Genevieve
I walk into Isabella's chamber, spotting her bouncing blonde head among the sea of clothes strewn about the room as Dominique helps her pack. I wonder if Isa would move her head so vigorously all the time if her hair was straight and didn't spring up and down the way her curls do.
"Did you come to help me pack?" she asks, grinning when she sees me.
"You certainly look as though you need it," I say, gesturing to the piles of fabric surrounding the three of us.
The pout returns to her face, and she huffs, rummaging through her chest of drawers and throwing aside shifts, petticoats, and ribbons.
"I just can't find my bathing gown."
"You have a bathing gown?"
"Of course I do!"
"You didn't bring it to Apollonia, and there are far more places to swim there," I remind her.
Dominique lifts her head from her hands as she says exasperatedly, "Just wear my old one, Isa."
Isabella throws up her hands. "It's completely wrong for my coloring!"
"We have the same coloring," Dominique half-growls, putting her hand over her eyes.
Isabella shakes her head. "Our hair and eyes are different, remember?"
Dominique says nothing, her mouth clamped shut tightly. Her eyes flit over to mine, and she gives me a commiserating look. I have to bite my lip to keep from laughing.
"Oh, Eleanor has it!" Isabella says, putting her hand over her heart as though she's just had a near-death experience. I glance over at Dominique with another barely controlled laugh, and she ducks her head after failing to hide hers.
"Can we go over to Montmorency and get it?" Isa asks, looking at me expectantly.
Chateau de Montmorency is where my youngest great-aunt Lacey lives with her husband, my father's older brother François. Their marriage is what got my father the position as my mother's tutor, and so it's what I have to thank for my existence. Eleanor is their youngest daughter, and only a year older than Isabella, so the two of them are extremely close. We're close with all of our Segal cousins, but François' children more than any of my father's other siblings, because they're our cousins on two counts.
"We have to leave in an hour, remember?" I say gently.
She sticks out her bottom lip like a four-year-old, glowering at the floral bedspread, saying nothing for several moments. It's moments like these where I'm reminded that she's still a child, despite the growth spurt she's had this past year, despite having to act like my equal to comfort me in Apollonia. But, as always, her bad mood disappears as quickly as it came. She gives a great resigned sigh, the kind of sound my mother makes after a particularly difficult council meeting, and says,
"I suppose your old bathing gown will do, Dom."
Dominique rolls her eyes and walks from the room to get it, giving me a brief smile as she passes me. Isabella begins stuffing clothes back into drawers, occasionally holding something up and glancing at her already overflowing trunk. I move over to assist her.
"Shall I ring for Colette?"
"Gen, I'm eleven years old. I'm perfectly capable of putting clothes away," she huffs, rolling her eyes. I refrain from telling her that it doesn't look that way, with her balling up chemises and stockings so that they'll be wrinkled when they come out of the drawers, instead I start folding clothes neatly beside her.
"Are you excited to see. . ." she begins with a smirk on her face, then, changing direction when I glare at her, ". . .er, Brigitta?"
"Good save," I say, elbowing her, "and yes, I am! This summer might be one of the last times she and I really get to spend time together."
Isabella's brow furrows.
"Why is that?"
I look over at her, half fondness and half envy coursing through me at my little sister, who still has years of childhood stretching out in front of her, years which I know she'll waste the same way I did, wishing to be grown up. Instead of saying this, I shrug.
"I'll be married by this time next year," I say simply, "and she might be too. I don't know if our husbands will even allow us to write to one another, much less visit."
"Johannes would allow it," Isabella says in a sing-song voice, a sly smile on her face.
"I'm not marrying Johannes," I remind her, mimicking her tone.
She hums in disapproval, now working very hard to close her trunk, pushing the piles of clothing down with both hands.
"What was that noise for?"
"I think you're stupid not to marry him," she says without looking at me, shoving stray sleeves and petticoats out of the way of her trunk's hinges.
I'm briefly taken aback, not just at the suggestion that I marry Johannes, but more at how Little Isabella is speaking to me the way Dominique would, no frills, cutting to the core of my fears. Were my feelings so obvious back then that Isa could see them, even at five?
"How- what do you mean?"
