After a rather one-sided conversation with Evan, I’m feeling a lot better. It’s hard to say what he thinks, but he listened and that’s all I can ask for. Hopefully I shared enough for him to understand the situation between me and Violet. I don’t ask him to like her or ask him what he thinks of her, but I hope he will at least help to settle the rumours.

I mean, he’s not exactly sociable, but it just takes a couple of people to get the ball rolling, you know?

Anyway, I’m in a much better mood by the time I finally get back to my room. Late in the year, the sun has already set, but it’s still light enough to see without lamps. Unfortunately, that means I see a blanket and a bulky envelope on my bed as soon as I open the door.

One prince problem isn’t enough for today, huh?

I grumble that to myself, yet I don’t realise how true it is until I see what my “reward” is: a hairpin. Not just a simply one either, very likely something sleepy prince had sent from home. A golden slip of metal with beads made of amber attached. Beautiful, warm, and definitely something inappropriate.

Rubbing my face, I’ve had enough. Do you think Lottie would mind me living with them? I’m sure I can make rent sewing, and I’ll learn to cook and clean.

Silly thoughts aside, I get started on the blanket and let my mind mull things over. As I said, I won’t sew it, but I use a pencil to lightly write out the requested words: Please wake up for meals. Yes, such a difficult job, I really needed something priced in pounds rather than pennies as suitable compensation.

The hairpin… he knows better. This is him teasing me again, isn’t it? Does he know the hair clip was a gift from Evan? He noticed I started wearing it, but I guess he wouldn’t know who gave it to me even if he guessed it was a present. Rather, he’s just a terrible flirt, isn’t he? He definitely knows this is in the grey area and is probably laughing to himself at how flustered I must be.

Well, too bad for him I’m just annoyed.

With the “work” neatly done, I get out a pen and a slip of paper and write out what amounts to: Thanks, but no thanks.

Take your hairpin back and give it to some other lady, okay?

And then… nothing. For a change, I spend the evening reading—I’m getting a little burned out on big sewing projects. I’ll probably take the winter break as time off to look for “inspiration” (whatever that is) from nature and my sister’s wardrobe.

Tuesday, well, it’s giving back exams and then us left to chat or do whatever we want (as long as we’re not too noisy). The only exception is PE, the boys marched out into the marshy mud.

Poor things.

No magic class, I spend the afternoon reading and the evening drawing up a schedule for when everyone will be visiting. (I started to feel a bit anxious, like I’m forgetting something, but it’s probably withdrawal from breaking my sewing habit.)

Wednesday is more of the same. However, I’m really getting into the holiday spirit, my frustrations easily dispelled by not thinking or looking at a certain frustrating person. Everyone is so cheery, chatting of their plans, speaking of family and friends and festivities. I don’t know whether it’s because of that or because I’ve worn them down, but, when I greet the other ladies, their replies aren’t so awkward.

Of course, it’s still no more than a greeting, and I try not to overly greet the same lady (or group of ladies) too much either, not wanting to be overly annoying.

Whether part of her plan or not, I usually sit with Violet for one meal a day. Not usually breakfast, I guess since it’s more of a come-when-you-want meal, but lunch or dinner are pretty fixed by the bell.

It’s funny how such a little thing means so much to me. In my head, there’s just the memories of Ellie…. Eating in the bathroom isn’t all that it’s made out to be, feeling disgusted thinking how dirty it is, the panic if anyone comes in. She mostly ate outside where there wasn’t anyone around, or else on the way home or in her bedroom. A bit hard to concentrate last period when you’re running on what little food you could force yourself to eat at breakfast, too anxious about school for a proper bowl of cereal.

Happy thoughts, happy thoughts. I don’t do well with slow days, huh. Like I’ve said, leave me alone and I end up spiralling. Just when I was getting all pumped for Chris—sorry, Yule. When I “remember” Ellie’s memories, I sometimes slip into her, well, frame of mind? Talk more like her and all that stuff.

Anyway.

Everything is good. Ellen is coming and so is Florence, and Evan and Julian will accompany them, and Cyril, well, it’s easier to say when he’s not coming as he’s apparently booked a room for the middle two weeks of December—the sixth to the nineteenth.

Maybe I should have been more precise in the invitation I extended him….

Violet, well, she’s coming the tenth and will stay over for the tea party. She doesn’t want to commit to more than that at this time and I think that is fair enough. Honestly, I was surprised she’s willing to stay overnight, not exactly a common thing to do amongst the upper-class. (It was basically one of Ellie’s goals to have a sleepover with friends that I “inherited”.)

There’s no reply from Leo, Gerald hasn’t asked to speak to me again. Though I’ve kept an eye out, I haven’t seen happy prince anywhere. I’m already (normally) pretty busy, so I’m not worried about making another friend right now. That doesn’t mean I want him to be alone, though. Even if I don’t think the two of us can be close friends, I’d like him to have someone, knowing all too well the loneliness of loneliness.

