“We’ll need seating for at least 500.” Five hundred people were going to be at a party where I would be the center of attention? Splendid.
The only upshot of the day was that I got to spend the entire thing with Finn. That became less enjoyable by the minute as Finn refused to talk about anything that wasn’t related to my performance at the party. We spent two hours going over the names and pictures of the more prominent guests that would be attending. Two whole hours spent pouring over a yearbook-type thing trying to memorize the faces, names, and notable facts about like a hundred people. At least we learned something with that. An eidetic memory was not one of my abilities.
Then there was the hour and a half spent at the dinner table.
Apparently, I did not know how to eat properly. There were certain ways to hold the fork, tilt the bowl, lift the glass, and even place the napkin. Up until that time, I had never mastered any of those skills, and from what I gathered about the way Finn regarded me, I still hadn’t. Eventually, I gave up. Pushing my plate back, I laid my head down and pressed my cheek against the cold wood of the table.
“I can see you’ve had enough with this,” Finn sighed and pushed back his chair as he stood up. “Why don’t we do something fun for awhile?”
“Fun?” I looked up skeptically at him. “Do you mean fun
fun
? Or do you mean looking at pictures for two hours fun? Or Using a Fork 101 fun?”
“Something that at least resembles actual fun,” Finn answered. “Come on.”
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Cautiously, I got up and followed him. Even if whatever he planned on doing was the most boring thing in the world, I didn’t really have a choice.
What I was going through right now was the montage part of every duckling-to-swan story. In the movies, they always showed clips of all the hard work they put in until the got better, and in thirty seconds flat, there were be the finished, transformed princess. Unfortunately, I couldn’t montage my way through this. I actually had to endure.
As Finn led me down a hall to the west wing of the house, I realized that I’d never seen any of this before. When Garrett had teased Elora about this being a palace, he wasn’t kidding. There were so many places I had yet to see. It was astounding. Finn gestured to a few rooms, pointing out the library, meeting halls where they conducted business, the opulent dining hall where we would hold the dinner on Saturday, and then finally, the ball room.
Pushing open the doors, which seemed to be two stories high, Finn led me into the grandest room I had ever seen. Massive and exquisite, the ceilings seemed to stretch on forever, thanks in part to the fact they were entirely skylight. Gold beams ran across it, holding up glittering diamond chandeliers.
The floors were marble, the walls were off-white with gold detailing, and it looked every bit like the ballroom for Disney fairytales.
The decorators had started bringing things in, and one of the walls was lined with stacked chairs and tables. Table cloths and candlesticks and all sorts of decorations were littered in a pile around them. The only other thing in the room was a white grand piano setting in the opposite corner. Otherwise, the room was empty, except Finn and me.
I hated how taken I was with the splendor. I hated it even more that the room was this magnificent, and I looked like I did. My hair was in a messy bun, and I was wearing baggy sweats and a faded sweater with a boombox on it.
Finn wasn’t exactly dressed to the nines either, but his standard buttoned shirt and dark washed jeans looked much more fitting.
“So what’s the fun part?” I asked, and my voice echoed off the walls.
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“Dancing,” Finn’s lip twitched with a smile, and I groaned. “I’ve danced with you before, and I know that it needs some improvement.”
“The slow circles don’t cut it?” I grimaced.
“Unfortunately, no. A proper waltz should be enough, though. If you can master that, you’ll be set for the ball on Saturday,” Finn explained.
“Oh no.” My stomach dropped as I just realized something. “I’m going to have dance with these people, aren’t I? Like strangers and old men and weird handsy boys?” Finn laughed at that, but I wanted to curl in a ball and die.
“I could lie to you, but to be honest, those are probably the only people that will ask you to dance,” Finn admitted with a wry smirk.
“You are enjoying this more than I’ve ever seen you enjoy anything!” I pointed out, and that only deepened his smile. “Well, I’m glad you find this funny. Me getting felt up by compete strangers and tripping all over them. What a great time.”
“It won’t be so bad,” Finn insisted, then he motioned for me to come over. “Come on. If you learn the basic steps, at least you won’t be tripping over them.”
