I was on my second attempt to get out of bed when Hilda came in. She carried a long, cloth bag.

“Is that the wedding dress?” I asked.

She nodded and placed it on the bed. Then she unfolded the bag and showed me the gown inside. Upon seeing it, I was a little stunned. 

“It’s not white,” I said.

“No. It’s not,” she answered briskly.

“It’s not pretty,” I said.

Hilda pulled her eyebrows together in angry dismay.

“It’s not my size,” I said.

She puckered her lips unpleasantly. “Do you want me to make adjustments?”

“They couldn’t be done in time. I’m marrying Tremor tonight.”

“Tonight!” she hissed. “Why so soon?”

I looked her in the eye. “Why wait?”

She averted her eyes hastily and spat into her handkerchief again. 

I opened the wardrobe and took a look inside. There was nothing but fifteen or so white dresses. They were the same as the one Tremor left on the boat. “I’ll have to wear one of these.”

“No,” Hilda snapped as she slammed the wardrobe shut. “I’ll send for another dress from the capital. Wait until it gets here to get married. Here, I’ll measure you.” While she spoke, she rooted around in a pouch at her waist and soon she brought out a measuring tape.

I pushed her away as she tried to force the measuring on me. “It isn’t important how I dress. If I had been well when I arrived yesterday, I would have married him then.”

“So unladylike!” Hilda raged, her pupils became pricks of black in her pale blue irises. 

“Who cares if I’m ladylike here? This is a war zone!”

“The Queen would be mortified if she saw you. Wait for another dress to come—whore.”

Even though my feet hurt, I made myself stand up straight. “Watch your mouth—hag. Tonight is when Tremor wants me to marry him.”

“Then you’ll wear that,” she shrieked, grabbing the dress off the bed and holding it up against my body. 

I pushed the dress away. “That dress wasn’t made for a person. It was made for a whale. Even if I weighed three hundred pounds, it would still be too big. What kind of a weird joke is this? Were you given this dress and told to try to stall the wedding using it as an excuse? Well, let me tell you: I would marry him in my underwear, which is a heck of a whole lot more modest than last year’s soccer uniforms, so stop it already!” 

Without thinking, I put up my hand to flick her between the eyes, and then I realized what I was doing. She cowered like she thought I would hit her. I put my hand down and I rolled my eyes in frustration. “Whatever.” 

Then, I bent down to scavenge from the drawer in the bottom of the wardrobe. I found sandals and hairpins and out of the corner of my eye I saw Hilda try to make for the door.

“Stop,” I said, getting up. “I need a bath. Take me to the bathroom or whatever.”

Resigned, she opened the door and beckoned for me to follow her. Outside was a terrace. My room was a little, crescent-shaped room that clung to the curve of the tower. She opened the terrace door and led me down a winding staircase. We went down three revolutions of stairs before she opened another entryway and brought me into the main part of the castle.

I expected to see busy people, but the place was barren.

“So, the closest bathroom is three floors down?” I muttered, keeping close behind her.

“There is a chamber pot under your bed,” she huffed and brought me into a room that was clearly not normally used for bathing. It was the laundry room. There were two women scrubbing away in two enormous tubs.

“Excuse me. This girl wants to bathe,” Hilda announced crossly.

The older of the two women set aside her washing and wiped her hands on her apron. She looked to be about forty. Her hair was dark auburn and her disposition was pleasant. “Hello. My name is Gretchen and I’m the housekeeper. Wonderful news about your boat, wasn’t it? It should be here before dark, so if there’s anything on board that you need for the wedding, it will surely be here by then.”

“Wonderful,” I said appreciatively. I wished I’d realized my things would be delivered to me before I had my dog fight with Hilda. 

“You’re much more beautiful than the rumors, Princess,” Gretchen said before showing me to a huge washbasin. “We normally bathe in the hot springs, but we expected that neither you nor your maid would be used to that, so we had this prepared. It takes a long time to heat, I’m afraid, but it’ll be ready soon.”

“Thank you,” I said. 

Then without any further explanation, Gretchen went back to her work and left me standing there with Hilda feeling quite stupid. With nothing else to do, I stepped up and looked at the giant tub.

“Can a princess really bathe in such a place?” Hilda asked with her voice all up in her nose like she couldn’t stand to breathe the air.

To me, it looked a good deal nicer than the tub in my apartment. For one thing, it was sparkling clean. For another, it was huge. The only thing that worried me was that Hilda or someone else would want to help me bathe or some other privacy reducing nonsense.

“It’ll be fine. I’ll stay here. Why don’t you go put that dress away and save your arm?”

“You won’t accept the present from her Majesty? Some day you may need it.”

“You say rude stuff like that and I’m unladylike? Really! Is Tremor going to feed me until I’m big enough to fit into that?”

She shrunk down and said acidly, “Who knows what may happen out here? We’re on the battlefront.” Then she wobbled to the door.

Then I had a bath with real sunlight reflecting on the bathwater.

