The wrinkled, somewhat exasperated face of Queen Joronn offered a strained smile. She extended a torn dinner roll as I jumped. "Bread's stale, but you can have it," she explained in perfect English. A wisp of hope in my heart extinguished. Right family, wrong member. If she hadn't recognized me on sight, I had a feeling she must've overhead Nik's goodbyes.

"Your Majesty. Your Highness." I scrambled both upright and for words, wracking my brain for the proper term. "Your Grace—"

"Joronn, dear." She waved off my stammered apologies and held out the bread. "You've given the staff a fright, the way you've been eyeing them all night like a bear straight from hibernation."

"This bear wants her cave," I said, pushing away her offering and using the quiet to plaster the cracks in my voice. "I'm actually looking forward to guards escorting me out the back."

"My son made that very request for you, car and everything to take you back to your dorm, but I don't believe it should have to come to that." She chucked the roll into the water. Fins and soft-scaled bodies broke the surface as the fish addressed the bobbing treat. "Sit back down, will you?"

I sat.

Tulle beneath her red satin dress rustled as she laid a hand on my head to use for balance. Before I could stop her, she'd plucked off her heels, reclined in glossy repose, and dipped her toes in the water.

I gasped.

She wiggled her butt further into the mired ground. "Just because something is beautiful doesn't mean we have to treat it with more caution and reverence than our most beloved possessions. I have a couple of hounds whom I adore wet or dry, soiled or spotless. I wasn't going to wear this dress past tonight, anyway."

"Dogs are a little more durable," I said, with an eye to her gown.

She laughed where I could not, the sound light as a silver bell and equally musical. "And I'll remember them more than a dress. My bank accounts care not either way. . . That dress of yours is quite lovely. Why are you keeping my fish company when there are handsome young men with deep pockets to be had?"

"Rough night." I used Nik's muddied handkerchief to soak up fresh tears canvassing my nose. Despite some part of me always knowing the outcome, I'd still hoped it would be different.

She must have noticed my crying but stared across the water instead of commenting, white gloved hands folded in her lap. The koi lipped her toes. For a while the gentle murmur of water became the sole voice between us.

"Aren't your feet cold?" I finally asked, antsy and hungry and unsure what to do in the presense of royalty.

"If they weren't, I wouldn't feel alive," she hummed. The Queen had a timeless voice whose tone never felt old or tired or beat down by the years her body had put on.

"You know why I came," I said.

Her chin dipped down. "I do."

With a resigned sigh I threw the handkerchief in my lap. "I know I made a mistake."

"Emotions are complex," she agreed. The longer she sat the more mud seeped into her gown, but if dampness or a fishy smell bothered her she didn't let on. "You didn't realize it, but when you mailed that test, you traded in your happiness to give me the greatest gift: my Niklas."

"I used to believe you could achieve anything you worked for." Parents, counselors, teachers, and coaches preached that cereal box philosophy. I had gotten my stride back, twice, and won the recognition I craved. How had I worked hardest of all for Logan and failed him? Why did I let myself betray him?

The Queen threw back her head to regard the stars. Viridian beams highlighted her thin cheekbones, gifting her with the Paleolithic grace of a sauropod matriarch. My mother was old, but the Queen seemed to have centuries on her in everything but voice. She pointed across the water to a No Trespassing sign posted near the gap.

"Perhaps you aren't working toward my son," she said. "Perhaps you've a different goal, a different man. Stay at the party. Love is in the air. Even in a dirty dress a young woman like yourself can catch a new fish. You might even attract more than the glitzy girls do. And you can always throw him or her back into the sea come dawn."

I didn't want to go fishing; I'd been happy with the one I'd caught. My nail traced guilty circles in the muck. "I did come with a date, but he's taken and it's hard to muster the courage to return looking this way."

"Take as much time as you need. You're with the Queen; trouble is a foreign word to me." She dismissed my worries with an impish grin and handed me a crust of bread.

I shredded the crust into bite-sized morsels and chucked them into the water. Several tails broke the surface. "Trouble I can handle. People's judgments are what worry me."

The queen mhmm'd her agreement. "To be quite honest, people have annoyed me all night. This is a celebration of love but all anyone cares about is business. I want my son to feel welcome. This is his home. Instead, everyone is using their invites to worm their way into his good graces." She sprang to her feet quicker than I'd ever seen someone of her age move, and invited me up with a hand.

