“Now, now. We’ll have none of that,” she says, her voice soft.

“Here.” One of the women presses a small glass vial into my hand. “Drink.”

I hold it up to the light. The liquid inside is yellow. “What is this?”

“A little something from Helen’s Wonderments,” says the dresser. “I was going to give it to my niece, but—” Her eyes glaze over, and she shakes her head. “Well, never mind that. Drink up.”

“A potion?” I ask.

I see my mother bite the inside of her lip.

“For luck,” says the woman. “You look lovely. You’ll be the prettiest girl at the ball and I’m sure you won’t need it, but—just in case.”

I turn to my mother. I want to tell her again how much I don’t want to go, but before I have a chance to speak, the front door creaks open behind me and my father steps in. The women fall silent. I tuck the vial between my skin and the corset as my mother takes his coat and hat while he stands watching me. He doesn’t look at my dress. He stares directly into my eyes.

“Would you all excuse us for a moment?” The helpers scatter, but my mother hovers nearby. “What do you think?” he asks.

I don’t answer. What I think doesn’t matter. Smoothing out his vest and rumpled sleeves, he comes to stand in front of me. He is tall. His frame next to mine makes me feel small, but not in the way I feel when I stand by men in the market or in town. He wants to protect me, but he, like my mother, has no real idea of how to do that.

He reaches into his breast pocket and produces a small package secured with brown twine. His eyes, deep and brown, mist over as the firelight casts shadows across his warm umber skin. He presses the package into my hand.

“You must be feeling quite conflicted,” he says.

“That’s one word for it.”

“Angry. Resentful. Those are probably much better words.”

“Probably.”

“You are rebellious. Always have been. Where you get your fiery spirit, I’ll never know.” He gives me a knowing little wink and motions toward the package. “Are you going to open it?”

I pull the wrapping apart, and a beaded necklace with a sapphire cut into the shape of a heart falls into my hand.

“Just a trinket. It pales in comparison to you.” He takes the necklace and clasps it around my neck. “It was your grandmother’s. She asked me to give it to you when the day came for you to go off to the ball.”

“Is that really what she said?” I ask.

He narrows his eyes at me. My grandmother was like a storm, wild and unpredictable and sometimes a little too harsh for my father’s comfort. When she would speak about the ball, she never made it seem like it was something that was inevitable. She always used the word if when she spoke of it. If the day came for Sophia to go to the ball. If we were still doing this when young Sophia got older. It was her spitfire spirit, her hatred of the way Lille was run that got her killed. She had said too much to the wrong person, and the palace guards came to get her on a cold rainy afternoon. She kicked one of them on the way out the door.

A week later my father received a letter that informed him where he could pick up her body for burial.

My father sighs and casts his gaze to the floor. “She said if, not when. I miss her every single day, but I hate that she planted such nonsense in your head.”

I press my lips together. I don’t dare tell him that once while I sat in her lap she told me that if I ever went to the ball, I should set the palace on fire and dance on the ashes. It was a fun but dangerous little secret the two of us kept. A knot grows in my throat.

“I hope you understand why you must stifle the urge to resist this,” my father continues. “I know you want to. I can see it in your eyes. It feels wrong to ask you to deny who you are, but it’s necessary.”

I step forward and look right up into his face. “I don’t want to go.” I refuse to let the tears fall. “You love me, don’t you?”

“Of course. More than anything.” He lowers his eyes, his hands resting gently on my shoulders.

“Then stand with me. Behind me, beside me, something. Please.” I hate how out of control I feel.

“Sophia, please.” He is pleading, desperate. “I’m trying to save you. I know it’s not right. You think I want you to be unhappy?”

“Then just stop. Don’t make me go. Don’t let this happen.” I beg him to spare me from this, but it’s like he doesn’t hear me.

He throws his hands up. “I’m not the one in charge, Sophia.” He slumps down into a chair. My mother puts her hands on his shoulders. “It’s not fair, but I’d rather see you unhappy than imprisoned or killed.”

“For being who I am?” I ask. “For not wanting a husband? How is that wrong?”

My mother keeps glancing at the front door like palace guards might knock it down and drag me away at any moment. “Keep your voice down,” she says in a whisper.

“I can’t change how you feel,” says my father. “But you cannot disobey the king. Your feelings, my feelings, none of that matters to him.” His voice gets lower and lower as he speaks to me, his eyes downcast.

“He is not the only one who thinks solely of himself.” The words slip out like a curse, and my father winces as if I’ve cut him. That’s not what I want. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to hurt you. I—I’m sorry I can’t be who you want me to be.”

A knock at the door startles us both. When my father composes himself enough to answer it, a man in a finely tailored navy-blue suit stands in the doorway.

“Good evening, sir.” The man bows low. “The carriage is ready.”

“It’s time,” my mother says.

She tries to take me by the elbow, but I pull free from her grasp and reluctantly walk out of the house and down the footpath. The carriage, decorated with lavender curtains and matching ribbons, sits there like a beautiful vision ready to ferry me into a nightmare. Two snow-white Clydesdales are hitched to the front, each wearing a lavender sash to match the carriage. Through the glass window, I see Erin seated inside.

“We split the cost of the carriage with Erin’s parents,” my mother says. “It will give you a chance to say your goodbyes, make peace with the situation.”

She slips the invitation to the ball into my hand. As the reality sets in, an unfathomable sadness wells up inside me. There will be no more stolen moments, no more rendezvous at the park, no more secrets shared between us. I climb into the carriage.

“You look stunning, Sophia,” Erin says. I watch her gaze move over me before she looks away.

“Thank you,” I say. I lean toward her and reach out to touch her hand when my father’s face appears in the window. I sit back immediately.

“Try to enjoy yourself, Sophia,” he says through the glass.

He can’t be serious. I begin to speak, but Erin beats me to it.

“We’ll try, sir,” she says. She gives me a pointed look, and I reluctantly nod back.

My father and mother watch from the door as the carriage pulls out of the drive and begins the short journey to the castle.

“I can’t wait to see what the palace looks like on the inside,” says Erin, staring out the carriage window. Her voice is low, her words measured. “I hear they have tables and tables of food and wine and peacocks just walk around the grounds. Can you imagine it? Real live peacocks.”