I sighed loudly and walked over to him. Most of my trepidation about dancing with strangers melted away the instant Finn took my hand in his. It suddenly occurred to me that before I had to dance with them, I got to dance with
him
. His hand went to the small of my back, and I cursed myself for wearing such a thick hoodie. Then I had a brilliant idea. I paused our training, claiming the bulk of my hoodie was too hard to dance with, and pulled it off. I was wearing a tank top underneath, so it wasn’t like I was being completely inappropriate.
After a few directions from him and a rough start by me, we were dancing. His arm was around me, strong and reassuring. He instructed me to keep my eyes locked on his so I wouldn’t get in the habit of watching my feet while I danced, but I wouldn’t have looked anywhere else anyway. His dark eyes always mesmerized me. We were supposed to keep a certain distance between our bodies, but I found it impossible. Soon, his stomach was nearly pressed 198
against mine, and I was certain we weren’t going as fast as we were supposed to, but I didn’t care. I was back in that moment with him, that wonderful one that seemed too impossibly perfect to be real.
“Right, okay.” Finn suddenly stopped and took a step away from.
Disappointed, I let my hands fall to the side. “You’ve got that down pretty well, but there’s going to be music. So you should see how you do with that.”
“Okay?” I said unsurely.
“Why don’t I play the piano, and you count out the steps yourself?”
Finn had already started backing away to the piano, and I was wondering what I had done wrong that made him stop so suddenly. “That might be a better way for you to learn.”
“Um, okay,” I shrugged uncertainly. “I thought I was doing fine before.”
“We weren’t going fast enough. The music will help you keep time,”
Finn explained.
I frowned at him, wishing he would just come back and dance with me.
Before he had told me I was a terrible dance partner, and maybe that was the problem. Maybe I was just too bad of a dancer. He sat down at the piano and started playing a beautiful, elaborate waltz, but of course he could. He could do anything. I was just standing there, staring at him, until he directed me to start dancing.
I whirled around on the dance floor, but it definitely wasn’t as fun as it had been with him. In fact, it wasn’t really that fun at all. It might have been if I weren’t trying to figure out what I did wrong that always made Finn back away from me at the worst possible moments. It was hard to concentrate on that, though, when Finn kept barking out corrections at me. Funny, he hadn’t noticed any when we had been dancing together.
“Nope, that’s it,” I panted after what felt like an eternity. My feet and legs were getting sore, and a sheen of sweat covered my body. I had had my fill of dancing for the day, and I sat down heavily on the floor, then leaned back, sprawling out on the cool marble.
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“Wendy, it hasn’t even been that long,” Finn insisted.
“Don’t care. I’m out!” I breathed deeply and wiped the sweat from forehead.
“Haven’t you ever worked hard at anything?” Finn complained. He got up from the piano bench and walked over to me, so he could lecture me up closer, apparently. “This is important.”
“I’m aware. You tell me every second of every day,” I grumbled.
“I do not.” Finn crossed his arms over his chest and looked down at me.
“This
is
the hardest I’ve ever worked at anything,” I said, staring back up at him. “Everything else I’ve quit before this, or I never even tried. So don’t tell me I’m not putting effort into this.”
“You’ve never tried harder than this? On anything?” Finn asked incredulously, and I shook my head. “That brother you had never made you do anything?”
“Not really,” I admitted thoughtfully. “He made me go to school I guess, and he really wanted me to graduate. But that’s about it.” Matt and Maggie encouraged me to do a lot of things, but there was very little they actually made me do. Even with me getting in trouble as often as I did, I was very rarely grounded.
“They spoiled you more than I thought,” Finn looked a surprised at that.
“They didn’t spoil me,” I sighed, then quickly amended, “They didn’t spoil me rotten. Not the way Willa was spoiled, and I’m sure a lot of the other changelings were. They just wanted me to be happy.”
“Happiness is something you work for,” Finn pointed out.
“Oh, stop with that fortunate cookie crap,” I scoffed. “We worked for it just like anybody else. They were just really careful with me, probably because my mom tried to kill me. It set them up to treat me more gently than they would’ve otherwise.”
“How did your mother try to kill you?” Finn asked directly.