I stared at my dirt-smeared, crumb-encrusted fingertips.

"You're alright," she urged, tightening an already strong grip. "There are more than twenty-nine public bathrooms on the palace grounds. I can spare one for you."

Humbled and thankful, I followed her through the garden and over to a broad set of terrace doors. She hefted one open and stepped inside. Centuries of history surrounded us from floor to ceiling. Trimmed in gold and lined with white oak paneling, the hallway featured paintings and busts by famous artists long since deceased and famous. Several displayed former kings astride wild-eyed stallions.

A single guard stood at a fork in the hall. The Queen paid him no mind but in my naive appraisal of opulence I sure did. Trying not to squelch my toes, I leaned on her arm. "Does he have to keep his eyes fixed straight ahead?"

At her resounding "no" I hunched my shoulders and covered my face until we'd walked far down the leftmost passage.

Beyond dark cherry doors lay a room of marble luxury. Gold lined the stalls. I'd have glanced at the toilets, but I struggled to pee in the urology experiments for anatomy lab; I sure as heck couldn't go with a queen standing outside the door.

"This is for the banquet hall," she explained, directing me before a broad mirror to pluck leaf particulate from my hair. "Exquisite, yes? Perfect for quick touch-ups and instagram snaps. A true lady does not keep her gentleman waiting." She caught my glance at the unpadded marble block posing as a vanity chair. "No one in their right mind sits there longer than necessary. A cold date is preferable to a cold ass."

Under the glow of artificial lights my adrenaline dissipated. I was too numb to laugh, so I avoided looking into the mirror, and that was when I noticed a towel-bearing maid in the corner pretending not to notice us.

"Is her job just to wait for someone to stumble in?" I whispered.

"There'll be more people later when we serve cake," the Queen said, "but yes, she is in charge of this bathroom. Don't mind her."

"And I thought scooping ice cream was a dull summer job," I said to the girl. The Queen laughed and must've repeated the words in Norwegian, for a thin smile flit across the girl's face and she actually looked like she'd prefer I ignored her.

A brush and comb sat on the vanity. The Queen seemed determined to lift my spirits, briskly plumping my listless curls. "The Travel Channel featured this room once." Her voice dangled a question on the last word.

Wearily I took the bait. "I'm honored you allowed me inside."

"My son has told me little about his time in America and hardly anything about you. You spent all your money buying him that genetic test? Poor creature! Are you not well off?"

"Not well enough that marble vanities and mousy handmaids are commonplace," I said. "I'm living comfortably, at least until I have to start paying back my student loans. Certainly can't compete with this lifestyle. This isn't even my dress."

She fussed with her own silvered hair. "You attended Pentworth with my son, yes?"

"I did, and I'm an exchange student at the University of Oslo." Turning the tap to cold, I washed my hands, then cupped them and splashed my face.

"Studying what?"

"Biology."

"Ah, as your mother had."

"Someday I'd like to do my own research in the molecular and cellular fields." I scrubbed until the mascara disappeared, leaving behind a pink-eyed ghost of the beauty I'd been. This was how Cinderella must have felt at the stroke of midnight.

"We've tried for years to get your mother into Oslo for lectures. Their faculty appreciates perceptive minds." She passed the maid's towel to me. "Maybe we could hire you instead."

"Yeah," I lied. Once I boarded the plane home Norway was forever blacklisted from my travel log.

"Kristi, darling," Queen Joronn clucked. "Some powder from the spare? Not too ashen, please. We don't want a banshee."

The maid abandoned her post. As soon as the door clicked shut the queen pivoted.

"I can fix a crying face. Wore it for days after my son returned. Mustn't have had a dry eye for a week after he got off the plane. Your dress, however . . . " She grimaced at the gown, plucking pinched fabric from my hip. "We can make your date fall in love with the person underneath."

"He's taken," I reminded her, wiping a section of thigh visible through silk tears. While I was dying to commiserate with Sal over a pile of chips at the nearest publick house, the better half of me wished he'd gained Helena's approval and had skipped off Unni. "I'm not his type anyway."

"Ripped dress or silk ball gown, you're somebody's type. Look at you." She patted my cheeks. "So fresh and pink! And your shoulders, such a pretty posture! How I would love to go back to a time without varicose veins and arm wrinkles. Oh, to wear a sleeveless shirt again!"

