14. Homecomings

CHAPTER 14

Homecomings

Tristan

I wandered from one town to the next on my slow journey north. Every stop I could take, I did. The house where I had grown up was my destination simply for the fact that I had nowhere else to go. The cash in my wallet was thinning fast.

From time to time, I wondered if I should just stop in one of the towns on my way home, get a job, and focus on what was ahead.

You don't dare to look back , a voice whispered. I couldn't assign that voice to anyone in particular. There was a bit of Cedric in there, and a bit of Roman, and Mama Viv holding back a sob, and me speaking to myself with all the hatred I deserved.

I didn't want to go home. Nothing but pain existed there. I was going back to the place where it was the clearest to me that things had played out the wrong way on that fateful night. I was going to visit the people I had abandoned without any way to explain to them that I had spared them by letting them go.

If only they could do the same.

If only everyone could just forget about me.

So long as people knew me, my existence filled them with pity. It wasn't like I didn't know it. And thinking back to all the sweet kisses Cedric had pressed upon my lips and all the words of kindness and support, it became clear to me that he pitied me, too.

It was Mama Viv's doing that Cedric was so kind and gentle with me. But when he remembered the things he was giving up for me, he became aware of how little I was worth in comparison with a kingdom. He might never become a king, but his life would be filled with comforts of the sort I had never been able to imagine.

It was better for everyone that way.

I only wished he hadn't been so nice to me when he thought I was a wreck. I was, but I liked to keep that to myself.

Without much choice in where all the paths were leading me, I continued toward home.

Cedric

The mattress swallowed me whole. It was far softer than I remembered. My body sank into its middle, and the duvet rested heavily over me. Eyes open, I barely moved. I barely breathed.

Nobody had come around except Sophia in the last three days. I had returned, met my parents briefly before their visit to the North, exchanged a few cold words with Alexander, and received several angry looks from my little brother, Maximilian. Sophia was the only one who appeared sad rather than angry with me.

Staff entered, checked up on me, and recited my agenda. Small appearances that I had neglected while on the run, others that were up in the air with the uncertainty of my return, and one that towered above them all. élodie. My airline, as Tristan had put it.

My eyes stung even at the memory of his name.

Would he ever forgive me? Why should he? It wasn't like he would have a chance to see me ever again. And I wouldn't see him.

What could I do, though? Maybe I could let things settle for a bit and pull some strings when I had more bargaining power. I could get him his restaurant in New York through our contacts. I could give him all he needed for a good life. He wouldn't need me.

A little before noon, I attended the opening ceremony of a new wing at the History Museum of Verdumont. It had been closed off for renovations and the new exhibition put together for the reopening focused on the history of world literature. At any other time, I would have been excited. Today, I couldn't find it in me to care.

In the afternoon, my chauffeur pulled the car up by Le Jardin étoilé, where journalists flocked. The arrival was perfectly timed for them to see me step out of the car and walk up to the big terrace. I ran my fingers through my hair and checked the time. Right on cue, another car halted, and the door opened to let élodie out.

The lenses turned away from me to her and followed her all the way up the few steps of the balcony until she joined me. The photographers went mad with the flashes, and questions came from all directions. We smiled our practiced smiles as I hugged élodie.

"It is good to see you, Your Highness," she said.

"And you," I replied in a more casual tone. It wasn't something that would fly with the Marchioness, but I didn't care. She was my prison. She was my doom. She was the end of my life.

I looked at élodie and saw the ending of everything that was ever good. I saw the beginning of a life of quiet misery.

"Shall we?" I asked, bending my arm for élodie to take and leading her to the empty table in the middle of the balcony. I had pleaded with the staffers to put us inside and let us speak to one another, but Alexander had been very firm about this meeting taking place in front of the journalists.

"If Your Highness wishes," élodie said. She was so perfect, so smooth, so flat. She didn't show a single emotion. Her chin was lifted a little high, and her eyes were clear green, locked onto the empty table.

The people sitting around other tables had been hand-picked by the palace. Nothing was ever spontaneous, and everything was always a photo op.

"I was so worried over your absence," élodie said without a trace of worry in her tone .

"Mm." I pulled a chair for her and sat on her left side. We turned slightly to face one another, the positioning of our chairs around the table signaling nothing remotely close to rivalry or antagonism. Everything was friendly, almost romantic. Red wine was served first, and I spared a silent thought for Antinous. "So kind of you," I told élodie. Her golden, sun-kissed hair was smooth and brushed so that not a single hair was out of place. "I was glad to hear that my brother entertained you."

Had I thought it possible, I would have said that élodie blushed. "His Highness is kind," she said. "And very entertaining."

"Please," I interrupted. "We know why we are here, élodie. Call me by my name. And call Maximilian by his. This etiquette has no place between us."

élodie didn't miss a beat. "If that's what you wish, Cedric."