However, I’m… not special. I can’t fix everything and I know that. One step at a time. One step.

The last night at school for the term and Violet comes to visit just before the evening tea is due. It’s been a while since her last visit…. Maybe I went too far when I dressed her up and should hold myself back a little—not everyone is quite as eccentric as I am.

“Say, shall I do your hair?” I ask, old habits hard to shake.

She has on her usual stern expression, but softly says, “Very well.”

So we settle into an old routine. I must have done this a hundred times for her when we were kids, teaching her how to do it. Oh she was so sweet. That she can do it herself now, well, let’s just say it’s a proof of effort rather than talent. Back in the day, she’d manage to create all sorts of tangles, tearing up as I brushed them out as gently as I could (myself feeling terrible the whole time), but she never cried.

I chant while braiding, the magic weaving her hair into a neater braid than even my practised fingers can. Rather than the hairband-like braid she normally wears, I go for something of a crown braid, her hair up in a loop around her head (as the name suggests, like a crown) at an angle as it goes from her fringe at the front to her nape at the back.

Well, doesn’t it just suit her? Beautiful—especially with her hair. It hasn’t lightened at all since we were children, still something close to jet-black, yet the braid catches the light and that adds a purple sheen to the “crown”.

A real princess.

“Gerald is wasted on you,” I mutter.

“Pardon?” she says.

You know, I have been wanting to have a proper girl talk. “The Prince, aren’t you sweet on him?” I ask, no ambiguity in who I mean since the whole seven princes thing is all from the book.

And there’s no ambiguity in her reply, a confused, “No?” It’s not the embarrassed reply of someone caught and she’s not at all flustered, her face in the mirror showing only that confusion.

“Really?” I ask.

“Why would I be?”

I mean, she has a good point. I was working on an assumption from the book, but has she given me a reason to think so? No? “You haven’t just grown disillusioned because of…” I say, delicately trailing off.

Her expression subtly sours at my words. “He may be somewhat handsome and of good bearing, yet I wouldn’t say I ever thought of him particularly fondly.”

Very diplomatic, top marks. “Not even a little?” I ask.

She shakes her head, a few loose strands of her fringe fluttering; I tuck them in. Then she whacks the ball right back at me, not a shred of restraint. “What of you? I see you are rather familiar with Lord Sussex.”

Fair’s fair, I guess. “We are only friends.”

“We are, are we?” she asks, raising an eyebrow.

Oh you’re terrible. I can’t help but giggle, a nervous reaction. “He is very sweet and I am sure would be a wonderful husband. However, my heart seems to have different tastes, not interested in beating quick for him.”

“Is that so?” she says, sounding… disappointed? Her whole posture follows, a long sigh leaving her deflated.

Maybe I’m not the only one who likes love talk? I mean, aged eleven to thirteen, the books we read together were romance fluff passed down from Clarice….

“Is there anyone who has caught your eye?” I ask.

She tilts her head. “Not as such,” she says. “That is, I have been… too worried about you to even think of boys.”

Oh she’s just too precious. I resist the urge to hug her, knowing that she finds displays like that uncomfortable, but it’s hard. “Well, if we both reach a good age unmarried, I say we move to a flat in Lundein and live out our days without bothering about men.”

It’s a tongue-in-cheek suggestion, yet I would be lying if I said I hated the sound of such a life. I’m not much of a socialite, but it could be fun, going from event to event and chatting to friends as well as eating good food. Drinking would probably be fun.

(Of course, I mean all this platonically.)

She laughs and it’s a nice laugh. The epitome of a posh laugh, reminding me of how my mother laughs. “As if you could support the lifestyle I require,” she says, her gentle expression belying the sharpness to her words.

Yes, she’s hardly changed, but the little she has changed has only made her cuter. The perfect noblewoman. Why the guys aren’t lining up to ask for her hand in marriage, I have no clue.

We can’t stay up too late with school still tomorrow (even if it’s an entirely pointless day), so we say our goodnights before long. It’s bittersweet. Goodbye, but I’ll see you again tomorrow, but then I won’t see you for a week.

I’ve been so spoiled.

Filling up my hot-water bottle, I feel a sense of peace settling throughout my body. Happiness. Not a giddy, laughing happiness, but a quiet feeling that all is well, all is right. That I have finally been rewarded for my hard work. Or rather, that my hard work has finally borne fruit.

I look at myself in the mirror. The small braid in my hair (I had Violet do her usual braid for me), the friends I have, the memories I made: these are all my achievements. As is my ego, my confidence—confident in my looks, in my kindness, in my honesty—which isn’t so brittle as to break from an apology and flexible enough to try and face reality.

It’s important to remember who I am, who I want to be, and to constantly strive to meet that goal.

My mother and Clarice and Lottie, my father and Joshua, and there’s plenty of things for me to learn from Violet, even from Evan and Cyril and Julian. Relationships aren’t the end of a journey but the beginning.

Friends, huh?

I guess it’s time for me to start thinking of some new goals.