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“Sure.” He has me shuffle this way and that to frame it perfectly, then snaps a couple of shots. “Done. We should probably get going. Are you staying in the dorms or with a host family?”
“Family.” I walk with him back to the parked car. “I thought about the dorms, but I want to be forced to speak German.”
He nods. “Best way to learn it. But most people here are pretty fluent in English, so you’ll have to insist they speak Deutsch. We have our own dialect, so there will be some discrepancies, unless you’re speaking Hochdeutsch. They’ll use that in the Universität. They want you to learn it ‘right.’”
I pause beside the passenger door, peering in at our friend lolling against the window. “Has Hans been here before? He seems pretty unexcited at our arrival.”
“He’s been to Germany many times of course. And he visited me here a couple of years back.” He knocks sharply on the window. Hans jerks upright with a yelp audible through the thick glass. He glares and shakes his fist at Teo in mock anger, mouthing something unintelligible. Teo snickers and opens my door.
Ten minutes later, we pull up to a tall white house in the Schöne Aussicht neighborhood outside the city walls. The building appears to be a duplex. Each half has a single-car garage, a translucent glass door in the middle, and a high, horizontal slit window near the shared wall. The two halves are offset, with the left house sitting a couple of meters farther from the road. There’s little front yard—most of the houses stand very close to the sidewalk along the street.
Teo pulls my bags from the trunk and drags the larger one to the door on the right. He reaches for the buzzer, then pauses and looks at his watch. “I’m going to have to drop you and run. I have an… appointment. And I have to take Hans to the Universität. Sorry.”
“No, it’s fine. You rescued me from the airport rent-a-cops, and you drove me here. I was expecting to have to find the train on my own. Thank you for the ride.” I resist the urge to hug him again, since I know he doesn’t like it, and put out a hand instead.
He shakes gravely. “For the record, those were the German federal police, not rent-a-cops.” At my gasp, he bumps his shoulder against mine. “It’s fine. You escaped. I’ll see you soon, I’m sure.”
“Cool. I’ll text you my new number as soon as I get my SIM installed.” I’d intended to get my phone set up with the European service before I left the airport, since I’d need it for maps and contacting my host family, but Teo’s intervention made that unnecessary. Plus, I forgot. I swallow a lump of dismay and wave as he pulls away from the curb. Then I press the button beside a round speaker grill.
“Ja?”
I bite my lip. My host family isn’t actually expecting me for a couple of hours. What if they aren’t ready for me? Germans are notorious for their punctuality. Does that extend to Freibergers, too? And is being two hours early an unacceptable faux pas? I marshal my mediocre German and introduce myself. “I am Eva, your new student. I’m sorry I am early. Is that okay?”
At least I hope that’s what I said. I have the sneaking suspicion I just asked if I could sell them a used school.
“Eva! You’re early, but it’s not a problem. I’ll be right down.” The voice speaks English with an accent I don’t quite recognize. A mix of British and German and something else.
A loud buzz makes me jump, then something goes “chunk.” I reach a tentative hand to the long vertical handle on the frame of the glass door and push gently. The door swings easily, revealing a wide, tiled hallway. A brass stand beside the door holds brightly colored umbrellas, and coats hang from hooks along the right wall. A door beyond the coats probably leads to the garage. Another door opposite must go to the room with the high window. At the end of the short hall, daylight shines down on the bottom of a stairway beside two more closed doors.
Footsteps clatter, and a woman with purplish-red hair in a messy bun appears. She’s wearing jeans and a Def Leppard T-shirt. “Eva, come in! I’m Renate. Welcome to Freiberg.” She drags my larger suitcase into the house, then points to a bench and asks me to remove my shoes.
I leave them on a rack beneath the stairs, then we start up the tile steps, crossing a wide landing and doubling back to reach the next floor. I catch a glimpse of a dining table and kitchen before heading up the next flight. The floor above has an open railing that looks down at the dining room and four closed doors.
Renate points at one of the rooms in the back. “You’re in here.” She pushes open a door and pulls the larger suitcase into a sunlit room with a sloped ceiling. She’s not even breathing hard, while I’m huffing like I’ve just run a marathon. She smiles sympathetically. “We’re at altitude here. Fifteen hundred meters. You’ll get used to it.”
A thick, pillow-like blanket with pink and yellow flowers covers a twin bed. A matching pillow folded into a triangle sits on top. A tall wardrobe painted white sits in one corner, and a skylight fills a good section of the ceiling. It’s open, the glass pane sticking out like an awning from the top of the window frame. “This was my daughter’s room—she’s got her own place now.” She deposits the case at the end of the bed, then fluffs and refolds the pillow.
“I like it.” I move across the room to look out the window. “I can see the castle from here!” The house is tall enough that the view from this floor is not obstructed by the houses beyond us or the city wall.
Renate smiles. “Nixie loved that view, too. She threatens to come home sometimes, but her husband would not be happy about that.” She turns toward the door, then pivots back to me. “The bathroom is across the way, beside my room. We all share. The other room belongs to Lina—she’s also an exchange student. She’s out right now, but she’ll be home soon. Dinner is at six. We can go over the—I won’t say rules. Let’s call them ‘expectations’—while we eat. Make yourself at home.” She eases the door shut as she leaves.
I drop onto the bed, exhausted by her energy. It takes a few minutes to get my phone working, then I log into Discord and send my new phone number to my dad. There are a couple more messages from him, but he only found one additional prank—the sugar in the saltshaker.
I snicker a little and send a few emojis. I can’t wait until he discovers the modifications I made to his phone.
Chapter Six
TEO
I feel bad abandoning Eva on the doorstep, but it suddenly occurred to me her host family might recognize me. Although our parents have tried to shield us from the media, our identities are not secret. Freibergers don’t glamorize the royal family as much as some European countries, perhaps because the population is so small. Being a junior royal of a city-state is kind of like being the child of a movie star or sports figure in the US. People know who we are, and some might try to curry favor, but most of them let us live our lives.
It’s not that I want to keep my identity a secret from Eva. She’s bound to find out sooner rather than later. But I want to tell her myself. In Rotheberg, we’ve always been known as the Feltz family—the people who own the ornament company. Vati was selling ornaments there before he met my mother, and no one knows much about our lives at home. Including my mother’s relationship to the Grand Duchess.
I just need to find a good time to broach the subject with Eva. The drive to Freiberg, when she was clearly jet-lagged, didn’t seem right. But I don’t want it sprung on her when some random person recognizes me.
I drive across town and under the arched Osttor, or East Gate, into the walled town. The massive car seems to fill the narrow streets, but I’ve been driving here as long as I’ve had a license. I find the university and park in a spot reserved for one of the administrators. At this time of day, they’ve probably already left. Besides, most of the parking places are unused—we have excellent public transportation.
And one advantage of driving Grandfather’s car—the Universitätspolizei know it. No one will dare ticket me.
