Over the week, a pattern emerged. It was arguably more interesting than the routine she’d fallen into at Ruben’s, but it wasn’t half as enjoyable.

In fact, it was absolutely awful.

Every morning Cherry would wake up to find her fingers intertwined with Ruben’s, no matter how she’d gone to sleep. Every morning she’d open her eyes to see him watching her as if she were something precious. And every morning she’d turn away and pretend it didn’t kill her.

Then he’d go about his day, hopefully spending plenty of time with Lydia, and she’d undergo the complete torture of Magda Jansen’s undivided attention.

On her first full day at the palace, Sophronia had pulled Cherry aside at breakfast to discuss Cherry’s introduction. To society. Which was to say, the ball.

Sophronia’s soft, pink lips had twisted into a sly little smirk as she murmured, “I understand you’re unaccustomed to events of this magnitude, so I have arranged for someone to oversee the preparations.”

Cherry had returned the sly smirk with an open scowl. “What preparations?”

“Why, for your presentation, darling. Your appearance. It is truly a ball, you understand. You’ll need a personal shopper, a stylist—”

“Fine, okay. Whatever.”

A flicker of irritation had crossed Sophronia’s face, like a snake gliding across still waters. “See that you are available and in your quarters around midday. Magda will arrive to discuss the initial arrangements.”

She’d swept away in a swirl of skirts before Cherry could ask who the hell Magda was.

But she found out soon enough.

* * *

Magda Jansen had knocked on Cherry’s door as if she were a giant with fists like dustbin lids. Cherry opened the door to find a diminutive, dark-haired, older woman scowling at her. The woman’s hands, Cherry noticed, were a perfectly ordinary size. Smaller than average, even. How she’d managed to make such a racket without bruising her damn knuckles, Cherry had no idea.

“You?” Magda barked. Her accent was more pronounced than Ruben’s, or Hans’s, or even Agathe’s. “You are my canvas?”

Cherry arched a brow. “I’m Cherry Neita. Person. Not canvas.”

Magda snorted. Then she muttered something in Danish that sounded slightly venomous and pushed her way into the room.

Magda and Cherry, suffice it to say, did not get on.

Over the following days, Cherry became familiar with the sort of misery she’d never experienced before.

During the day, Magda picked her apart piece by piece, all in the name of putting her back together again, somehow better than before. Demi and Hans’s absence continued—though, every so often, she thought she caught sight of a huge, scowling man marching along the corridors like a giant toy soldier.

But the worst part was Ruben.

They shared a space. They shared a room. They shared a bed. They shared a plan.

And absolutely nothing else.

She had done this. She’d wanted a wall between them; she’d wanted to regain control of a situation that had been spiralling beyond her understanding, beyond her power. And every time she thought back to the way he’d looked at her, the horror in his voice on that fateful night, the fact that he couldn’t even bear her touch, she felt the hurt all over again.

But now her time spent in this gilded house of fucking horrors had added another dimension to her perspective.

She remembered what he’d said to her—I can’t bear the idea of children. And she started to think about why that might be.

She wanted to ask him about it. She wanted to hear his explanations, now that the sting of rejection and her own damned pride weren’t ruling her thoughts. She wanted, more than anything, to forgive him.

But clearly pride was still playing a part in her emotions, because she couldn’t bring herself to start that conversation. She couldn’t bring herself to make the first move. And he, respecting her wishes, did exactly as she’d asked. He kept his distance. Even when they lay together in the dark with nothing between them but her own damn stubbornness.

* * *

The day before the ball, Cherry’s worry was almost suffocating. Somewhere in this palace was a woman trapped in an impossible situation, afraid for herself and her children…

And Cherry sat in a chair, in front of a thousand bright lights, having her makeup done and her hair pulled at by a group of strangers.

Magda hovered around the transformed parlour, rifling through racks of elaborate gowns, all of which seemed to be in shades of grey or lavender. A tall, slender man stood beside Magda, towering over her tiny frame, and the two chattered away in Danish, gesturing wildly between the dresses and Cherry.