I untangled knots in my hair. Every section freed resulted in so many high-charged strands that I looked like I'd walked through a balloon circus. With one final twist I conceded the curls to chaos, tossed my head back and gathered them into a frizzy bunch.

The Queen corrected my askew neckline. "You loved my son a great deal, didn't you?"

"Yes." Here guilt panged my chest for attempting to steal him from her. Compared to my mother, Queen Joronn was the essence of kindness and reason. Maybe if Logan—maybe if Niklas had had a frank conversation with her the contract could have been dissolved. Delicacy in mind, I said, "He ended up not being the man I thought he was."

"Happens too often, I'm afraid."

Leaning forward past me, she pressed close to the mirror and applied her lipstick from a small satin purse. The deep crimson made the blue veins of her hands protrude. While I might've teased my own mother about the intense choice, I held my tongue. Old women, especially old queens, deserved the freedom to wear what they pleased.

"When we cannot change others, we must make adjustments to our own lives," she said, smacking her lips. "And you have a most unpleasant situation on your hands. My son turned you down tonight, but, pardon my French, we may yet have a real shit show to deal with. I've missed a decade of his life, but Niklas is still my son and every bit the romantic his father was. He's going to mope and think and dwell and then he's going to come to you."  Blue eyes observed me through the mirror with unnerving serenity. "You must turn him away."

Was it my imagination or had the air-conditioners kicked in? Goosebumps rose along my arm. I backed into the vanity and reached for something, anything, to hold her advancing smile at bay. 

"If he wants to be with me," I stuttered, "why can't he?"

She grabbed the wrist her son held captive an hour ago; every muscle in my arm tensed as she yanked my ear to her level. "You are a footnote in Norway's mammoth history, a nobody with nothing to offer him beyond a few paltry comforts. He and Annelise have everything to offer their nations. Do not dare be so selfish."

I wrenched my hand free and hurried for the exit.

She sighed and stepped after me. "Allison, wait."

I hesitated. Gone from her voice was the snarl. The woman who'd twisted my wrist displayed a petite, remorseful frown.

"I apologize for my forthright actions. A mother who's lost her son once makes sure she never does so again." She ran a hand through her hair, just the way her son did when he was stressed. "For at least two years, he chose you over me. You can't possibly know how jealous I am of you, and how worried I am for Anne. She is a daughter to me- all I had. We've both missed him for so long. I know it'll hurt, but you have to say no. You can't be together."

"Trust me, we're through." What else did you say to a queen? Somewhat bitter, I added, "I'm glad you got him back."

Her expression softened. She reached out with open arms. "Niklas will never be yours, but I rest easy knowing he had such a loyal friend looking after him. Leave Norway and find yourself a better man."

I raised a tired hand to stop her hug, or maybe to stop myself from telling her the truth. The other hand I wrapped around the door handle. "Heard that lecture before."

"No doubt from a wise woman." The Queen gently pried my fingers off the exit. "The mistakes of a child should not be a parent's job to correct, at least not when your child is a grown man. Niklas erred at your expense. This did not end the way you intended, but one day someone will love those pink cheeks and pretty shoulders."

My entire night boiled down to one resigned sigh. "Sometimes it's hard to feel that way."

"I'm going to tell you something you mustn't share." We were alone, but she scanned the stalls before whispering into my ear. "I had always desired to marry my husband's younger cousin, Kristopher. Now I possess a kingdom and a son whom I would not exchange for the world."

She and I, maybe we weren't alike in looks or wealth or nationality, but our lives weren't so far apart, either. "And your husband?" I asked.

"Loved him in a different way, in a way just between ourselves, but that time has come and gone." She bowed her head in a moment of silence. My gaze fled onto the polished tile. "We are all made to be alone, Allison. If we are lucky, it's only for a short while."

"How do you feel about Kristopher now?" I didn't dare meet her eyes, afraid of learning what kind of shelf-life regret has.

"Kristoph has his family and I have Niklas." From her purse she produced a tiny vial of perfume and spritzed both our necks. "Tonight I am the happiest woman in the world. Your night will come soon enough."

