Tandem

The queen swept in from the other side of the staircase with a pair of KES agents trailing behind. Though her exterior was unruffled, the queen had to be agitated; the situation was so politically sensitive, there was no way she could be as calm as she seemed. The mere mention of Farnham and its royal family made everyone in the Castle uneasy; even Gloria had been jumpy as she helped me prepare for the meeting. What would it be like when there was a foreign element in their midst? A perverse part of me was looking forward to finding out.

“Let’s get this over with, shall we?” The queen smoothed the gold-trimmed satin sash she wore over her pale blue dress and reached up to give the rather impressive diamond crown on her head a minuscule adjustment. Gloria had given me the choice of many blingy headpieces, but I’d gone the other way, opting for a simple circlet of gold rowan leaves to wear with the beige peplum top and matching skirt she’d dressed me in. “I take no pleasure in marrying you off like this, you know, Juliana. I think it’s a barbaric tradition. I thought we’d done away with it a long time ago.”

I nodded. “I understand.” I wondered if perhaps the queen was against it because her own marriage to the king had been so unconventional. If the king hadn’t been allowed to choose his bride, the queen would still be Evelyn Eaves, a lawyer with the Royal Counsel and not much else.

“I know this is hard for you,” the queen continued. “But you have to believe that it’s for the best. The past is the past, but the future is still worth preserving.”

Before I could respond, the doors of the front entrance to the Castle swung open, and in stepped the most beautiful young man I’d ever seen. To my surprise, this wasn’t the first time I was seeing him; his analog was Will Base, an actor on one of Gina’s favorite television shows. I struggled against an overwhelming starstruck feeling. This was no time to lose my composure.

Callum was shorter than I would’ve imagined, only an inch or two taller than my five-seven. He had a mess of curly brown hair tamed with some kind of gel, big blue eyes and soft, handsome features. He wore a gray three-piece suit with a red pocket square and carried a large black leather notebook in his left hand. The Farnham Royal Guard gathered behind him, their expressions as sober as the ones the KES agents wore.

The queen descended the staircase with me at her heels, alighting in the main foyer with the practiced aloofness of a true royal, while I tried not to stumble in my four-inch suede cobalt heels. “Welcome to the Commonwealth, Your Highness,” she said, extending her hand. Callum bowed his head to kiss it.

“Thank you for having me here, Your Majesty,” he said with a polite smile. He released her hand and she stepped away so that I could greet him. I’d forgotten that this was expected of me; for a moment it was as though I’d slipped out of time and was watching all this play out from a safe distance.

“Hello, Prince Callum,” I said. Gloria had coached me to address him that way, but it still felt strange, calling someone “prince.”

Callum reached out and took my gloved hand, kissing it in the exact same manner he’d kissed the queen’s —polite, but removed. He was wearing a signet ring on the pinky finger of his right hand, a black bird fixed on a red stone. The symbol was familiar to me, but I wasn’t sure where I’d seen it, though the ring itself reminded me a little of the one Thomas wore to signify his active duty in the KES. I resisted an urge to turn back and look at him, focusing instead on the boy in front of me. I had to say something, so I went with, “I like your ring.”

“Oh,” he said, after a strange pause. “It was my father’s. Rick gets the kingdom, I got this.” He meant his brother, Richard, who was heir to the throne and would become king when their mother, Queen Marian, died or stepped aside. Callum was the second of three brothers; the other, Samuel, who went by Sonny, was eleven. I’d learned all this from Gloria.

“I think you got the better part.” I smiled at him, and he smiled back.

“I think I did, too,” he said.

“Do you know what the symbol means?” I asked, struggling to make casual conversation.

His brow furrowed in confusion. “It’s the Farnham phoenix … the one from our flag?”

I should’ve been panicked, but I didn’t have the mental energy to worry about my mistake, because I remembered why I recognized the phoenix. The flag. It came to me in a flash, a red flag with a black bird on it, its wings outstretched, its mouth open in a battle cry, and midnight-colored flames licking its feet. Oh my God, I thought, stunned by the realization.

