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“Calm down! We’re just going to Rosenhäuschen.” Andi leans back, pulling her massive sunglasses from her face.
Lina pushes me back in my seat so she can see Andi. “What’s Rosenhäuschen?”
“It’s the official family home on the palace grounds. We don’t live there.” She waves her sunglasses at the window. “Well, at least I don’t. Tori and Teo both have apartments, but mostly it’s just an empty showplace. But it’s convenient for this kind of thing. Mareike and Henrik have set up their studio there.”
“Studio?” Lina squeaks.
“You’ll see.” Andi puts her sunglasses back on, but they don’t hide her smug smile.
The car stops outside the gates at the back of the palace. I only recognize it because we left this way after Eduard’s impromptu movie night. I wave at the guards, but they don’t react—probably only partly because they can’t see us through the darkened windows. After a short pause, the car moves forward, purring down the long driveway. At the top of a small rise, we turn left, wind through a few leafless trees, then stop. The front doors open and close, then Andi’s door swings wide.
“Thanks, Celeste. I won’t need you for the rest of the day.” Andi flings the words over her shoulder as she strides up the shallow steps to a neoclassical mansion. The door swings open before she reaches it, and Andi disappears through the big doors.
After a quick gawk at the building’s impressive exterior, I follow the other two women inside.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
EVA
Every princess movie I’ve ever seen has both prepared me for this day and completely let me down.
When we arrived, Andi handed her coat off to a woman wearing black. “Give your coats to Olive. You won’t need them until tomorrow.”
“Won’t we need them to get to the palace?” Lina slides her wool coat over her cast and hands it to the woman. “I mean, it only takes a few minutes to walk over there, but it’s supposed to be minus two tonight. We’ll freeze.”
“Minus two?” I choke. “Oh, Celsius. That’s barely freezing.”
Andi smirks as she waits at the base of the elegant stairway. “We won’t be walking. You should see the shoes I’ll be wearing—there’s no way I’m crossing the lawn in those.” As soon as I hand off my coat, Andi leads the way up the steps.
At the top, she flicks her hand at the balcony, then crosses to the next flight. “This is Tori’s floor.”
Tori has a whole floor? Wow.
At the top of the next set of steps, Andi turns right. “These rooms don’t belong to anyone, so we’re using them today.” She points over her shoulder. “Teo’s is back that way.”
Teo. My heart jumps a little at his name. This is his home. Along with the excitement of seeing him is the crushing belief I would never feel comfortable living in a house like this. He may be blind to the glamor, but for me it feels like living in Versailles. Or Buckingham Palace.
I guess those are not far from the truth.
Andi flings open a door and marches into a large room with an enormously high ceiling and tall windows. Light streams in, glinting off the rows of racks filling the huge space. Dozens—maybe hundreds—of dresses in all the colors of the rainbow and a few nature surely never thought of. Sunlight picks out golden threads here, shiny satin there, glittering rhinestones on the dressing table.
I take a second look at the jewels laid out on the antique side table and swallow hard. Maybe they aren’t rhinestones. “Those are crowns.”
“Of course. I’m a princess, remember.” Andi winks outrageously. “Don’t worry, those aren’t the crown jewels. They’re costume jewelry. Fakes. Good fakes, but fakes nonetheless. The real ones are locked up. I’ll be wearing some tonight.” She smiles smugly.
Lina takes a single step toward the brilliant jewels. “Then who are these for?”
Andi shakes her head and laughs. “You, of course! My friends need to look amazing, too! And at a royal ball, that means tiaras.”
Lina squeals, her eyes bulging as if they’re going to pop out of her face. With a sob, she throws herself at Andi, crushing the other girl in a hug. “Best. Day. Ever!” She pulls back, releasing the princess as quickly as she grabbed her. “Can I take pictures?”
“Sure.”
“And post them?”
“Why not?” Andi looks in the mirror and pats her green hair. “The duchess is already going to explode when she sees this. If she hasn’t already. May as well break the edicts on social media.”
Lina stops snapping photos. “I don’t want to get you in trouble.”
