"He saw me," I whisper shout once I'm safely in Gemma's dressing room, hidden from prying ears.

Gemma looks up from her phone and pulls her brows together. "Who saw you? And where?" Her eyes draw down my attire and she bites her lip to keep from commenting.

I know it's bad.

I slump down into my own chair. "I went to do a little reconnaissance on your potential suitors. There are a lot of them, by the way. And while I was down there, Prince Antonio was literally chatting up Enzo like they were old friends. Friends, Gemma! How is that possible?"

"The internet?" she offers, as though princes make friends with perfect commoners from foreign nations all the time.

"The internet? That's you answer for this!"

She shrugs, scrolling through some photographs. I'm going to ask her more about this later, but there's more important things to do right now.

"Well, however they met, I was watching them and I got a little too invested and I think I gasped or laughed or something because all of a sudden they were turning to face me and I raced up the stairs but I don't know. I don't know how much they saw."

Gemma's lips are drawn tightly together and her cheeks puff out as her attempt to calm her laughter shakes her chest and shoulders.

"It's worse when you do that," I tell her. "It makes it last forever and you always end up laughing in my face anyway."

"It's not just that," she lets out a big, belly laugh. "Father sent me all of the eligible men attending my birthday week. And the resumes on some of these are exceptional. I don't know what he told them, but some of them seem to think I'm an alien who appreciates nothing but chicken and sword play."

"Well," I begin, but she shoots me a death glare across the room. So I leave the sword play joke unspoken, turning to face the mirror and pulling a brush through my still-damp hair.

"Ugh," I groan. "I went down there with wet hair, too. If he saw me, he saw..."

"Your wet hair and private dressing gown?" Gemma offers.

"You are immensely helpful, dear sister. Remind me to hire you as my assistant."

"I think I'm already lined up for a job elsewhere," she laughs. "But perhaps father will be convinced if you talk to him. I think I'd be an excellent assistant."

I groan again, resting my head in my arms on the table in front of me. "Why did I go down there?"

"To do some investigating, I'm told." She waves her phone between us. "But I think we can start with these instead. Far less danger of being caught that way."

"What are we going to learn from their resumes?" I ask, dragging my heavy wooden chair across the room until I'm sitting right beside her. I'm pretty sure there's permanent lines on the floor between her chair and mine from how often we've done that very move.

"We aren't going to learn much from their resumes," she says, turning her phone to face me. "But we can learn a lot from their social media."

"That's really smart, Gemma."

"It's been known to happen. Antonio seemed pretty excited to be coming," she says, pulling up his profile. "Maybe we could enlist him to help us convince that friend of yours to appear interested."

"No," I blurt. "We can't do that."

"Whyever not?" Her eyelashes flutter at an unnatural speed.

"Don't do that, Gemma," I warn. "You know I like him and I don't have to say that."

"I do," she says simply. "That's why we get him to spend time with me, offer his hand, and I reject him."

"You can't reject him, or father will just set you up with his choice." I point out. "Plus, if he's been rejected by you, it will hardly look good if he turns around and dates me."

I can't believe I just said that as though Enzo Valentino dating me is an actual real possibility.

"Good point." She taps her fingers on the top of her table. "Perhaps Enzo can help us deflect some attention. Or, we could..."

"Are you trying to find a reason to get Enzo in the same room as me?" I ask, dropping my hands into my lap dramatically.

"Am I being that obvious?"

"Yes. And I don't need your help. I'll be fine on my own."

"You just spied on him before your hair was even dry and ran away when he caught you doing so." She waits for me to say something and then adds, "And you think that's, 'fine'?"

"Well, I'm just getting used to the whole thing. We aren't going to be using Enzo and you won't be manipulating him into spending time with me."

"Giving him an offer is not the same thing as manipulating him," she says, writing something in the small notebook she always keeps by her side. "But I won't do it if you don't want me to."

"Thank you. I'll take that for now."

"So, we need some more reconnaissance, perhaps? Let's spend this afternoon trying to suss out as many of them as we can. We need to find someone who will be willing to become my suitor but who will not want to follow through on the engagement."

"Or who loves you so much they're willing to break off the engagement for you."

She stares at me, face void of emotion. "Not that one," she says finally. "Anything but that one."

"We could find someone who would make a good ruler of the country and is willing to have a kind of platonic marriage thing with you? Is that a thing?"

"I'm sure it is, Erica the well-spoken, but I don't want that either. I don't want to be married."

"I know," I agree. "I know. I'm just... Father has ideas, and he's not going to let them go easily."

"That's why we have to figure out what's going on," she says in a whisper. "Once we know what he's planning, we learn all about the men he's invited and figure out how to flip the script on him."

"So we go down to breakfast and act like we're fully on board with his plan?" I ask.

"Precisely. Play along. Let him get comfortable while we work under his nose. If he suspects us—"

"He'll try to stop us." She's too good at this spy stuff.

"I think we have a better chance of success if we don't have him breathing down our necks. Let him think we're really investigating all of the young men to find the right choice."

"Present you as picky but interested."

"Very picky," she says.