I knew where Juliana was.

“Well,” I blurted out. “I’m glad you’re here.” Okay, Sasha, calm down, I commanded myself. But it was hard to relax, because what I wanted to do was run off to process what it was I had seen. The dreams weren’t worthless after all. If I could remember seeing the flag, I could remember other things, things that could lead the KES to Juliana. I didn’t know what the General had in mind for when my six days were up, but I was sure that it was something I wouldn’t want to do; this was the leverage I needed to escape it. This was my ticket home.

“Thank you,” Callum said. I could tell my behavior bewildered him, but he was trying hard not to show it. “I—I brought you something. A present.” He glanced behind him, and one of his guards rushed forth with a gift bag, its handles tied together with a silver bow. I accepted it with as much grace and gratitude as I could muster. Because Callum seemed to expect me to open the present immediately, I reached my hand into the bag and pulled out the gift.

“A potato?” That’s what it was, just a regular old potato, like the ones you could buy in the supermarket. Why would Callum give a potato to his fiance? It was literally the most unromantic thing I’d ever heard of, and Gina’s ex-boyfriend, Noah, had once given her a bottle of hand sanitizer for her birthday.

“It’s from one of our state farms in the Mountain region,” Callum said by way of explanation, although it didn’t illuminate the situation much for me. “I assumed you’d never had one before.”

I laughed. “Of course I’ve eaten a potato!” It wasn’t as if they were some sort of delicacy, at least … not on Earth. It dawned on me then that I’d committed a strange, incredible faux pas. I went rigid. After everything I’d been through in Aurora, was a potato going to be the thing to unmask me?

The queen looked at me in shock. “When have you ever eaten a potato, Juliana?”

“I—I’m sure I have.” I couldn’t remember Thomas or Gloria ever mentioning anything about potatoes. I was so stunned, I couldn’t come up with an excuse that sounded halfway believable.

Callum cleared his throat. “Well, you’ve never had one quite like this. You should have your kitchen bake it for you with butter and salt.”

“Okay. I’ll, um, do that,” I mumbled. “Thank you so much. What a thoughtful gift.”

Nobody seemed to know what to do after that. Eventually, the queen took charge, for which I was grateful.

“I’m sure it’s been a long journey for you, Prince Callum,” she said. “This is Agent Bedford.” A tall red-haired man in a suit stepped forward and approached Callum. “He’s with the King’s Elite Service and will be supervising your protection. You can dismiss your men. You won’t be needing their services anymore.”

Callum hesitated. “I was hoping I’d be able to keep my own bodyguard.”

“Unfortunately, it’s against our diplomatic policy,” the queen told him. “But I assure you, the KES is second to none. You can trust them.”

I couldn’t blame Callum for being uncomfortable with this proposition. He’d probably been taught from an early age never to trust anyone from the UCC, just as Thomas and everyone else in the Commonwealth had been raised never to trust anyone from Farnham. Though Callum appeared nice enough, the animosity between the two countries—and between the two royal families—ran deep, deeper than I could possibly ever understand.

But Callum, overpowered by the queen’s insistence, relented. He spoke with the head of his bodyguard in a hushed voice, and they left as silently as they’d entered.

“Wonderful.” The queen was smiling, but I could tell she was ready to be done with this farcical show of international goodwill. “Agent Bedford will accompany you to your rooms and give you your security briefing. Afterward you will have some time to yourself before dinner.”

Callum must’ve found the queen as intimidating as everybody else did, but he found the courage to ask a question. “I’m sorry if this is forward, but when will Juliana and I be able to talk in private?”

“We have some time scheduled for the two of you to get properly acquainted after dinner,” the queen told him, with a calculated, frigid imperiousness that set my teeth on edge. Against all odds, Callum seemed pleased by this, as if the queen had wrapped her arms around him and welcomed him to the family, which meant that he was either very stupid, or had resolved to be a ray of sunshine no matter what the cost—and he didn’t look stupid.