 ***

It turned out that my trunk from the boat was brought up in time and I retrieved the wedding dresses the Queen of Lilikeen had sent me, which was a huge improvement over any other option. Actually, even if I were getting married in real life, I don’t think I could have done much better for myself. It was an off-the-shoulder with a super-tight bodice and beautiful ivory material sweeping through the skirt. The neckline was decorated with tiny jewels and little gathers of fabric that made flowers. 

Hilda did my hair, though she made it clear she hated me more every other minute. “Your hair is so curly,” she said distastefully. “To give it some order, we’ll have to braid it.”

“Okay.” I held up a hand mirror and looked at my reflection. “I should really dye my hair blonde when I get home. This looks great.”

Hilda didn’t say anything about the oddness of my sentence. Whenever I mentioned the real world, everyone acted like I hadn’t said anything. 

I shrugged my shoulders. “Start by doing a tiny braid with this section and then do another one with this section.”

“Ugly,” she rasped.

I stuck out my tongue halfway. “I don’t care what you think. Then let this part fall over my forehead. Pin these braids over my left ear. Leave a couple tendrils free on either side and then pin the rest of the curls behind my head—artfully.”

She had no enthusiasm, but with curls as good as mine, she couldn’t deliberately spoil it and by the time I was due to go downstairs, it looked exactly how I wanted it.

There was no chapel for the wedding. It was going to take place in the front hall. I had to walk down a zillion steps to get there with Hilda padding morosely behind me holding my train. When we finally stood at the top of the steps that swept down to the front hall, I saw Tremor standing in the midst of a small procession of people. There were three women and I counted thirty men standing in three tiers with Tremor and a priest standing at the top. It was a sad-looking group. The only one who looked remotely happy was Tremor. Everyone else gritted their teeth like they were attending a funeral and I was the murderer. They thought I’d be his undoing for sure.

As I got closer, I saw how beautiful Tremor looked. He wore a white long-sleeved shirt, with a dark brown leather vest that came up to a high collar. His pants were leather of the same color and on his head was a golden crown. He wore no flower on his breast, but the red military badge of Bellique. He was the most handsome man in the world.

Hilda whispered in my ear. “It’s not too late to wait. We could have this wedding next week with a few members of the court in attendance.”

I shot her a dirty look. “I don’t care about that.”

“You should.”

I shook my head and finished descending the stairs with the most grace I could summon. Once I reached the floor, someone began playing the flute and I made my way through the ranks to Tremor's side. 

Right there and then, he married me in front of all those people without the slightest hesitation. His expression was devoid of worry and his speech was clear as a bell as he promised to love only me until the day he died. The wedding ring he put on my finger was a wide band of white gold with diamonds scattered all over it. It looked like stars forming a constellation.

“It was my mother’s,” he said softly. “The one the King gave her. It’s the only thing I can give you to help you prove you married the Crown Prince.”

When it was over, he kissed me on the lips and I tried not to act completely swept off my feet in front of all those people. Actually, my knees felt like they were going to buckle under me, but I wouldn't have fallen because he held on to me.

Then, he led the entire company into the dining room where we were served crab, which was something I had never tasted before. He dipped it in garlic butter for me and I thought I was in heaven. It worried me that he didn’t talk much. It was clear he had no regrets, but it seemed like he was uncomfortable in his own skin, for lack of a better description. He kept scratching his wrist. He was still bandaged. I could see them peeking out of his sleeves.

“What happened?” I asked, touching the edge of one.

“Nothing,” he whispered and moved his hand out of my reach.

Afterward, he led me to the foot of the stairs, bid everyone a good night, and lifted me up in his arms. He started to climb the stairs and soon the bumping up and down made me feel ill. 

“Hey, can you put me down, please?”

He didn’t answer.

“I’m getting sick. I can walk up by myself, so you don’t have to carry me.”

“There is no way on God’s green earth that I am going to carry you, missy. Get up!” That wasn’t Tremor’s voice.

I shook my head and the fluorescent lights entered my awareness. I was back in the city library and a security guard was frowning down at me and pointing his thumb toward the exit.

“Was I asleep?” I asked him as I numbly got my things together.

“Asleep? Were you asleep? It looked to me like you were just reading and ignoring me.” He gave me a disapproving stare and went on his way.

I felt like cursing and stomping as I made my way to the exit. Why did I have to get kicked out just at that second? Really? Just when it was getting really good?

I stepped out onto the early October street and looked to see if there was a bus coming. Then I saw him. There, standing by the curb, was Evander. I went up to him, but he had his headphones on and was staring at his cell phone screen. I stood one step away from him and looked at him unwaveringly, hoping he would notice me.

I mean, in the book, he had sworn he would love only me. That felt like five minutes ago and before that, he had praised me, saying how brave I was. In the light of reality, I seemed no more important to him than a stranger. Well, maybe he really hadn’t noticed me, so I had to pluck up some courage and let him know.

“Hey Evander,” I said, smacking him lightly on the back of his legs with my bookbag. 

“Hi,” he said. Then he turned his back to me and continued what he was doing.

That was it, then. I was just reading a story that had nothing to do with real-life at all. He didn’t care about me. It was just part of the story. I was sure that anyone who read the book would get sucked in like I did and get carried up the stairs by him. I nodded my head like I was in a trance and repeated, “It’s just a story. It's just a story.”