I found Elias exactly where I knew he'd be: crouched between the rose bushes, tongue poking out in concentration as he sketched a butterfly. Ink dotted his fingers, dirt smudged his elbows, and he looked completely pleased with himself.
Good. A boy who didn't mind getting dirty would be useful.
He jumped magnificently when I appeared before him, my skirts flying and crown slightly askew from my determined stride through the garden.
"Elias," I declared, summoning every bit of royal authority I could muster.
He shot upright so suddenly that he nearly impaled himself on a thorn. "P-Princess Charlotte!"
I glared at him, trying my best to channel my "serious monarch in training" expression—the one Miss Beatrice had spent weeks trying (and failing) to teach me. It was meant to be regal, but I added a hint of mischievous glint that couldn't be hidden.
"You are hereby commanded," I declared, "to serve the Crown."
Elias blinked at me as though I'd told him he was now in charge of the foxes.
"The… the Crown?" he stammered.
"Yes," I said grandly, brandishing a scroll I'd prepared earlier, bearing a very lifelike (and entirely illicit) royal seal. "By order of Princess Charlotte, First of Her Name, Future Queen, Mistress of All Storytelling Enterprises, you are hereby appointed Court Illustrator Extraordinary."
I unfurled the parchment with a flourish and extended it toward him. Elias stared at it as if he feared it might explode.
And somewhere in the back of my mind, I considered this:There had never been an Elias in the story.Which meant Fate had never accounted for him.And if it had, well—Fate could trip over its own shoelaces and tumble into a muddy ditch for all I cared.This was my story now.
"I—" Elias stuttered. "But I'm just the gardener's son—"
"Exactly!" I said, taking the upper hand. "You're sensible. Industrious. You don't waste time acting like a fool, unlike half the noble sons who can't tell a spade from a spoon."
He blinked at me, clearly taken aback.
"You'll be rewarded," I continued, counting the perks on my fingers, "Pastries, access to the Grand Pavilion—once it's built, of course—and, naturally, everlasting glory."
He looked even more flabbergasted.
"But," I added solemnly, "you have to swear allegiance first."
With an exaggerated puff of his chest, he rose to his feet like a tiny, stubborn rooster. "I swear it!"
"Good." I smiled. "You're mine now."
I held out my hand, and after a moment of sheer panic, he shook it—tentatively at first, as though afraid I might break, then with surprising firmness.
Across the garden, Whiskers the cat, who had been watching with the bored indifference of a creature who deemed himself above such trivial affairs, yawned expansively and stretched even further into his sunbeam.
"Ignore him," I said, not even looking in the cat's direction. "He'll want a share of the pastries, but he has no creative vision."
Elias let out a startled laugh, and I saw it then—the spark. The faint gleam of someone daring to dream beyond the grime under his fingernails.
We were going to take this kingdom by storm—Not with armies or swords, but with stories and ink.
And if Fate didn't approve?
It could take its complaints elsewhere, because I had other plans.