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my hand and slipped the ring on my finger. “What can you say?”
    “Well, when you put it that way, how can I refuse?” I adjusted my face into a smile that masked—at least I hope it masked—my keen desire to beat him over the head with whatever club-like object was close at hand: the large copper urn standing on the stairway post, the cane a decrepit old bishop was leaning on at the edge of the crowd, perhaps even Count Glissando, if I could get a firm enough grip around his fat neck.
    “She accepts!” called Count Glissando, practically yodeling the words.
    “She accepts!” roared the crowd.
    “Naturally,” said the prince, shrugging.
    The cameras went off, their pans of flash powder exploding like a barrage of cannon.
    “Your Royal Highnesses!” hollered the court crier. “Lords and ladies, honored guests, etcetera and etcetera! May I announce the official engagement of Her Royal. . .”
    That’s as far as he got, because Glissando, sidling over quicker than a weasel, jammed his elbow into the poor fellow’s stomach. The court crier doubled over, coughing, and the fat little count took over.
    “It gives me great pleasure to announce the engagement of His Royal Highness, Fenris, crown prince of Delmania, and Her. . .”
    That was as far as Glissando got, of course, and I was surprised he had even got that far, for the court crier took his job very seriously—too seriously, some might say—and he had recovered enough to get his hands around Glissando’s neck. He did his best to throttle the count, but I have to say that his entire attention wasn’t in it, as he also wanted to continue his job announcing my unfortunate engagement.
    “The happy engagement of Her Royal Highness, Princess Rosamonde Baden-Lenox,” he panted, trying to not lose his grip on Glissando’s neck, “the Flower of Bordavia! The Lovely Rose of Ruritania! Engaged, ladies and gentlemen, to this. . .”
    He went over with a crash, as Glissando, although he was turning purple and flapping his arms like a beached seal, managed to get his foot behind the crier’s ankle and thus yank him off balance. They both went down, of course, and began rolling about, kicking and punching at each other and occasionally managing to holler something either vaguely related to the engagement—my engagement, I suppose, though it sickened me to even think the words—or, in Glissando’s case, some sort of lengthy description of Prince Fenris’s noble qualities.
    The orchestra launched into an energetic rendition of the Bordavian national anthem, which effectively drowned out the spirited debate between the two men. I’m not sure who ordered them to do that (probably my uncle Milo), but it certainly made Fenris frown. His hand tightened painfully on mine. Across the room, I saw the Delmanian ambassador looking like he had just taken a mouthful of rancid buttermilk. The cohort of Delmanian trumpeters fingered their instruments aggressively and looked ready to launch into a counterattack with the Delmanian national anthem.
    The room tilted around me. The chandeliers sparkled like stars whirling past in the heavens. My mother’s face blurred by, pale and set. She was trying to smile. My father peered over her shoulder. He looked worried. But then there was another face in the crowd. A face I was not expecting.
    Henri.
    His face was white with shock. And anger.
    But then the room tilted more, as unsteady as a lily pad in a pond. Slippery, fragile, ready to flip me over into the future. A future that was bent on drowning me.
    The last thing I heard before I fell asleep was Celeste’s worried voice. “ Vite, vit e ! Catch her before she falls!”
    But I’d already fallen.
    And then I was asleep. It was a fitting end to a very trying day.
     
    ***
     
    “Wake up. I know you’re faking it. I know you are.” There was a pause, and then the voice repeated, sounding somewhat irritated. “Wake up!”
    I opened one eye cautiously. I hadn’t exactly been