"It is," I insisted. The perpetual snapping of shutters faded out. It came like waves of the ocean. At every smile and every change of pose, the tide brought it higher, and then it retreated when we stopped being interesting. "I hope my younger brother hasn't been as moody with you as he has with me these days."

"Maximilian?" élodie asked, the confusion leaving her face as quickly as it came. It was gone before anyone got a decent photo. "Oh no. He was very dedicated and in such good spirits." In controlled movements, élodie lifted her glass, took the tiniest sip, and let the corners of her lips curl up for me. It was a practiced smile with no warmth in it.

I cannot marry you , I thought .

"I hear the opening of the World Literature exhibition went well," élodie said.

"Perfect," I replied, frustration rising in me. Was this what we would speak about? Agendas and weather and all this mundane bullshit? "Have you ever broken any rules, élodie? Ever run away from home?"

élodie gasped and smiled. "I don't believe I have ever run from home, Cedric."

"You must have had some rebellions that only belong to you," I said.

Her face seemed cooler than ever. "If I have, I must have forgotten them."

"What amazing lives we live," I mused.

I was certain that the temperature around us grew lower by the sheer power of her emotionless gaze. "Forgive me, Cedric, but it seems you find me rather boring."

I waved my hand off. "Not at all. We are going to be married. I would like to know more than what's on the surface."

"Perhaps I am not as willful as Your Highness," she said, the same little smile never going away from her face. We might as well have been talking about the weather for all the press could tell. "Perhaps I have never run to the United States to spend my days in a bar and my nights with a stranger. But please don't mistake my lack of adventures for complete emotionlessness. I am perfectly capable of loving and hurting just like everyone else."

I heard the wave of shutters snapping louder, faster, closer, and I realized it was my face that was contorting with embarrassment and cringe. "Forgive me."

"I already have," élodie said .

"This…arrangement bothers me, and I never thought that it might bother you, too," I admitted.

"Our kind functions by the rules of another stratosphere, Cedric," élodie said. I might have heard a touch of friendliness in her voice at long last. "And we simply have to make the best of what we are given. Now, laugh, but not too loudly. I've just said something terribly witty."

I didn't miss a beat. Laughter welled from me, and I shook my head, eyes sparking with joy that I could spend such a fine afternoon in such interesting company. "You've had much more practice, it seems."

"It could very well be a natural talent," élodie said without a trace of melancholy.

"You sacrificed your heart for this," I pointed out softly, the smile on my face a sharp and painful contrast to the subject we discussed. "I've known you for years, and I never suspected."

"He was not someone I would have chosen had I been given a chance," élodie said. "But such things simply happen whether we want them or not."

I remembered standing on the top of the Empire State Building, looking into those big, brown eyes, leaning in with the burning desire to kiss him and never stop kissing him. I hadn't wanted to fall for him. I had fought it long and hard, but he was a whirlwind of passion, and he made me feel alive when nobody else could. "It seems to me that you and I have a lot more in common than I had suspected."

"If nothing else, we will understand each other well," élodie agreed.

I cleared my throat. As quietly as I could and with a waning smile on my face, I filled myself with the courage to tell her this. "You should know, if we truly do this, I will not object…"

"No," élodie said politely and chuckled as if I'd made a very clever joke. "Let us not discuss this."

Some wild, crazy hope that I might reach an arrangement with élodie, go back to New York, explain it all, and claim him as my lover died at the firmness with which she closed this discussion. It was irrational. I could never go back to him. I had broken him for his own safety from scandals. But I had also sealed him from my life forever.

"I'm sorry," I said. I wondered if my suggestion sparked the same sort of uncontrollable hope, the absence of which left you devastated.

We exchanged a sweet, long hug before leaving by our separate cars. A journalist shouted after me, "Your Highness, what was the joke the Marchioness told you that made you laugh so much?" And as the door closed, I wondered why on earth anyone would ever care.

You are not a person to them , a voice reminded me. You are a symbol, and you live your life as a symbol.

Back in my apartment, I undressed myself and put on a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie from my last year in college. I picked up a copy of The Song of Achilles and prepared myself to cry. I had read it forward and backward. I knew it inside and out. My bleeding heart hardly needed more pain, but this was, at least, a way I could control the pain. I could direct it. If I wept for Patroclus, it had nothing to do with me and the tragedy of Tristan Lawson. It was a safe kind of pain, distant and someone else's.

The knock on my door was followed by the turning of the knob. The sitting room was empty save for me, filled with subdued lights and deep, sorrowful shadows. Sophia, dressed brightly for the evening and only a little disgruntled, slipped inside and shut the door. "I can't take it anymore."

"Can't take what?" I asked, looking up from a passage that described a wonderful night at Chiron's cave.

"It's a mistake," Sophia said, her voice higher than usual. "All of this. But Alexander is furious with you, and he won't speak about it."

My sister crossed the sitting room and took a seat on the ottoman against the wall. On the small, ornate table between her ottoman and my armchair was a pot of tea, a blend of soothing herbs built around nettle at its core. I was about to offer it, but Sophia continued speaking.

