Prince of my Panties (Royal Package 2)

“Yes. I c-can’t believe I’ve n-never been here before.” I wince as the words leave my mouth, then give a little shake of my head as I perch on the edge of the couch next to Jeffrey. I’m not here to exchange pleasantries, I’m here to get answers, and to do that, I need to be honest with this woman. “Actually, I c-can believe it. I had a st-st-st…” My tongue darts out to moisten my lips as I change course. “A weird experience with a Romani woman as a child. That’s why I’m here. To hopefully g-get some perspective.”

The woman’s forehead furrows, and her gaze cools, but her voice is still gentle. “I’m so sorry to hear that. I’ll help if I can, but I’ve only lived in the village for a few years. I came to help with my first great-grandchild and ended up staying for the birth of the next two.” Her lips curve slightly. “Do you have children?”

I shake my head. “N-no.”

“But you want them,” she says, casting a knowing glance between Jeffrey and me. “I can see it in the way you lean together. Two years, I think.” She taps the side of her nose. “Maybe sooner, though. The creative energy is strong between you.”

Jeffrey clears his throat, but he doesn’t contradict her. I don’t either, finding her words unexpectedly encouraging. If the woman is this bad at reading people, she’s not going to have much luck telling me what I want to hear.

Hopefully, that means she’ll settle for the truth.

“I’ve been r-reluctant to think that f-far in the future,” I confess, before launching into the briefest possible recap of what happened that day on the playground. Baba Dika listens intently, but with very little visible reaction aside from a soft cluck of her tongue as I describe the curse and a long, low hum when I finish.

We sit in silence for a moment before she says, “So, you’re the oldest princess? I thought you were all yellow-haired girls.”

I nod and gesture toward my head. “It’s a wig. Underc-c-cover today.”

Her lips turn down at the edges as she nods. “It’s good. The red matches the fire inside you.”

My first instinct is to laugh at the comment, but then I think again.

Maybe there is a fire inside of me. Maybe there always has been, and I’ve just been too busy hiding from myself and the future to notice.

“Have you heard anything like this before?” Jeffrey asks. “About a curse on the Rochat family?”

Dika’s eyes widen before she blinks quickly. “Oh, yes. It’s a common story among the Roma. A paramishta.” She nods my way. “You know…a folktale. A legend. But apparently, the woman who took you thought it was a true thing.” Her lips turn down again, sadly this time. “I’m sorry you had such an upsetting experience when you were young. That’s so hard for children.”

“Th-thank you,” I say, frowning as I push on, “b-but there’s m-more to it, I think.” I tell her about the prophecies the woman made, all of which have come true, finishing with the tragic history of my family’s firstborn children. “N-not all of them,” I clarify, “my father’s older s-sister is still alive, and there are a few others, but…”

Knowing sparks behind Baba Dika’s dark eyes, a flicker that makes me ask, “D-do you know something about that?”

“I might…” Dika’s full lips press together as she folds her hands in her lap.

“C-could you tell me?” I press. “Please? I can keep it a secret if I n-need to.”

“I was born outside this country, but raised in Rinderland,” she says after a beat. “My family still traveled then. My mother was a fortune-teller. She always had her ear to the ground, on the hunt for information, local gossip, anything that might make a read easier. Back then, the rumor was Princess Willa wasn’t her father’s daughter.”

My brows lift, but I’m not all that surprised. Aunt Willa, with her dark eyes and golden skin, looks nothing like the rest of our family.

“But if that were true and the curse is real, then Elizabeth’s father should have passed away at twenty-six,” Jeffrey says. “Since he was the true firstborn.”

“But the curse isn’t real, of course,” Baba Dika says pleasantly.

A little too pleasantly, perhaps?

I narrow my eyes, studying her face, wishing I was better at reading people. Another consequence of hiding in a tower my entire life—my family members are the only people I can read with any accuracy, and most of them are too eccentric to be good control cases for the population at large.

“What about the w-woman?” I ask, finally, when my attempts to read Dika fail. “Do you know anyone who fits her description? She’d probably be around your age by now. Like I said, I think she was in her late forties or early fifties when I met her.”