"I'm happy for you and your countries." My words sounded artificial and choked; I was certain she sensed how disingenuous my statement was. Despite feeling sorry for her, it was hard to tamp down the spirit of wanting my own happiness fulfilled tonight.

This time with a tissue, she directed me toward my dreary reflection. "Queens save inappropriate tears for their pillows. Can you do that?"

I touched the tissue to my eyes. Thanks stalled in my throat.

Her arm squeezed my waist with all the warmth of a grandmother's embrace. "I will speak truthfully, because you deserve at least this small comfort. When I married Amund I struggled with my feelings. Niklas will do the same with Anne. But you, you get the chance to marry for love." Genuine sincerity strained the syllables of her voice as she added, "I am forever envious of that."

Her sincerity pushed my own integrity to its limits. As bad as I felt, there was something restorative in confession. "You should talk to your son about why he left. If this is your second chance, you should let him know you won't think less of him for telling you the truth."

The Queen kissed my cheek, leaving a burgundy impression I didn't dare rub off in her presence. "You'd be a better daughter-in-law than the one I'm getting. Your Prince Charming exists. Unfortunately, my son isn't him."

Saving tears for home, I swallowed hard. Silence was hard to keep.

She gasped as if a harvest mouse had run underfoot. "Goodness, child, if you're like this when he comes for you . . ."

With an absent grunt I sat on the chilled seat. Goosebumps rose along my forearms.

"You always knew nothing would happen," said either my conscious or the Queen. "Nothing could ever happen. This was a foolish trip for your heart."

In my dreams the outcome didn't matter because we'd be together. The truth stung worse than a hive of bees. I owed Mom a huge apology. I'd poured thousands into Operation Niklas. Instead of studying abroad in Rome or Tuscany where I could get a new start and a nice tan, I'd squandered my money on a trip for one lackluster reunion.

The door was so quiet that the maid's astonished face peeped into the mirror's reflection before either of us realized it'd opened. The Queen jumped. Kristi mumbled something and left without leaving the powder.

Queen Joronn wiped her glove across the hinge pins with huffed annoyance. "This is why I'm always telling maintenance not to oil the doors. My hearing's going. My heart can't take the sudden surprise. I don't want to die of fright."

Kristi's appearance got my feet moving. My legs swung to the side of the chair. "I should go."

The Queen stopped mid-swipe and folded the glove against her forearm. Her blue eyes met mine. "Do you believe in global warming, Allison?"

"Do you mean climate change or are you strictly talking temperature?" Soon as the words left my mouth I cringed and suppressed the urge to bless myself. My mother had spoken through me! But maybe being possessed by the spirit of a domineering woman wasn't such a bad thing. Niklas wasn't the only one who needed to grow up.

The Queen tapped her chin. "My good friend is researching something about climate change or global warming, I'll admit to my ignorance on that, but I do have some influence over Oslo's university funding. He could get you a summer internship."

"No, that's—"

"I cannot apologize enough for my son's behavior or my own loathsome display earlier. Please allow me to extend an olive branch, one scorned woman to another."

"I'm sorry, but—"

"He's putting together a research team for an expedition to Svalbard. You could take an extended holiday and join him. There are rules and stipulations, of course."

Soon as I returned to the dorm I'd book the next flight to Boston. Back to Mom, to track, friends, work, and university. Back to a life without Logan, a life he hadn't been part of since Cava. I wasn't returning to a life without him. I was already living it.

"No offense, but Norway hasn't exactly opened its many arms to me." 

The Queen laughed. "You need alone time. You need space."

"Which Boston will provide." Except the apartment was Becky's now, and my room back home was an office. Still, I'd rather be crashing on Clara's sofa than wandering the Arctic Circle with a team of researchers ready to clink thermoses in celebration of a royal wedding.

"No one will be the wiser. Nik can't approach you if he doesn't know where you are." She winked. "Please accept this. A stipend and glowing recommendation for graduate school as compensation. I'll write the note myself."

Mom wouldn't turn down an opportunity to make lemonade from lemons, but I hesitated. "I don't want my career to be a constant reminder of our breakup," I said.

"Consider it an advancement, a stepping stone. You've got to work hard once you're in the door or you'll be right back outside."