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It startled me a little. I had only very vaguely told him what happened, and we hadn’t talked about it since. It surprised me that he was even talking about it now, since he very rarely seemed to want to talk about my past.
“It was my birthday, and I was being my usual bratty self. I was angry because she’d gotten me a chocolate cake, and I hated it,” I explained. “We were in the kitchen, and she snapped. She started chasing after me with this giant knife. She called me a monster, and then she tried to stab me but she just managed to cut my stomach pretty badly. Then my brother Matt rushed in and tackled her, saving my life.”
“She cut open your stomach?” Finn furrowed his brow with concern.
“Yeah.” Randomly, I pulled up my shirt, revealing the scar that stretched across it. Immediately after I’d done it, I regretted it. Lying on the floor and flashing Finn the fattest part of my body did not sound like a good idea.
Finn crouched on the ground next to me, and tentatively, his fingertips traced along the mark etched on my belly. My skin quivered underneath his touch, and this nervous warmth spread through me. He just stared intently at it, then laid his hand flat on my belly, covering the scar. His skin felt hot and smooth, and inside, my stomach trembled with butterflies.
He blinked, and seeming to realize what he was doing, he pulled his hand back and got to his feet. Quickly, I pulled my shirt back down, and I didn’t even feel that comfortable laying down anymore. I sat up and fixed my bun. It had gotten pushed all over when I laid back on it, so I had to take it out and redo it.
“Matt saved your life?” Finn asked, filling that semi-awkward silence that had shrouded us. He still had a very contemplative look on his face, and I wished I knew what he was thinking.
“Yeah,” I nodded, and I got to my feet. “Matt always protected me, ever since I could remember.”
“Hmm.” Finn looked thoughtfully at me. “You bonded so much more with your host family than the changelings normally do.”
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“‘Host family?’” I grimaced. “You make me sound like a parasite.”
Then I realized that I probably was. They had dropped me off with them so I would use their resources, their money, their opportunities, and come back here with them. That’s exactly what a parasite did.
“You’re not a parasite,” Finn said. “They loved you, and you genuinely loved them in return. It is unusual, but that it is not a bad thing. In fact, it’s a very good thing. Maybe it’s given you a compassion that the Trylle leaders have been lacking for a very long time.”
“I don’t think I’m very compassionate,” I shook my head.
“You came to my aid last night,” Finn reminded me. “You shouldn’t have done that. I can handle myself, and Willa really means no harm. Defending me will only weaken you. But what you did, you did for the right reasons. You stood up for what you thought was right. It’s a wonderful quality.”
“If that’s not a mixed message, then I don’t know what is,” I shied away from his compliment. “I shouldn’t do that, but I should?”
“You shouldn’t defend
me
,” Finn clarified. “But you should defend those who can’t do it for themselves. I saw how badly it was bothering you when Willa was harassing Rhiannon, and I see how it gets to you the way Elora talks to people. Elora thinks the only way to command respect is to command fear, but I have a feeling that you will have an entirely different way of ruling.”
“And how will I rule?” I arched my eyebrow at him.
“That is for you to decide,” Finn said simply.
He finished up our lesson after that, saying I needed to rest up for tomorrow. The day had exhausted me, and I was eager to curl up in my blankets and sleep until Sunday, straight through the ball and all the angst that accompanied it. Sleep didn’t come easy, though. I found myself tossing and turning, thinking about the way it felt dancing with Finn and his hand resting warmly on my stomach. But I would always end up thinking of Matt and Maggie, and how much I still missed them.
I woke up startling early that morning. Actually, I’d been waking up all night long, and at six, I finally just gave into it. I got up with the intention of 202
sneaking downstairs to grab a bite to eat, but when I hit the top of the stairs, Rhys came barreling up them to meet me, chomping on a bagel.
“Hey, what are you doing up?” Rhys grinned, swallowing down his bite.
“Couldn’t sleep,” I shrugged. “You?”
“Same. I have to get up for school soon anyway.” He pushed his sandy hair out of his eyes and leaned back against the stair railing. “Are you worrying about this Saturday?”
“Kind of,” I admitted.