They were probably discussing the fact that the gown she was currently wearing—or rather, had been stuffed into—wouldn’t zip up. At all. Not even close.

Cherry didn’t mind. It was pretty fucking ugly.

She flinched as the girl doing her makeup jabbed at her eye with a mascara wand. “Ow!”

“Stop looking all over the place. Eyes over here, over there, bah. Look up,” the girl said sharply. “Up.”

This was the fourth makeup trial they’d done that week. If Cherry was told to look up one more fucking time, she’d throw herself out the damn window.

Especially since she knew that, just like the last three times, her foundation would be caked on and ashy as hell. Apparently, Helgmøre didn’t carry foundation darker than a paper bag.

Well. Either that, or the makeup artist—whose name Cherry still couldn’t remember—was absolutely awful at her job.

“Alright,” announced a strident voice from behind her. The hair stylist. Ana, her name might be. “I know what we will do. We will, make it, ah… glatte.”

Magda broke off from her conversation to nod approvingly. “Ja, ja. Good. And then a nice, ah…” She waved her hand around the back of her head. “Like this?”

“Oh, yes,” Ana said. “Beautiful, yes.”

Well. Cherry was glad that Ana and Magda were on the same page, but it would help if she had some idea what fucking book they were reading.

“What do you mean glatte? What does that mean?” She twisted around in her seat, looking back at the hair stylist.

The makeup artist tsked in irritation. “Come here! Look up!”

Cherry ignored her. It was either that, or say something very impolite.

Ana was bent over her little trolley, filled with mysterious hair products. She looked up at Cherry with a smile as she produced a straightening iron. “With this,” she said helpfully. “Stijltang.”

Cherry recoiled.

The makeup girl threw up her hands and spat, “For fanden! Come here!”

“No.” Cherry stood up, clutching the bodice of her unzipped dress. “Nooo way. You’re not straightening my hair.”

Ana looked at her with obvious alarm. “It’s okay. It does not, ah… hurt?”

“I know it doesn’t bloody hurt!” Cherry snapped. “I haven’t straightened my hair since I was a damn teenager and I don’t intend to now. Do you know how long it took to grow out all that heat damage? Good Lord.” She clutched at her curls as if to check they were still there, springy and coarse and bouncing against her hand. “No. Hard no. Jesus Christ, what am I even doing here?”

It felt like someone had dashed a glass of ice water into her face. She turned to look at Magda, the little woman staring at her with a lingering distaste that, just five minutes ago, Cherry had been content to ignore. She didn’t want to make a fuss. She didn’t want to make any of this harder than it already was.

But she’d be damned if she was going to let some rude, tiny tyrant send her to a ball looking like a caricature of herself.

“Magda,” she said, drawing herself up to her full height. Being tall really came in handy at times like these. “I don’t like the direction we’re taking. I want to try something new.” Magda’s face was pinched and sour. Clearly, this speech was not going down well. But really, a woman had to have standards. “I want to try a new stylist. And a new makeup artist. A new everything, really.”

Magda squinted up at her. “No.”

“No?” Cherry frowned. “What the hell do you mean no?”

“I mean what I said, Miss Neita. You have no idea what is expected of you in terms of appearance, and I do.”

Cherry cast a speaking glance at the racks of subdued, too-small dresses. “I’m expected to show up looking like a Victorian widow? Without the corset?”

Magda swept a look over Cherry’s body. “I thought it best if we drew attention away from your body type.”

Cherry stiffened. Her patience, already worn thin by the events of the week, was in serious danger of snapping. The consequences, at this stage, could be fatal. If shoving Ana’s straightening iron up Magda’s arse constituted fatal.

“You know what?” She said tightly, forcing herself to remain calm. “I don’t have to listen to you. You effectively work for me.”