Back home I'd never live it down anyway. My bags wouldn't hit the floor before Aaron would be paraded forth as a decent man. If I managed to earn an audience with my former roommate, Becky'd be chomping at the bit to say, "Told you so." And Dad, Dad would pat my back and hug me with a knowing sigh and that was worst of all. If I wanted to change all that, I couldn't come home with my tail tucked between my legs. I had to do something, but I wasn't sure Svalbard was the answer.

I pressed my nose against the vanity and addressed the marble. "I wish life had a reset button."

"It does if you have the money and patience." The queen hummed and assessed her butt in the mirror. Mud tarnished her red dress and I felt the smallest flash of jealousy. At least she could change; whatever adorned my backside was caked on through my walk of shame back to the dorms. "A fortune the size of mine could arrange you a small reset, but it comes with a steep price."

Curiosity bulldozed thoughts of the petty rumors my RA might devise. I frowned. "Are you serious?"

She spun in a radiant circle of dirty silk. "I'm in need of someone to do a difficult job. Assuming you accepted my original proposition, I was going to break this to you down the road- but if I can't get you to accept, perhaps this should come out now."

I shouldn't have cared, but curiosity begged to know. "What?"

"First, you must swear to me that, should you decline, this information never leaves this room."

That right there was reason enough for a firm, resounding, "Nope." After all this time pining for Niklas, I realized the hurt this lifestyle inflicted. It was time to put myself first. "I won't swear anything. You either trust me or you don't." My shoulders ached, they were drawn so tightly. Was I being disrespectful?

She stared at her reflection, pensive. "How I wish you and Annelise could reverse roles. Respect I can give."

"Thank you," I said, relieved.

"On to business then. Being from Boston, you are familiar with Isabella Stewart Gardner?" Of all the spidery possibilities spinning webs in my head, an art collector's name wasn't one of them.

"Mom used to take me to the museum all the time," I said. Every spring and summer, back when my homework was basic math and spelling, we'd sit on the stairs of the Venetian palace replica and pretend to be foreign ambassadors. She'd lead me through the galleries and explain how other cultures might view the same painting.

"You've heard of the nineties heist then."

I nodded. "We'd never walk by the empty frames without a lecture on the importance of preserving history and making the masters' art available to everyone." All that was a condensed version of Mom's usual earful, or the night would be over before we finished her rant about dishonorable, thieving scum.

"Art has been a passion of mine since I was small." Queen Joronn swept her arms wide. "You can't live around such history and not come to respect it."

"How do I enter the picture?"

"The Storm on the Sea of Galilee is a Rembrandt I'd had the pleasure of viewing once before. From intelligence I've gathered, the work was taken to Philadelphia and sold eventually to a gentleman in Skein, Norway. We arrested him, but the stress of the situation led to unfortunate circumstances and the work was never located."

"You're certain he had it?"

"The man was widowed with a son who works in Longyearbyen, a settlement in the Svalbard archipelago. He blames us for his father's death and refuses to cooperate. I need someone with nothing to lose, someone with a genuine grudge against my family, to get close to him, find out where it's hidden. You're a lovely young woman who got shunned by my son."

"I'm not a professional spy." Although I wished I was as incredible as one of my favorite espionage heroines, Virginia Hall.

She smiled. "Which makes your presence more honest."

I crossed my arms. "Lying a little instead of a lot doesn't make you honest."

"Authentic, then."

"Send someone to interrogate him."

Her eyes reddened. She bowed her head. "Tveit Senior hung himself in custody. I was hoping, as his son's travel has been restricted to the island, a more subtle method might work. My advisors suggest forceful means, but these hands of mine are bloody enough. I won't risk another life, not for a painting, however valuable."

On those somber grounds, I agreed. "And how would I convince him to give up the painting?"

Her eyebrows pinched together and her smile puckered. "That's where I'm asking you for more than you've given anyone- and why I would give you a reset on life in return."

"What do you mean?"

"I need your life. Everything. Those you love, your friends, family: to all of them Allison Stevens will be dead."

Shock brought my hands over my mouth, a combination of surprise at her suggestion and mortification for having bolted upright and flung an f-bomb at the Queen.

"I mean, I can't just die," I said once the embarrassment faded. Sure, I'd faked a few things over the years: permission slip signatures, my interest in popular bands, etc., but death was an advanced performance for a bad actress.