"But interested," I press. "If you can't do that, I don't think this will work."

"I'm not sure how believable I'll be."

"I'm just asking you to try." I put my hand on her arm and squeeze a little. "I'm on your side, you know?"

"I know. And I'm on your side, too. If you don't want me to interfere with the Enzo thing, I won't."

"I don't want you to interfere with the Enzo thing."

"What if he really is our best bet?" she asks. "Do you still want him off the table?"

Now there's a question I don't have the answer to. "I don't know. No. If he's our best bet or if he shows genuine interest in you, I think we should let that play out."

"Won't it hurt to see him behaving like that toward me?"

"Yes," I admit. "But not nearly as much as you losing the crown because Father is off being Father."

"We'll find someone else, I'm sure."

"Yeah. I'm sure you're right."

We finish preparing for the day, a playlist blaring from Gemma's phone to keep us company. And then we descend the grand staircase in silence. There is absolutely no one at the bottom to greet us. It seems father's favourite suitor is not joining us for breakfast. Not that I'm complaining.

As it turns out, Father did not join us for breakfast either and we were left to sit and stare at each other, unable to discuss our plans due to the public location of the dining room, but unable to think about anything else.

I'm cutting into a pancake with strawberries all over it when the door swings open.

"Are you ready to attend your meeting?" Santino asks from the doorway. "I see you've not quite finished breakfast. If you wish, I can inform them you will be delayed."

"No," Gemma says, folding her napkin and placing it atop her plate. "There's no need. I'm finished eating."

I follow her, placing my own napkin on the table and standing as the chair is slid out from under me. "Shall I walk ahead and join the gentleman?" I ask her in a whisper.

"No need." She reaches her hand out and squeezes mine. "I'll need my moral support for the entrance."

We follow Santino through the halls until we reach the back terrace where all of Gemma's supposed suitors are waiting. Our father, of course, is right in the middle of them, laughing like he's just heard the funniest joke of his life. He really knows how to lay it on.

"Remember," Gemma whispers, shaking her hands out and letting out a long breath. "We're here to get a feel for who these men are."

"Divide and conquer?" I ask.

"Divide and conquer," she agrees.

"Are you ready, your highnesses?" Santino asks.

"You may announce us," Gemma replies, nodding to the doormen who are actually undercover guards. Father has still not told us that truth, but my friend Edinara had a tryst with one once and he told her the truth while she was laying in his bed. I've always wondered why father felt the need to keep that from us past the age of twenty. When we were young, sure, but now? Why not tell me who the guards are? It makes me constantly wonder whose job description includes the willingness to die for me and my sister.

"Erica." Gemma snaps her fingers and points to her left side, pulling me back to the present.

"Sorry," I say, racing to her side.

Santino tells the doormen to open the doors, and he bows to us, stepping out before us onto the patio. "Introducing Their Royal Highnesses The Princess Anabella Francesca Noemi Gemma and Princess Leonora Mathilde Erica Valentina of Tilcara." He backs away and sweeps his hand across the entrance.

"Ready?" Gemma asks through her smile, reaching her hand out for mine.

I nod and grab her hand with a small squeeze. "We can do this."

Neither of us needs to say anything else. We know what to do.

We both put on our working faces and voices and step out into the sunlight, tiaras catching the sun and sparkling more than is necessary.

The men stop what they're doing, turn to face us and dip into bows. The foreign princes are mostly utilizing their protocols, though I notice at least a couple who are bowing at the neck instead of the waist.

I begin my job immediately as they rise, dipping into a curtsey with my sister and squeezing her hand one more time before I venture to my left, leaving her to go right. There must be at least a hundred men here, and we're supposed to meet them all. Or at least enough of them that we can tell who's safe.

My breath shakes slightly and I grip my dress tighter in my hand, steadying myself for what I'm about to do. But I've been training literally my whole life for this. I can do it. One man at a time.

"Santino," I ask. It seems he's been assigned to me while Gemma's private secretary follows her around. "Can you keep track of the order in which I speak to these gentleman and a couple distinguishing things about them. Appearance and things they say that you overhear."

"I would never attempt to overhear, Your Highness—"

"Well today you shall," I say simply. "At my request."

"As you wish."

With his help, I should be able to keep them straight. And now the real work begins. I walk over to the first one I can find, a younger man dressed in a deep blue suit.

"Hello," he says with a smile. "I'm Baylor, your highness. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"The pleasure is mine," I say, rattling off the appropriate replies and smiling as he bows his head quickly. He must be nervous or new. Perhaps constant bowing is how they do things where he's from.

It doesn't take him long to gain his composure and launch into a four minute monologue on brushing horse tails. I'm not excited by the prospect of this one, but there are literally hundreds of other choices. Someone here has to be worth talking to.

The next four are also duds.

The tenth man I talk to is at least interesting, as he has a needlework hobby that has seen him to art galleries the world over. I make note of him as a possibility. If not for our work then as a friend. I like him, I think.

"Lorenzo Valentino at your service," the next voice says before I've even fully focused on his face. He grabs my hand and I am spinning. I just need to get through the next two minutes.