“You’re my very best friend, too.”
“Promise you’ll always be my best friend?”
“Of course,” Freddy nodded seriously. “Every day and always.”
Freddy, 14 years old
The soft sounds of a lullaby drifted through the nursery door. Freddy pushed it open just far enough to poke his head around, and immediately smiled at the domestic picture that met his eyes.
Lizzie sat in a rocking chair with her eyes closed and her baby brother asleep on her chest. She leaned her cheek against his dark curls as she sang, and the baby breathed contentedly around the tiny thumb in his mouth. Her free hand rubbed circles on his back, which was covered in the dark fabric of a totally impractical and yet somehow adorable formal jacket.
It was such a sweet and touching moment that Freddy almost hated to interrupt, but his excitement at seeing Lizzie in person for the first time in nearly a year won out in the end. He rapped his knuckles lightly against the door.
Her eyes flew open and met his, and he basked in the warmth of her smile. “Freddy,” she whispered with a contented sigh, as if he was the last missing piece in her puzzle.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he latched on to the hope that he was.
He eased around the door. “Am I interrupting?”
“Only if you wake him up, and in that case, you will be the one to get him back to sleep.”
Freddy tiptoed closer to get a better view of the baby. “So this is the tiny prince that has stolen Belinda’s throne?”
Lizzie shifted her hold on the baby so that his face was more visible. Long, dark eyelashes fanned over his pink cheeks, and Freddy didn’t think he had ever seen a nose so tiny before in his life. “This is Philip.”
He brushed a tentative finger over the back of the little prince’s fist as he whispered, “He’s so small.”
“He’s actually quite large for only being seven months old.” Freddy smiled at the pride evident in Lizzie’s voice. “And he’s already trying to crawl.”
Freddy settled down onto a low stool near Lizzie’s feet. He grinned up at her. “An important skill for any future king to master, second only to learning to use a spoon.”
She kicked him lightly. “Something that you only mastered recently, if the Pea Soup Debacle of two summers ago is any indication.”
“That was entirely your own fault, and you know it. You purposefully waited until I had taken a bite before trying to make me laugh.”
She tilted her nose into the air. “You have no proof.”
“You and Hadrian had placed bets on which of you could make me spew first.”
“He told you.” Lizzie’s eyes narrowed and her lips pressed together in a thin line of mock anger. “I thought he could be trusted.”
Freddy laughed, covering his mouth quickly when the sudden noise caused little Philip to stir. “You can trust him to be unflinchingly honest. He was so worried that I would be upset with you that he made sure I knew he was partly to blame.”
A soft smile pulled at her mouth as she leaned her head back and resumed rocking. “Sweet Hadrian. Speaking of, where is your shadow?”
A confusing spark of jealousy flared to life. Despite his love for both his closest friends, Freddy very much didnotcare for the way she smiled when she said Hadrian’s name. He shrugged. “Somewhere around here. He’s started apprenticing with the royal translator, which means that he’s probably holed up in the library memorizing rules of conjugation or something like that.” He nodded towards Philip. “He seems like a good baby.”
In truth, Freddy knew absolutely nothing about babies, good or otherwise. He was just suddenly desperate to change the subject to anything besides his older and apparentlysweetbest friend.
Lizzie raised her eyebrows in question at the sudden switch in conversation, but she humored him. “Father evidently thinks so. To hear him speak, you would think Philip was already leading conquering armies and fostering prosperous trade deals, rather than drooling and learning how to say ‘mama.’” Her expression turned sour for a moment, but it smoothed over quickly. “Though that’s not Philip’s fault. He doesn’t know that his arrival into the world simultaneously fulfilled Father’s deepest desires and crushed his sister’s future dreams.”
“That is a very dramatic take.” He propped his elbows on his knees and folded his hands under his chin.
“I have a very dramatic family.” Behind Lizzie’s laugh there was a tremor of pain, one that Freddy had seen far too often over the years and had read between the lines of every letter that she wrote from her home in Nedra. “And Nedra’s rules of succession state that the royal title passes through the male line. Father had all but resigned himself to the thought that the Doulyttle name would die along with him, but now he has an heir to leave on the throne. Of course, the Nedran court is a little put out, as therewere several families whose sole focus the last sixteen years has been dangling their sons as possible husbands for Belinda. They’re not quite as willing to bend over backwards for Father now that Lindy isn’t going to be queen.”
She let out a long sigh, and her eyes grew unfocused as she stared ahead. Her fingers absentmindedly ran through the curls at the base of Philip’s head. “Which is rather unfortunate to Father, as now that he feels that his line is secure, he’s become much more serious about ensuring that both Lindy and I are as valuable to Nedra as we can be.”
A frown took over Freddy’s face. “What on earth does that mean?”
