Six days later, I entered the royal palace with some trepidation. A servant had already disappeared with my mountains of luggage, and I had no sooner watched him go than I had begun second-guessing how much I had packed. I had some experience of the fashions that dominated in the various parts of the kingdom, but fashions could change quickly, and I wanted to be prepared. I grimaced. Even so, I had probably brought an excess of fabric. Hopefully I wouldn’t receive a reprimand from the steward who was overseeing all the practical arrangements for the Tour.
“Evie!” Celine almost tripped down the stairs in her haste to reach me. “You’ve arrived. Oh, thank goodness! I need you to talk some sense into Frederic.”
She grabbed my arm and towed me back up the stairs. “He has the most ridiculous notions. And our first couple of stops are going to be near the capital. I need you to convince him that his current outfit just will not do.”
I breathed an internal sigh of relief to hear we would be starting with the towns directly south of the capital city, Lanare. I had passed through several of them briefly on my way to the capital, but no one there would know me. My relief turned to panic, however, when I recognized where she was taking me. Celine had given me a tour of the palace when I had visited earlier in the week, and we were now in the wing containing the royal suites. I pulled back against her.
“Your Highness!” I whispered. “I can’t go into the prince’s bedchamber.”
She threw me an impatient look. “We aren’t going into his bedchamber, just his dressing room. And you’re going to have to get used to it, Evie. You’ll be dressing all of us on this trip.”
I stopped resisting and gave a low chuckle. “Not actually dressing, I hope.”
Celine giggled. “You know what I mean. Frederic takes his responsibilities seriously. We just have to convince him that dressing well is serious royal business.”
She flung open a door, and a quiet voice I didn’t recognize floated out, making her pause. “We should be heading straight south all the way to Largo. Or the Great Desert, at least. That’s where these rumors are coming from, not from the nearby towns or the islands.”
“I want to tackle the threat head-on as well, Cass, you know that,” said Frederic, identifying the other speaker as the second Lanoverian prince, Cassian. “But you also know that Father is sending us on this Tour for a variety of reasons, and we can’t leave out any of the regions.”
“Yes.” Cassian sounded dejected. “Apparently we can’t hope to have you accepted as king one day unless you’ve been paraded in front of each and every one of our citizens like a performing monkey.”
“Oh, not just me, brother,” said Frederic. “They all need to eyeball their future Royal Chief Advisor as well. Naturally. It’s why I assured Father you needed to be included.”
I blinked. Was Frederic making a joke? Teasing his brother? It was hard to tell when he always sounded so serious.
“So why did you ask for Celine to be included, then?” asked Cassian dryly. “Don’t tell me she’s going to be your Second Advisor one day.”
Celine, who had been listening with interest and without shame, made a face and bustled me through an opulent sitting room and into the connected dressing room.
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Cassian,” she said breezily. “There isn’t enough gold in even Lanover’s treasuries to pay me to do a job like that. I’m heading off for adventures just as soon as Mother decides I’m no longer a child. But for now, I’m the Tour’s Wardrobe Mistress. And this is my seamstress.”
She pushed me forward, and I dipped into a curtsy.
“Mistress Evangeline,” said Frederic with a respectful inclination of his head.
Cassian regarded me curiously while Celine dismissed Frederic’s words with a wave of her hand.
“This trip is going to require a lot of different garments,” she said. “Evie and I are going to have to work superhumanly fast to continually prepare and adjust all of our outfits.”
“By which I assume you mean she’s going to be working hard?” Cassian’s dry voice didn’t hide his amusement.
She put her nose in the air and ignored him. “We’ll all be seeing a lot of each other for fittings and such things. So you might as well dispense with ceremony now. Her name is Evie.”
Frederic regarded his sister silently and then turned to me. “How do you feel about that?”
I shrugged uncomfortably, although I was touched by his consideration. “Evie is fine, Your Highness.”
“That goes for you, too, Evie,” said Celine. “It’s going to get horribly confusing otherwise, what with us all being Your Highnesses.”
“But, Your Highness…” My voice trailed away.
“Exactly!” she said triumphantly and then glared at both of her brothers as if daring them to protest.
Neither prince appeared in the least perturbed by her dismissal of formality.
“Well, that’s that, I suppose,” said Cassian. “Welcome to our inner circle, Evie. If you haven’t learned it by now, you’ll soon discover that Celine is a force to be reckoned with. Once she has an idea in her head, there’s no getting it out.”
I blinked several times. I knew Lanoverian culture was far more relaxed than the other kingdoms, but I still wasn’t at all sure about a seamstress being included in any sort of royal inner circle. Surely they were joking and would expect proper respect when I next crossed their paths.
But when I glanced at Frederic, I found him watching me with a relaxed expression on his face. I had to admit that nothing about him gave me the impression he was the sort of flighty person who frequently changed his mind or forgot what he had said the previous day. Or even the previous month.
And yet, I couldn’t shake the feeling of discomfort. The Lanoverian princes and princesses didn’t really have an inner circle of friends. I knew that much at least from the noble girls who visited my shop and often gossiped as they chose their fabrics, oblivious to my presence. The younger royals were friendly with everyone at court, but with seven of them, they had always relied on each other for their closest companionship. Except now Prince Rafe and Princesses Clarisse, Celeste, and Cordelia had all married foreigners and moved to other kingdoms. The oldest princes, Frederic and Cassian, and the youngest princess, Celine, were the only ones left.
I supposed the departure of all her sisters might explain why Celine was looking to her seamstress for friendship. Unaware of my inner qualms, Celine grabbed my arm and pointed accusingly at her brothers. “You can see the problem, Evie.”
“Celine,” said Cassian patiently. “You know that we’ll be riding for the first part of the Tour. We have to wear practical clothes.”
“No one needs to wear clothes that practical,” Celine muttered to me.
I bit my lip on a laugh.
“You know how close the nearby towns are to both the capital and each other,” Celine told her brother in a louder voice. “It’s a parade as much as a ride, so you need to look appropriately princely. We wouldn’t want anyone to think the royal treasury is starting to run dry.”
Cassian opened his mouth and then closed it again, an arrested look in his eyes.
Frederic threw his brother an amused glance. “Sometimes it’s hard to remember she’s not ten anymore. She’s actually been making some good points lately.”
Celine scrunched up her face. “Older brothers.”
I stepped in as diplomatically as possible. “The Tour doesn’t leave until tomorrow morning. If I get started now, I can modify one of your current outfits to be both comfortable and fashionable if you like.”
“Would you?”
Frederic’s surprise made me chuckle. “That is why you’re bringing me along, remember.”
“Don’t worry, she’s a genius with a needle,” said Celine.
I smiled at them all, but it faltered a little. No pressure, I thought to myself. Needlework was something that had always come easily to me, and I had worked hard over the years to cultivate and extend my skill. But her words still made me nervous, and I appreciated the reminder not to get too comfortable with these strange royals. They might have chosen to adopt me, like a pet or a mascot for their trip, but they would change their minds.
Everyone always did.