Tandem

Callum’s face brightened immediately upon the sight of the water. “So that’s the ocean.”

“It is indeed.” We were standing at the border of Asthall’s sprawling lawn, which was separated from the beach by nothing but a stone retaining wall. I curled my toes in the grass. It felt so good to be away from the Castle, to be barefoot and wild-haired at the edge of the sea. A strong breeze pressed Callum’s linen shirt flat against his chest, making it cling to him, a sight I had a hard time looking away from. We’d been forced to send an attendant to buy Callum some clothes in town, once Gloria realized he’d done a terrible job packing for himself.

“It’s so … big.” He laughed at himself. “That sounded dumb.”

Sometimes I forget how big everything is. I couldn’t help but hear Thomas’s voice in my head. I hadn’t seen him since we’d arrived at Asthall; he was keeping his distance, though I had no doubt he was watching me very carefully after last night’s attack. I was glad not to have to deal with him and Callum at once, but I had to admit to myself that I missed him. Not him, but the comforting familiarity of his presence, the way it had been before.

“It’s not dumb at all,” I told Callum. “Well, what are you waiting for? Go for it.”

Callum grinned at me and took off. He plunged feetfirst into the waves, then immediately hopped out. “It’s cold!” he cried. “Why didn’t you warn me it would be so cold?”

“Because it’s more fun this way!” I called back. I ran down the beach to join him, stopping just short of the water.

“Get in here!” he coaxed. I dipped a single toe in just to test it. It was freezing.

He kicked at the water, splashing me, and I shrank from the spray with a laugh. “Hey, stop! I’m getting married in a few days, I can’t risk hypothermia.”

Callum went back in. “It’s warming up.” He shivered, his teeth chattering.

“Yes, I can see that.” His enthusiasm was catching. Eventually, we got used to the temperature, and we played around in the ocean like children until we were exhausted. Then we trudged up the beach and flopped down on our backs.

“Ugh,” Callum said, fidgeting. “I think I’ve got sand down my shorts.”

“You were the one who wanted to come to the beach.” There was no point in mentioning the circumstances that had brought us both to Asthall. Neither of us could forget if we tried.

Callum sighed contentedly. “I want to spend every minute of every day here. Let’s not go back, okay?”

“Okay,” I agreed. “But who’s going to tell the queen?”

“Not me! She already hates me.”

I stared up at the sky, where a parade of clouds rolled along like tumbleweeds made of cotton balls. “It’s a shame you were never allowed to do things like this back in Farnham. I hear the California coast is amazing.”

“Yeah, well.” Callum buried his fingers in the sand up to his knuckles. “Mother was trying to protect me.”

“From what? Jellyfish?”

“I don’t know. She never really said.” Callum turned his head to look at me. “But you can’t really protect people from anything, can you?”

“Says the boy who showed up at my door with an armed escort.”

“Not like that. You know what I mean. Experience. You can’t keep people from getting their hearts broken.”

“You think your mother wouldn’t let you see the ocean because it might break your heart?”

“No.” Callum sighed. “If there’s anything I learned from my mother, it’s that power makes you just as vulnerable as it makes you strong. People want to use you for it, or take it from you, all the time. She doesn’t want that to happen to us. She doesn’t want my brothers and me to trust people, only to have them turn on us.”

“I can understand that,” I said. The real Juliana knew the feeling quite well, if Thomas and Gloria were to be believed. Was that what was happening between Callum and me? Was I fooling him into trusting me, only to leave him in the end? Maybe so, but what choice did I have?

We were quiet for a while, the breaking of the waves upon the beach the only sound.

“Tell me a secret,” Callum requested.

“You tell me a secret.”

“I asked first.”

“I will if you will,” I said. I was stalling. I couldn’t think of a single secret I was at liberty to tell him.

“Okay,” he said. “Here’s my secret: I actually fell in love with you back when I was ten.”

“What? Are you serious?”

“I saw your picture on one of the press boards. It was of you and your father, I think, at some state dinner. You were wearing a blue dress and your hair was all curled.”

“I don’t remember that,” I said.

“Well, I do,” Callum said. “And I turned to my mother and said, ‘I’m going to marry that girl someday!’ I didn’t know what marriage was, really, but kids get funny ideas in their heads and they run with them.”

“What did she say?”

“Oh, typical Mother. She said, ‘You can’t marry her, she’s our enemy.’ About a little girl! When she told me about, you know, this whole arranged marriage thing, I reminded her of that. She yelled and sent me away.” He sat up, brushing sand off his hands. “Okay, your turn. What’s your secret?”

I thought about it for a second. “I think the king is trying to tell me something.”

“Your father?”

“Yeah. Those things he keeps saying. I’m starting to wonder if he’s not trying to communicate with me in some way. He doesn’t say that stuff to anybody else.”

“Then let’s figure it out,” Callum said without hesitation.

“What do you mean?”

“Let’s see if we can’t find a pattern. He said ‘touch and go,’ I remember that.” He picked up a stick and wrote TOUCH AND GO in the sand in a messy, boyish scrawl. “What else?”

“Um, okay, let’s see. ‘Mirror, mirror.’ He says that sometimes. And … one, one, two, three, five, eight.”

“The same numbers over and over?”

I nodded. “It’s the beginning of the Fibonacci sequence.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s this series of numbers that forms a pattern,” I explained. “Each number is the sum of the two numbers before it. One and one is two, one and two is three …”

“Two and three is five, three and five is eight,” Callum finished. “Got it.”

“And so on, infinitely,” I said. “But he only repeats those six numbers—one, one, two, three, five, eight.”

“What’s so special about the Fibonacci sequence?”

“It can be applied to all kinds of different things. Analysis of financial markets, computer algorithms. They occur in nature, too, in tree branches and flower petals and stuff. They’re sort of like magic numbers.”

“Magic numbers,” Callum murmured. “Sounds promising. Anything else?”

“Yes! ‘Angel eyes.’ He says ‘angel eyes.’ ”

“I remember. I thought that was his nickname for you.”

I shook my head. “It’s not.”

“Angel eyes; mirror, mirror; touch and go; and the numerical sequence one, one, two, three, five, eight.” Callum rubbed his eyes. “It definitely seems random.”

“It does,” I agreed. “But I don’t know that it is.”

“What could he be trying to tell you?”

I glanced out at the horizon. “I have no idea.”

Then Callum did something completely unexpected; he leaned forward and kissed me.

I was so surprised that I didn’t move. All I could think about was Thomas; his face loomed in front of me, the way he’d looked on prom night when he was jumping around on the dance floor. In an attempt to shove away this memory, which hurt more than I wanted to admit, I kissed Callum back, my thoughts racing. Callum placed his