Magda arched a brow. “I work for the crown,” she clipped out. “And I don’t think your future husband wants you to embarrass him at the ball. Do you?”

Her future husband?! Cherry opened her mouth to ask who the fuck cared what Ruben thought—but then she realised the implication of the other woman’s tone, the mistaken belief she was clearly labouring under. And she felt herself smile. “Alright,” she said. “Why don’t we ask him, then?”

Magda’s nostrils flared, her jaw set. “Fine. We will.”

And so Cherry stormed out of her private quarters, holding an ugly, grey dress up over her chest, with a tiny harridan bringing up the rear. She had no idea where Ruben was, but thankfully asking a nearby footman—yes, they really had bloody footmen—yielded quick results.

Five minutes later, they arrived at Ruben’s makeshift office in a swirl of too-short skirts and competing outrage.

Ruben looked up from his desk, his face drawn and tired. For a second, Cherry forgot the reason she’d sought him out. She wanted to go over and massage his shoulders or kiss his forehead or something equally sickening.

Then he rubbed a hand over his face and blinked his tired frown away, looking handsome as always, if a bit subdued. “Cherry. Magda. Is everything alright?”

“Certainly not, Your Highness,” Magda said, before Cherry could get a word in edgeways. “Your betrothed is being most difficult—“

Cherry bristled. “I’m being difficult? I sat through your bullshit for days—“

“Your Highness, you know I have extensive experience with—“

“She wants to straighten my hair!”

Ruben held up a hand, cutting them both off. “Hold on. Who’s straightening whose hair?”

Cherry folded her arms. “She wants. To straighten. My hair. So I told her to piss off.”

Magda sucked in an outraged breath. Ruben’s lips twitched, just for a second, before they flattened out into a bland line.

He picked up one of the papers strewn across his desk and said, “I fail to see the problem.”

Cherry’s heart dropped. Then her temper rose. That fucking—

“It’s Cherry’s hair. If she doesn’t want it straightened, that’s that.”

Oh. Cherry unfolded her arms, then grabbed at the front of her dress as it threatened to slide down. She resisted the immature urge to stick her tongue out at Magda. “And another thing! I want different dresses to choose from.”

Ruben shrugged. “Why are you asking me? You know you can have whatever you want.”

“Magda apparently doesn’t trust my judgement.”

Ruben’s dark gaze pinned Magda with such ferocity, she was surprised the other woman didn’t flinch. “You don’t need to micro-manage my fiancée, Magda. I assure you. Cherry knows how to look good.”

Well. Though it galled her to be there at all, asking Ruben about her damn dresses as if he were her keeper, Cherry decided to press her advantage. “I want a black makeup artist.”

“What?!” Magda shrieked. “How am I supposed to find a new makeup artist in a day? Never mind a…”

Ruben looked up. “They’re not unicorns, Magda. You’re usually very good at your job. Don’t disappoint me now.”

Magda’s tiny nostrils flared like a panting horse’s. But she stretched her thin lips into a smile and said, “Of course, Your Highness. I apologise.”

Ruben gave her a bland look. “I don’t think you need to apologise to me.”

Cherry could almost feel Magda’s fury, radiating from her body in waves. But still, the little woman turned stiffly to Cherry and bowed her head. “I am very sorry if I made you at all uncomfortable with my behaviour, Miss Neita. I will endeavour to meet your needs more fully from now on.”

Cherry blinked. At least the woman knew how to apologise. “That’s okay,” she said. “Perhaps we could start over.”

Magda nodded sharply. “I would appreciate that. With your permission, Your Highness, I will see about make the necessary rearrangements…”

“Of course,” Ruben nodded.

Magda left, but Cherry trailed behind, because she was pathetic. Because she was hoping that he’d do something or say something to cross the growing distance between them.

But the silence stretched out as she walked away, and he didn’t call her back. Of course he didn’t. Cherry stood on the threshold, forced herself to grab the ridiculous crystal doorknob—

“Shut the door.”