"You really made a mess of things when you ran away, Cedric," she said, teary-eyed as I had never seen her. "You're so goddamn romantic. You thought running away would solve your problems. Did you imagine you would earn your keep by playing a harmonica in the old Wild West?"

I would have chuckled were she not so hurt by it. "Why does this upset you?"

"Because you could have fought it before," she said. She wore her dark brown hair short and stylish. Her makeup was minimal and always on point. She had been the last mischief-maker in the family, together with Maximilian. Her rebellion had gone out earlier, and it seemed that Maximilian's was settled, too, in my absence. That left me. The sole troublemaker. Sophia shook her head jerkily. "Alexander won't speak of you. Mother and Father allowed him to handle the situation, and he is taking it far too seriously. Not even Madeleine can get him to bend enough to just listen."

Listen to what? It's settled , I thought. "Sophie, you are upset over nothing," I said dully. "What's done is done."

"You don't listen," she accused me, a sob bursting from her. "You never listen, and that's the problem."

I shook my head slowly. "Because it won't change anything. élodie and I understand each other. We…" I shrugged and faked a smile. "We have a lot in common, it turns out. I don't know. Maybe marrying her won't be that bad after all."

"Cedric, you are rambling," Sophie warned me coolly.

"But I'm telling you," I assured her with a fake calm. The truth was, I wanted to cry and rave and rip everything around me to bits and pieces. "It's all just for show, Sophie. She doesn't expect me to love her, and she won't love me back. We'll…manage."

"Because she loves Maximilian, you dummy," Sophie said, her voice a thin sob that cut right through my heart. The world tilted on its axis. "And he loves her, too."

I didn't know if it was heartbreaking pain or crazy hope that I felt. There was no hope. Nothing could be done. I had been photographed with her just today. It had been rumored that we would be engaged for months, years. "W-what do you…?"

"Just listen," Sophia said firmly, getting back the control over her voice. "You left on the night élodie was supposed to arrive. Alexander put Max on the task of keeping her occupied and properly honored. She doesn't care about museums or history or art. She loves jazz, just like Max, and they're crazy about vintage vinyl records. When they bonded over that, they became inseparable. But Alexander was too busy and too angry with you to notice a solution right under his nose. And if he suspected it, he now refuses to let you off the hook."

"He'd ruin all three of us just to prove a point?" I heard myself ask.

Sophie raised her hands and shrugged. "A month ago, I would have told you not to be an idiot. Now? I don't know anymore."

"What about Mother and Father?" I asked urgently.

"What about them?" Sophie asked. "They are watching all those anti-monarchy parties rising in popularity, and they aren't allowed to say a thing. Grandmother is ill, and Mama is with her almost all the time. Father's too stressed to sit through dinner. If you had any misconceptions about who is in charge of your life, you weren't paying attention."

I covered my face with both hands, the book forgotten in my lap. Leaning back, I sank deeper in my chair. "They never would have fallen in love had I not left," I whispered.

Sophie was quiet for a moment. "It crossed my mind. I think they would have. Eventually. Would it have been too late, I don't know. But your absence went for too long, and Alexander won't forgive it."

"He can't trap all of us," I said, looking at Sophia hopefully.

She shook her head. "Max thinks he's being chivalrous. And élodie does what she is told. And you do whatever the hell you like. I seem to be the only sane person in this palace, and I don't know what to do."

"They're in love?" I whispered. I couldn't wrap my mind around that. It seemed so impossible. Maximilian was immature. Other than his fascination with jazz, he was just a college prankster with little interest in anything else. And élodie was prim and proper, the spitting image of regal perfection.

"Oh, they're in love," Sophie assured me. "I've never seen Max so gutted as the night Alexander announced you would return."

No wonder he refused to speak to me. I had accidentally ruined his happiness together with everyone else's. I closed my eyes as if to mourn the loss of someone dear to me. I had broken all the hearts, but all I had ever wanted was the freedom to love whoever I wanted to love. "I'm sorry," I whispered.

"Don't be sorry," Sophie said. "Think. Think of something and change the ending."

Although I nodded, hoping to put her mind at rest if I couldn't do it for everyone else, I doubted there was anything I could do. If Alexander were so spiteful, he would want to see me step up no matter what. He would gladly pay the price with Max's and élodie's hearts just to see me brought to heel.

Sophie left me alone, and I tossed the book to the ottoman because my focus was in tatters. I covered my face and wondered if I should have hidden with Tristan for longer. Could I have drawn it out until Max reached a breaking point and declared his feelings for élodie? Or would it be all the same to Alexander? Would he still seek to bring me back at the cost of ruining Tristan's life and everyone else's?

Too many questions and no time to answer them.

But in the end, hardly any answers mattered .

I was never getting Tristan back. Why shouldn't I simply let my brother dictate the course of my future? That way, we could all relax and pin all the blame on him.

It was a sweet, hateful thing to contemplate, but a spark of rebellion had returned to me. Something had to be done.