I told him she thought he didn’t like her?

Surely he hadn’t become totally heartless in the past three years?

No, I knew he hadn’t. I had seen the soft-hearted way he’d interacted with Elva before.

He might hate me, but he liked her. He would be willing to do this, I was sure.

I just had to get him alone to ask.

The next morning at breakfast, Lilliana was the most popular girl in the room. Every other girl wanted to know every detail of her solo-date with Nicholas.

I had previously thought, due to her regal air, that she might hold back on the juicy details. Instead, the attention seemed to go straight to her head, and she calmly and smugly answered every question she was asked, albeit with a haughty attitude.

“Prince Nicholas lifted me into the saddle like the princess I am soon to be,” she said. “The horse chosen for me could have been tamer, however. Something I will rectify when I am Luna.”

Thinking on it now, maybe that poor horse had reason to be afraid of Lillianna when it had first met her. It had been said that animals had a sixth sense about people sometimes.

“We rode along the edge of the property,” Lilliana said. “I felt as if the prince was showing off all that would soon belong to me.”

As she spoke, I noticed she talked of the property and the palace and what she would fix as Luna. Not once did she mention qualities of the prince himself, like his beautiful golden eyes or his kindness.

She framed all of Nicholas’s qualities in how much it could bring her.

The money. The power. The house and land.

A dark bit of fury collected inside of me. Nicholas deserved someone who would notice things about him as a person.

Lilliana was all wrong for him. Hopefully he would realize that sooner rather than later.

Around me, the other girls were sharing sharp looks toward each other, and open glares at Lilliana. The tension in the room thickened as she continued to talk.

The First Ball was quickly approaching.

Among the girls, it seemed as if Lilliana was enemy number one.

I didn’t want to harm her, but I too wanted to see her eliminated from the competition.

I wasn’t jealous. It was just pure objective fact.

She wasn’t worthy of Nicholas.