‘London?’ Hector asked and she nodded.
‘The university prospectus. London is where my parents met and worked, although we lived just outside, in a little village. I always promised myself I would go back as soon as I was old enough. Applying to university is just the first step.’ She slipped the envelope into her backpack. ‘Thank you again.’
‘I also have this for you.’ With a flourish he produced a large cupcake, extravagantly iced in silver and white. ‘There’s no candle. The fire alarms, you know. But Maya told me to tell you to make a wish anyway.’
‘Oh, Hector.’ Amber hated crying but she could feel hot, heavy tears gathering in her eyes. ‘This is so kind of you and Maya. Give her my love.’
‘Come see us again soon; she has a new recipe she wants to teach you.’ Hector cast an anxious look up at the huge clock which dominated the vestibule. ‘Your grandmother will be calling down soon; you’d better go. And Amber? Happy Birthday.’
The lift—Amber refused to say elevator, clinging onto her English accent and vocabulary as stubbornly as she could—was waiting and she tapped in the code which would take her up to the penthouse, nibbling her cake as the doors slid shut and the lift started its journey.
The doors opened straight into the penthouse hallway. Usually Amber could barely put a toe onto the parquet floor before her grandmother querulously summoned her to quiz her about her day and criticise her appearance, her posture, her attitude, her ingratitude. Amber steeled herself, ready for the interrogation, the brown envelope, safely stored in her bag, a shield against every poisonous word. But today there was no summons and Amber, half a cake still clutched in her hand, managed to make it to her bedroom undisturbed, slipping her backpack onto the floor, taking out the envelope and concealing it, still unopened, at the back of her wardrobe. She’d look at it later tonight, when her grandmother was asleep.
Sitting back on her heels, Amber checked to make sure there was no hint of the envelope visible through her clothes and then clambered up, her feet sinking into the deep pile pink carpet. Her whole room was sumptuously decorated in bright pinks and cream which clashed horribly with her auburn hair and made her pale skin look even paler. But she had as little choice in the decor as she did about her schooling, wardrobe and pastimes.
Wriggling out of the hated blazer and kilt, she slipped on a simple blue dress, brushing out her plaits and tucking her mass of hair into a loose bundle before heading out to find her grandmother. The silence was so unusual that she couldn’t help feeling a little apprehensive. For one moment she wondered if her grandmother had planned a birthday surprise, before pushing the ludicrous idea away. Her grandmother didn’t do either birthdays or surprises.
Padding along the hallway, she peeped into the small sitting room her grandmother preferred, her curiosity piqued as she heard the low rumble of voices coming from the larger, formal sitting room her grandmother only used for entertaining. The room was light thanks to floor-to-ceiling windows with stunning views over Central Park but stuffed so full of the furniture that had been saved from Belravia during the revolution that it was impossible to find a spot not cluttered with ornate chairs or spindly tables, the walls filled with heavy portraits of scowling ancestors.
Amber hovered, torn. She hadn’t been officially summoned, but surely her grandmother would expect her to come and greet whichever guest she was entertaining.
Just a few more months, she told herself. She’d graduate in a couple of months, and by the autumn she’d be in London. She just needed to apply to university and figure out how to pay for it first. She’d saved a couple of thousand dollars from her allowance but that wasn’t going to cover much more than the plane ticket.
Okay. She would worry about all that later. Time to go in, say hello and act the Princess for as long as she needed to. It was so much easier with escape within smelling distance. And of course, now she was an actual adult, her grandmother’s control over her had come to an end. At last.
Inhaling, Amber took another step forward, only to halt as her gaze fell on a masculine profile through the part-opened door. A profile she knew all too well: dark hair brushed smoothly back from a high forehead, a distinctly Roman nose flanked by sharp cheekbones hollowing into a firm chin, mouth unsmiling. Amber swallowed. She had spent too many nights dreaming of that mouth. Her heart thumped painfully, her hands damp with remembered embarrassment. What was Tristano Ragrazzi doing here, on her birthday of all days?
Tristano—or, as he was more commonly known, His Most Excellent Royal Highness Crown Prince Tristano of Elsornia—was Amber’s first crush. Or, if she was being strictly honest, only crush, despite the four-year age gap and the not insignificant fact that on the few occasions they’d met he’d barely deigned to notice that she was alive. This small detail hadn’t stopped a younger Amber weaving an elaborate tale around how he would one day fall in love with her and rescue her from the tower: a tale she had stopped weaving the day she had tripped over one of her grandmother’s many embroidered footstools and spilt a tray of drinks and olives over him—perfect hair, exquisite suit, handsome face and all. Hard as she tried, she had never forgotten his incredulous look of horror, the scathing, contemptuous glance he’d shot her way. She hadn’t seen him since—and that was more than fine with her.
Amber started to tiptoe backwards—far better to face her grandmother’s wrath than His Highness—when Tristano spoke and, at the sound of her name, she froze again.
‘Princess Vasilisa is