She begins to list off on her fingers. "He's your age, he's good-looking, your families already get along- would you latch my trunk shut if I sit on it?- the two of you are already friends, the Dulcemian people adore you, you're in love with him-"
"What?" my head snaps up from fiddling with the latches on her trunk, "I am not !"
Isa snorts, getting on her knees and putting even more weight on the lid.
"Yes, you are. Put some books on top, do you think that'll help?"
I roll my eyes and grab the two biggest books I can find, and Isabella holds them to the lid with her elbows.
"I am not in love with Johannes," I repeat, and her smile grows. I roll my eyes again, "why wouldn't I want to marry him if I was?"
My baby sister regards me seriously, or as seriously as possible considering she's crouching atop her trunk like a cross between a frog and an acrobat.
"I don't know, Gen. Ro just said-" she claps a hand over her mouth, her cheeks turning bright red.
"Ro? You've talked to Ro about this?"
"Just a little! Can you try and latch it now? I think it's mostly shut."
I purse my lips, holding in my expressions of frustration only because I don't want the trunk to explode open, sighing in relief when the latch finally clicks shut.
"Why were you and Ro talking about Johannes and me?"
I must be truly angry at Isa because when she rather comically struggles to climb down from the suitcase, I don't even have to try not to laugh. She avoids my eyes and says,
"She asked me about it a few months before we came home. Apparently, you talked about him a lot when you were alone with her, and she wanted to know why you weren't engaged to him. I don't think she meant to break your confidence or anything."
"No, I'm sure she didn't," I sigh. Ro is the farthest thing from a gossip, it's not a habit one picks up when they haven't had human contact in over a decade. Still, I don't like that Isabella believes I have feelings for Johannes because of her.
"So what did Ro say? Why does she think I don't want to marry Johannes if I'm in love with him?"
"She says you'd be married to him by now if you weren't, because of all the other reasons I said," Isabella shrugs, "and she's probably right. It would be smart to marry him. I think you'd have just as much power in Dulcemia as you would in Apollonia, perhaps more since Johannes trusts you so much. Love is the only thing I can think of for why you wouldn't want that."
"What if I'm in love with someone else?"
She quirks an eyebrow as if to ask are you? , and then she says, "I asked her that, too, and she said that you're such good friends that Johannes wouldn't care if you had a private relationship," she smirks at the term, despite the way Ro likely used the tamest words she could think of.
Johannes wouldn't care, Johannes wouldn't care. I don't care!
I open my mouth to tell her the truth, that Dulcemia and Palladia are such close allies that a marriage between our kingdoms would do virtually nothing. But I don't get the chance, because Dominique is back.
"Time to go," she says, holding out her old bathing gown (which is a lovely pink color that compliments Isabella's coloring excellently). Isabella groans, looking at the trunk that we just closed.
"I'll pack it in my trunk," I say before anyone suggests we open Isabella's back up, and take the bathing gown to my chambers, neatly folding it with the rest of my things.
Johannes wouldn't care, Johannes wouldn't care. Of course he wouldn't care, we're friends, he would want me to be happy.
I shove the thought aside as I walk downstairs, smiling fondly at Isabella and Erik sliding down the banister, at Dominique skip-hopping her way down the stairs in the way I've only ever seen her do when we're about to visit the Reuterns.
Henri is watching the servants load his violin with the other luggage, biting his lip in trepidation. I hear Derek laugh at something Pierre whispers in his ear, looking more relaxed than I've seen him in weeks.
My parents also seem less stressed. They work hard not to show it, but running a kingdom takes a toll on them, especially when they're trying to be as involved as possible in our upbringing. I'm sure this trip will be a relief for them since they trust my grandmother to do a good job as a regent. I can feel myself relaxing too, not thinking so much about how this summer could possibly be the last of my childhood, and instead focusing on how excited I am to see the Reuterns.
I haven't even met their youngest, Elisabeth. And little Helena, she might not even remember me, she was barely two when I saw her last. Of course, Leopold and Anna will remember me, and they're now old enough that talking to them will be pleasant instead of an obligation. And Erika and Dominick, I always love seeing them. I love the way Erika strokes my hair and marvels at how similar I look to my father every time I see her ("Not that you look like a man or anything, darling!"), and how no matter how old I get, Dominick will always pretend not to recognize me because I've grown so much.
