There are ways that could have gone worse. I could have been wearing cutoff jean shorts and stripper heels. There could have been two handsome, sexy, suit-wearing princes.

Someone could have dumped an entire bottle of cheap cologne on me before I got off the train. I could have accidentally said something like your mother is a famous giraffe-fucker.

See? Plenty of ways to make a worse first impression than the one I actually made.

I sit in the rear-facing seat and squeeze my knees together, trying to be as demure as humanly possible while wearing spandex. Polite as they were, it doesn’t take a genius to realize that the Svelorian Royal Family doesn’t really approve of being met by someone wearing a sweatshirt and pants with an elastic waistband.

Plus, it turns out that pictures don’t do Prince Konstantin justice. Not even close. He’s hot in pictures, yeah, but way hotter in person.

Pictures don’t get across just how tall and built he is. They don’t properly communicate that when you’re in front of him, and he’s sexily glaring at you, you feel like an insect pinned to a board, but in a good way.

I’m still amazed I remembered what to say to him. For a second there I wasn’t sure I could even manage hi, which is ridiculous.

I’ve met attractive men before, for fuck’s sake. I’ve met some really attractive men, and I’ve never had this reaction.

The limo door darkens again and the prince climbs in, hesitating for a moment.

Not next to me, I think. I smell like weird coffee and those Ukrainian cigarettes they sold on the train and stranger sweat and God only knows what. Please sit somewhere else. Please.

My heart thuds against my ribcage. I clamp my arms to my sides like I can seal the odor into my armpits.

Konstantin sits across from me, settles himself, and looks at me again. I feel pinned, but less than the first time, and a tiny bit disappointed that he didn’t sit next to me, despite my Eau de Thirteen Hours On A Train.

“Did you have a good trip?” he asks.

His English is perfect, and he barely even has an accent. That was in the brief, of course, but I’m relieved all the same that I won’t be spending a month trying to overcome a language barrier.

“Yes,” I say. “Beautiful and uneventful, just the way travel should be.”

I’ve set U.S.-Svelorian relations back enough already without telling everyone about my passport debacle.

“The ride from Kiev is quite lovely, if long,” he says, his face still stony.

My dad gets in and sits next to me, and the limo starts moving.

“I started feeling like cattle after about eight hours,” I say. “And, judging by the smell, I think the guy across from me was smuggling goats in his luggage.”

I smile at the prince, waiting for him to laugh politely. He frowns. Now the king and queen are also looking at me, and it’s very, very clear that my stupid joke didn’t land.

“I would love to take that ride someday,” my mom says, saving my ass. “Without the goats, naturally, but it’s supposed to be the best way to see some parts of the Black Sea coast that are difficult to reach otherwise.”

I take a deep breath. I’m tired and more than a little loopy. My dad pats my knee affectionately.

“Glad you made it, Freckles,” he says quietly. “Goat smells and all.”

I wrinkle my nose but laugh anyway.

“I wish that was everything,” I say.

He raises his eyebrows.

“Later,” I say.

Prince Konstantin is still glaring at me, his wide shoulders squared, his spine very straight, his hands clasped in front of him. I smile just a little, out of nervous habit, and he doesn’t return it.

Okay then. Guess we won’t be friends after all.

I give up and pay attention to the conversation my mom is having with the king and queen.

At least one of us is in her element right now, I think.

* * *

The castle is massive and beautiful. Even in person it looks like something that’s been put together by the Svelorian Tourism Committee: stone turrets, towers, and ramparts, all perched on a cliff overlooking a white sand beach that stretches down to the perfect, blue waters of the Black Sea.

If you told a kid draw me a castle, they’d draw something like the Summer Palace. It’s not the first castle I’ve stayed in — my mom’s a diplomat, after all — but it’s definitely the most castle-like.

My parents and I have a whole wing to ourselves, in two towers at either end of a hallway, and both of our suites are glorious. I’ve got a giant four-poster bed facing tall, iron-framed windows. Outside there’s a balcony that’s more like a patio, complete with an outdoor sitting area.

Inside the bedroom is another sitting area, complete with a big TV, two couches, and a miniature kitchen. A quiet, solemn man carries my bag for me and ceremoniously places it on a luggage rack, nods once at me, and leaves.

“This is nice,” I say to my parents. “How did any of this survive the Soviet occupation?”

“It was a backwater,” my mom says. “If this had been closer to Moscow, or strategically important, it wouldn’t have. Sveloria is lucky it didn’t find out that it had oil until the late nineties.”

Some backwater, I think.

“Try to enjoy yourself,” my dad says, smiling at me.

“I had most of your clothes shipped over from Boston,” my mom says. “They’re in the closet, along with some other things I took the liberty of getting you.”