"If you choose to go, you must. Mr. Tveit must believe you are there to stay. You don't need to do any actual dying; you just need to hit this 'reset button' for a time. Fake your death. Involve Mr. Tveit. Perhaps even flirt with him. A little love goes a long way. He will sympathize with you, being disgraced to public and family. This," she paused, "quest, could run longer than the initial expedition, and it is far, far easier to prove your intentions as a dead girl than a living one."

Suspicion leveled my tone. "Why do my parents have to think I'm dead and not just extending my stay?"

"You're either all in or you're out." With a lengthy sigh, Queen Joronn massaged her temples. "Now is neither the time nor the place. There's a party going on. I had thought with your connections ..."

"Connections?" I barked. "I've got about as many of those as I've got lovers."

She laughed, a musical sound that echoed in the bathroom. "As a mother who understands the anguish of a lost son, I find it despicable to subject your mother to the same. I'm sorry to have asked this of you. I have been searching for a person with the motivation and reason to care. Perhaps I got a bit ahead of myself."

"It's fine," I said, watching her eyes carefully. "You said this death won't last forever?"

She shook her head. "Temporary as a circus tattoo. Long enough to locate the painting. The expedition provides a valid reason for your presence in the north. You do the rest. I promise you, by the end of this harrowing journey, the new Allie will not resemble the old one."

She evaluated me in the pause that followed.

I craved nothing more than a fresh start, where past mistakes couldn't haunt me. How good being free must feel, on my own and never badgered. How exciting, to play the hero! If I was sixteen again, I'd have accepted on the spot.

But I wasn't. There were serious ramifications. People would get hurt. "What about a job? I'll lose my degree from Pentworth."

She was a prepared little angel rubbing my back, an insistent voice beside my shoulder. "Knowledge doesn't disappear because you have no diploma. Test out, graduate from Oslo on full scholarship, and teach. If you don't like that, there are dozens of universities that would accept a brave young woman who sacrificed so much to rescue a masterpiece. I'm sure Pentworth would take you back and restore your credentials."

"It's tempting, but—"

"There's always a reason not to. Several, in your case. What I ask takes time and nonstop lies, lies to everyone but yourself." Foundation caked my skin where her chin rested. "But when you're done playing sleuth August will have come and gone."

The thought of Nik's wedding and subsequent news coverage sickened me. Maybe a desolate island was the best option for me on that day. Somewhere without cameras, without journalists to ask if I planned on storming the altar. Nothing ensured getting over him faster than returning to a ring on his finger.

"Are you willing to surrender this life for a chance at a better one?" The Queen turned me toward the far mirror. "Here stands a woman whose world has ended. Directionless, wandering without purpose. No one else lives her life, no one else deals with her consequences every day. At this very hour you are nothing to history, but you can still be something if you'll only say 'yes.' You have a rare chance to be remembered."

I regarded the stone-faced nymph in the tattered silver dress. Where was she going? What was her future? I thought I'd found my better half, but who was I alone?

I could be someone. My mom could see me as someone.

"Count me in, Your Majesty," I decided.

"Joronn, my dear; you've earned the right to take that silly title off my name! I cannot tell you the great help you will be to us all. A representative shall drop by in the morning." With a delighted clap she skipped along the exit, twirling once before opening the door. Her knuckles rapped the wall. "Actually, I should think it would be advantageous to our future together if tonight you make public your discussion with my son- the more dramatic the better. If you can do that, I know you can work in Svalbard."

After a quick thank-you I walked past her. Kristi stood dutifully nearby. Once the maid retreated to her post, the queen headed for the opposite hall still barefooted. She stopped once. "Allison, I am sorry the results are what they are."

"So am I."

"I promise I'll take care of you the moment the guards take you. I'll even save some cake."

On my way back to the garden the aurora danced over the delicate trails. As the lights and sounds of the party drew nearer, lingering doubts and memories materialized.

This wasn't how my parents raised me to behave. I wasn't thrilled about Niklas, either, but two years from now when I was working my dream job and had earned back Mom's respect through the Rembrandt's discovery, he'd still be trapped in a depressing marriage. So many more doors opened tonight that a few closures didn't matter the way they had a couple hours ago.

That's what I told myself, anyway.

Tonight I'd accepted a new life, not a bribe. As my feet hit the dance floor I knew how I'd spend the last moments of this one: bringing my relationship with Logan to the public.