‘There is a legend about this hill,’ he said when they were about halfway up and Olivia was running out of breath. ‘A princess was being forced to marry a man she did not love, to marry for money.’ Alex paused in his climb and looked at her sadly. ‘On the night before her wedding, she fled the palace and climbed to the top of a tree on this very spot. She hid there all night, crying. When the sun rose and her parents came into the garden, shouting for her to come and be married, she flung herself from the highest branch and died. They say this hill grew from her tears.’ Alex turned away and kept walking up the hill.
Some parts of being royalty must be awful, Olivia thought. Having to marry someone you don’t love.
‘Is it still like that?’ she asked gently. ‘Will you have to marry someone your mother chooses?’
Alex’s face darkened. ‘My mother tends to get her way.’
Olivia gulped. She remembered the Queen’s tone with poor Tessa during last night’s dinner. She certainly did know how to get what she wanted.
At last, they reached the top of the snowy hill and Olivia caught her breath.
There were mountains on three sides, beautiful peaks, covered in white. Pockets of tiny villages nestled among the trees, their red roofs poking up through the snow.
‘It’s so beautiful,’ Olivia whispered. ‘You know, I was worried that I would only feel out of place here. But somewhere inside of me knows that I belong.’
‘I’m glad. Look over there.’ Alex pointed to a picturesque frozen lake twinkling in the bright winter sun. ‘That lake is on your grand-parents’ land.’
Olivia looked from the lake to the tops of the stone mansion that she could see through some trees. Her family’s estate was enormous.
‘And the reason I wanted to show it to you now is because of the poem I mentioned: “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird”,’ Alex went on. ‘In the summer, blackbirds thrive around that lake, singing their love songs for all to hear.’
He took a breath. ‘The poem is an intense study of one thing, analysing it from every angle – almost obsessed over.’
‘I know the feeling,’ Olivia said. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Jackson. She didn’t know what to think any more. Right here on this beautiful mountain top was the type of Valentine’s Day she’d wanted with Jackson – not waiting in line for a paltry two minutes with him.
She sighed.
‘I think the poet wanted to show that you can’t judge something, or someone, at first glance.’ Alex took her gloved hands in his. ‘There is so much to see beyond that.’
It was quiet for a moment. Was the prince trying to tell her something? All this talk of poetry and meanings . . . It’s like we’re talking in code, Olivia thought.
Then Alex grinned. ‘But right now, all I can see is a fireplace and a hot drink!’
Olivia chuckled. ‘It is really cold and a hot chocolate sounds perfect.’
As they started to walk back down the hill, Olivia wondered, What if Jackson has started to see me differently? Maybe that explains why he doesn’t seem to care any more.
Ivy sat next to her father on a plush white sofa, not daring to touch the drink that a maid had placed on the glass side table.
Cranberry juice plus white silk fabric equals utter humiliation, Ivy thought, keeping her hands firmly in her lap. There was a delicate glass bowl on the coffee table that could spell disaster as well.
The Queen was sitting across from her, stroking a small white ferret, while her grandparents sat together on a couch to her right.
‘And you shop in the basement of this . . . Food Mart?’ The Queen had been asking about Franklin Grove for at least twenty minutes.
‘Indeed,’ Mr Vega replied. ‘Our community thrives alongside the human community, in harmony but in secret.’
‘Mmm,’ the Queen said. ‘It does seem rather . . . unrefined.’
Ivy was glad that she hadn’t had to grow up always worrying what the ‘refined’ thing to do was.
‘We have a happy life among humans,’ Mr Vega said. ‘Many vampires do.’
‘My understanding is that you had your own doubts on this matter,’ the Queen challenged.
Mr Vega coughed. ‘It is true that I thought once that vampires and humans together could only bring harm; I was proven incorrect. Of course humans and vampires can live together happily. My daughters are proof of that.’
Ivy got the sense that the Queen would not tolerate Alex having similar thoughts, despite the fact that he was at this moment escorting Olivia on a private tour of the palace grounds.
‘Do tell me the story, Charles,’ the Queen commanded. ‘Your parents have spent years talking about it in your absence.’
Mr Vega glanced at his mother, but said nothing. Ivy wondered if one of the windows had been left open, as cold air seemed to chill the room.
‘Ivy, my dear,’ Mr Vega said, ‘you must be eager to join your sister exploring the delights of the palace gardens.’
Ivy didn’t need asking twice. She nodded and leaped up, almost knocking into the glass bowl, grateful that her father was giving her an excuse to leave – especially because she didn’t trust herself to keep her mouth shut if the Queen was dismissive of her parents’ story.
She dropped an awkward curtsy and hurried out of the door.
In a hallway lined with tapestries of wolves hunting, Ivy asked a maid where the cloakroom was. She pulled on her crushed velvet coat and headed out into the cold. She could see the footprints where Alex and Olivia had been, and wondered if she would be able to catch them up.
Ten minutes later, Ivy was regretting it. ‘This hill is impossible!’ she said as the freezing wind whipped her hair into her face.
Two steps after taking a left fork in the path, her foot hit a slick patch of ice and caused her to do the splits. Good thing she was flexible enough not to feel like she’d been ripped in half.
As she picked herself up, she heard a male voice above her. She was almost at the top and realised she could hear Alex speaking, but couldn’t quite catch the words.
The voice was coming from a direction that took Ivy slightly off the path. She stepped on to some stones that led up the hill in a natural staircase.
She poked her head over the crest of the hill and saw her sister talking to the prince by a tree. She could just make out what Alex was saying.