She glances at my outfit again, and I cross my arms in front of myself.

“You don’t think I impressed them?” I ask. “Oversized sweatshirts are the thing right now in Paris, you know.”

My mom just laughs.

“Svelorians are very serious,” she says. “It takes some getting used to, but underneath, they’re very kind, warm people.”

“Way, way underneath,” my dad says, adjusting his glasses. “But that’s why they’ve got vodka. So they can smile sometimes.”

“Tom, stop it,” my mother says, playfully.

He shrugs, smiling.

“I’ll let you unpack and get some rest, sweetheart, but come to our suite an hour before dinner. We want to hear everything, and we’ve got a bottle of the finest South Svelorian wine.”

I raise my eyebrows.

“Is it good wine?” I ask.

“It’s wine,” my father says evenly.

I laugh. They both hug me again, tightly.

“I’m glad you’re here,” my mom says, still squeezing me. “I know you’ve had a rough year.”

Yeah, I think.

My dad hugs me too, and then they leave and shut the big wooden door behind them.

I set my alarm, then get in bed without even washing my face.

* * *

After a long, deep nap I shower, do my hair, and venture into my closet. A tiny portion of it is taken up by the clothes I left at my parents’ house after my fiasco this spring, but most of it I’ve never seen before. Hell, most still has the tags on it, and I wade through it piece by piece.

There’s a couple designer things, but it’s mostly nice-but-normal clothes. Lots of J. Crew and Banana Republic, the kind of thing a diplomat’s daughter should be wearing when visiting foreign royals. It’s a good thing that my mom picked all these out, because I’m clueless about this stuff.

Still wearing a towel, I pick out a V-neck black cocktail dress. Miraculously, there are bras and panties in a drawer, and they even fit. Thirty seconds later I’ve gone from towel-wearing mess to perfectly respectable, and I look in the mirror and take a deep breath.

Definitely better, I think.

Then I put on a pair of black heels, touch up my eyeliner, and head for my parents’ suite. They’re both in their sitting area, drinking glasses of red wine and looking ready for a formal dinner.

When my mom sees me, she sighs and crooks one finger at me. I try not to laugh as I walk over. She reaches up, beneath my hair, and pulls a price tag off my dress.

“Thanks,” I say.

They pour me a glass, and I take a seat on a velvet couch.

“Tell us everything,” my mom says. “Start at the beginning.”

I tell them about the past two months of backpacking across Europe: London, Dublin, Paris, Amsterdam, and Copenhagen. I met a friend there and drove through to Switzerland, then through the Alps to Italy, where she immediately met a Florentine man and decided to go to Capri with him.

After Italy, I traveled the Adriatic coast. I meant to go to Istanbul but that train was sold out, so I went to Vienna instead, then Prague and Berlin before it was time to head east. I went through Poland, the Ukraine, and finally to Kiev and then here.

I stayed in hostels and cheap hotels, for the most part, though I did spring for a room with its own bathroom a couple of times. I slept on a lot of trains and busses. I asked a lot of strangers for help or directions and I tried to do it in the local language, though most people answered in English.

Most of the time, I was alone. I went on the trip alone, and I traveled with other people sometimes, but I was mostly by myself, and I loved it. When you travel alone, there’s no one else to hurry you along or make you stay behind somewhere. There’s no one to say haven’t we eaten enough gelato? or I don’t really want to see the catacombs, or let’s just hang out in the hotel room today.

There’s also no one to help carry things or walk next to you when it’s three in the morning and your train just got in, but I thought the tradeoffs were worth it.

“Then I got on a train, and now I’m here,” I finish, shrugging. “Ta-da.”

“Goat smells and all,” my mom says, teasing me.

“I showered,” I say, laughing.

“I’m glad we could convince you to visit this terrible place,” she says.

“You did have to blackmail me,” I say.

My mom sighs good-naturedly.

“Hazel, I told you,” she says. “This was bribery. Blackmail would be if I said visit us in Sveloria or I’ll post your old diaries on the internet.”

“Do you still have those?” I ask, tipping back the last of my wine.

“Refuse to visit us sometime and find out,” she says, and stands. “Ready to make a better second impression?”

“You tell me,” I say, and turn slowly for her inspection.

“Yes,” she says. “Come on, let’s salvage this diplomatic mission.”

“When the inevitable conflict starts, they’ll call it the Spandex War,” I say, dryly. “Future historians will debate what might have happened had I gotten your texts in time to change clothes this morning.”

“Get moving,” my dad says. “You can be late or you can be a smartass, but you can’t be both.”

I stick my tongue out at him. He laughs, and we leave the suite.