Chapter Twenty-Five

One of Thea’s upgrades to the facilities on Perpetua had been a steam room, powered by the thermal springs that bubbled up in a cavern under the island.

We were sitting there, enjoying the heat and smell of menthol and eucalyptus, as she described how she had discovered the cavern. “I found it when I was running on the beach. The tide was low, and there was this opening between the rocks. It’s really amazing down there. A hundred feet high, all carved out rock and mineral water.”

I blotted my face with a cool towel that smelled of peppermint and faced my older sister. “Thea, that’s fascinating, but what the actual fuck is going on here?” I asked in the most reasonable tone I could muster.

“What do you mean?” She tried to avoid my eyes, but I knew her better than almost anyone.

“The upgrades to the island, the fact that you and Nick seem to live here at least half of the time, and that the dining room feels like a mess hall and you’re talking about police and technology like you’re running Interpol from your bedroom.”

She bowed her head and took a moment. Finally, she spoke with confidence. “I’m going to be Queen.”

“Oh, okay. Is this a newsflash to you?” After all, she was the eldest child of the eldest child of the Queen. This wasn’t exactly a complicated math problem.

“This year, I’ll be Queen,” she replied.

Now that did throw me. “What do you mean? This year? Is Gran sick?” Of course, my brain immediately jumped to the death of my grandmother. That’s how sick this monarchy business could make you. One only gets a promotion if someone dies. It’s like something out of a dystopian young-adult novel.

“No,” she reassured me. “And it’s quite a long story but, due to some political pressures, Gran has decided to step down and name me the heir.”

“Skipping Father?” Our sweet but absent father was never cut out to be king. But that didn’t mean he wanted to be ignored, I didn’t think.

“It’s for the best.”

Her confidence in that fact was surprising. Not that Thea was an unconfident person. She was a self-assured, intelligent woman. But she also took the monarchy very seriously, always had. Perhaps long stories and political pressures had convinced her the line of succession needed to be altered, but I didn’t need to be convinced. After all, I wasn’t a part of the family anymore, which is what I said, in the most factual and diplomatic of ways. That she could assure me so resolutely that a sudden shift in monarch was in the best interests of the country said a lot about whatever “political pressures” our country had faced in the last year.

Political pressures that were so intense no whiff of them made the newspapers that I regularly reviewed.

Obviously, something had gone down behind the scenes, which pushed all my native curiosity buttons. My fingers actually moved, like they wanted to type. I wanted to know, but Thea wasn’t being forthcoming.

Just like me.

“And do the rest of our family know about your imminent rise to the throne?” I asked lightly, as if the answer didn’t matter to me.

As if the answer wouldn’t hurt when I found out that I was the only person in the family who hadn’t been told this important news.

Thea shook her head, though. “Gran and I will make the announcement soon—to family first, then the government. It’s perfect, actually,” she said, brightening. “Now that you’re back. We’ll all be together again, a united family.”

A mix of emotions rumbled through me. A selfish pleasure that I knew this secret before my brother and sister. A concern for my father. And yes, that dingy, damp hurt from being excluded from the family in the first place.

“I’m not sure ‘united’ is quite the word to use,” I said, as diplomatically as possible, referencing my removal from the family line of succession.

But apparently, not diplomatically enough. Thea made a noise of frustration and reached down for her own cool towel. “It’s unacceptable,” she declared, sounding pretty queenly already. “I’ll have you know that I intend to find a way to undo Gran’s disinheritance of you as soon as I am crowned.”

Hearing those words made me uncomfortable, like I’d eaten a bad bowl of mussels. “It’s fine. I knew the consequences when I ran off to Monaco with Stavros.”

“One should never have to choose between family and love,” Thea said vehemently. “This is the twenty-first century. Love is love is love is love.”

I had never heard my sister defend love so vigorously. Even when she was engaged to Christian, she mostly spoke of duty and lineage and “making good choices.”

“This doesn’t have anything to do with a certain battle-scarred and grumpy almost-brother-in-law does it?”

“Hugh?”

I coughed. “No. Nick!”

Even through the steam I could see her resolute expression. “I won’t give him up. Even when I’m Queen. People will just have to get used to the way I lead my life. And you, as well.”

“What do I have to do with you and Nick?”

She gave me an enigmatic smile. “You’ll be another new type of royal the country will have to become accustomed to.”

“A new type of royal?” I echoed. “A disgraced former royal living in exile, you mean? I’m sure we’ve had a few of those in Drieden before.”

This being Thea, and given her love of history, I was mostly expecting her to pick up that line of thought by expounding on various members of the family tree who had, indeed, been disgraced and exiled to Italy or Ireland or India.

But no. She went in a different direction. “You, my darling Caroline, will be the undisgraced, re-titled royal, picking up exactly where you left off—and where you belong.”

There was the curdled mussel stew stirring in my stomach again. Hearing her say these words should have empowered me, delighted me. At the very least, I should have felt vindication.

“I don’t think we can do that,” I said instead. “I’m not an ingénue.”

“Boring!”

“There will be so much gossip about Stavros, about his death and where I’ve been.”

“So?”

“So, you’ll be a new queen, with all the politics and pressures that will entail. You don’t need to kick off your reign with something controversial and lurid headlines in all the tabloids.”

“The people will be behind me,” Thea said confidently, and when Thea spoke like this, who could argue with her? “Especially if we get started now.”

Oh, no. That didn’t sound good. “We?” I echoed. “Pray tell, what do we need to start?”

“You’re back in Drieden and I need help with some things.”

“Thea, I don’t think—”

She cut me off with a hand. “We’ll start with something small, something discreet. Nothing official, just you behind the scenes, doing important work on my behalf with my blessing.”

Her cheeks were rosy, her eyes bright. She loved me enough to brave the wrath of our grandmother and the machinery of the national press. How could I say no to her?

I sighed. “Fine. We can try something behind the scenes. Something short-term. Temporary.”

But I could tell from her expression that wasn’t good enough. She wanted something more.

“Was there something else?” I asked, dreading whatever she was about to suggest.

“You know I love you.”

“And?”

“I’m only saying this because I’m your sister.”

“Okay…”

“And I know how irritated I would be if someone said this to me—”

“Spit it out!”

She grimaced. “Your hair. It’s horrible.”

I started to giggle. She joined me.

It was like we were girls again. If only it could stay like that forever.