And of course, I'm eager to see Johannes and Brigitta. They are, perhaps, the only two people who know me as well as Derek does. I suppose I could add Ro to that list, she seems to understand me on a fundamental enough level even without the aid of time that the others have had. Her perceptions fall short occasionally, of course, like her assessment that I'm in love with Johannes, but she's not the first to assume that.
But was she right about one thing? If I were willing to push aside the humiliation of my former obsession with Johannes, would it be the practical choice to marry him? Isabella's right, I do love his family. And any husband of Brigitta's would have no objection to her visiting her brother, there would be no risk of losing touch with her. I think back to my mother's words, the horrible experience my great-aunt had with an arranged marriage, and the terror and uncertainty my mother felt at my age. There'd be none of that with Johannes. I find myself smiling. Marriage to him would be easy.
And that's why you can't do it, I remind myself as I walk to the carriage where Derek, Dominique, and Henri are standing. It's not supposed to be easy, it's supposed to bring peace. There's plenty of that between Dulcemia and Palladia.
"I'll see you soon, my love," I hear my father say to my mother as he chastely kisses her. I glance over at Derek, smiling when he pantomimes gagging, then quickly schooling his features when my father comes up to us.
"Are you ready?" Papa says to us, nodding towards the carriage.
"You know, Papa," Derek pipes up, "you can ride with Maman if you wish. We'll be fine for the journey."
I look at Derek in shock. This is the way we've always done things. Direct heirs don't travel together, so Derek and Maman always go in separate carriages, but Papa always sits with Derek and me. I suppose that was always because no parent in their right mind would leave their young children alone on a carriage ride, and I suppose Derek's right, we are all old enough to sit in a carriage unsupervised, but it never occurred to me that we would ever change the arrangement.
Papa, however, looks as though Christmas has come early.
"Are you sure?" he asks, addressing Henri in particular, who rolls his eyes.
"I'm fourteen, Papa, I'm not a child anymore," he scoffs.
Papa smiles, ruffling his hair. He hugs us all goodbye quickly after checking one more time that we'll be fine for the long journey ahead. I watch him walk jauntily over to my mother, who looks just as happy as he does, and I duck my head quickly just before she kisses him gently. Will that ever be me? Will I ever be overcome with joy at the prospect of just a few extra hours with my husband, or will I relish the moments when we're apart?
I ponder this question during the long carriage ride. I'm so lost in thought that I barely notice Dominique's head on my shoulder as she dozes. Derek catches my eye a couple of times, cocking his head as though asking why I'm not talking. I shrug, and he leaves me be. The carriage is quiet for most of the journey, but that's unsurprising, seeing as though the loudest members of our family are all in the other carriage. I remember the only time I ever regretted bringing Isabella with me to Apollonia was the carriage ride to the docks when she tried to teach me a song she and Pierre and Erik always sing on long journeys. I wonder if Papa misses the quiet of our carriage, or if he's so distracted by Maman that he doesn't notice their antics.
I suppose he's content with the arrangement because he makes no effort to switch back when we stop for the evening.
I'm a little more conversational the next day, comforting Henri as he frets more about his violin on the roof, and playing I Spy with the others until the idyllic village of Wilhelmsdorf is visible. Unable to resist, I push my window open and inhale the air. It's not much different in climate from our home in Chassanac, but it always smells different. There's a hint of vinegar in the air, mixed with the smell of frying oil and baking bread. The biggest difference between here and Palladia is that people always seem to be singing. Not just silly folk songs like we have at home, but ones with complicated harmonies and rhythms. And it seems impossible, but I think everyone here has a lovely voice. There's a reason why anyone who wants to become a successful musician moves here. My gaze drifts over to the only one of us who shows any musical prowess, and he's looking around excitedly, listening to the notes people are singing and pantomiming playing them on his violin.
I smile and wave as people's faces light up in recognition of the flags on our carriages, our family crest as familiar as the one belonging to their own royal family. The feeling is mutual, I know this kingdom nearly as well as my own.
Well enough to rule it, a voice in my head says, but then it's replaced by another, words Johannes said when we were still children:
I'd go to war for Derek, even if he wasn't my brother-in-law.
And this mantra is repeated with every kiss blown at us, and every flower tossed our way. They don't need me here, I have to go somewhere else.
