I keep the bookmark in a drawer in my dressing table, neither using it myself nor ever having the opportunity to give it to Irena. Of course, I could always go to Konrad's apartments and knock on the door and ask for her, but I do not dare. My language lessons — not every morning now, as I am quick to snatch at opportunities to skip them — continue to make me uneasy. The occasional wistful compliment and the eager warmness of Konrad's smiles make me feel uncertain. I suspect he admires me more than he should, and I cannot help but feel that it is my fault for spending so much time alone with him. Then again, there are times when nothing I can do pleases him and he will correct my pronunciation by minute degrees for hours on end before losing his patience and declaring himself at a loss for teaching me. I am left apologizing for my stupidity and promising I will try harder. At those times, I am sure he has a very low opinion of me indeed.

Closer to Christmas, it becomes easier to make excuses to avoid my lessons. There are any number of important dinner parties, concerts and church services to attend. In the mornings afterwards, I send my maid with excuses to Konrad, pleading tiredness from staying up late the night before.

On Christmas Eve, there is no time for lessons at all. Mariusz and I go to his mother's apartments for breakfast with Henryka, Dominik and Zofia. Afterwards, we play games on the hearthrug, paint eggs and make garlands to decorate the room, and nibble at spiced cakes and drink mulled wine. Everyone is consciously polite to me, Mariusz included. All the same, they are too obviously a family circle — broken by the deaths of the father and brother and tarnished by their shadows, fragmented further by the absence of the eldest sister — but a family circle all the same. They share old jokes I could not understand even if I did speak their language, and translate the most amusing stories about relatives I have never met whom they all know and remember intimately. At one point, when the old stories start to wear thin, when all the eggs are painted, the garlands hung, the spiced cakes eaten and the wine drunk, Zofia says to me, rather accusingly and somewhat affected by the mulled wine, "You never talk about your relatives."

"There is not much to say."

"Tell us something. There must be someone you miss, some friend, or favourite aunt."

"No one." I pare back my thin, scattered memories of childhood in the hopes of finding some harmless story to sate her curiosity. "We used to sing carols to the adults on Christmas, my cousins and I. I have one cousin, Viktoria, who would always insist on a solo part. One Christmas, when she started her solo, I sang along with her. So she cried, so loudly no one could sing above her. I don't miss her at all." Perhaps the wine has affected me as well. I turn to Mariusz and add in Rothalian, "If it weren't for me, you might have married her."

"You don't think I would appreciate a woman content to play a solo part?"

"But Viktoria always insists on an adoring audience. You really don't know how lucky you are to have me. My other cousins are equally defective. Elisabeth is so timid she would never dare say a word to you, and little Karolina is obsessed with cats. She sleeps with five of them in her bed every night. There would be no room for you, even if you wanted to join her."

Mariusz laughs. "Then I shall count you among my blessings."

He translates what I said about Karolina for the others, which coaxes a smile from even his mother. For the briefest of moments, I feel not like a guest, but like I belong here.

In the late afternoon, we all gather on the hearthrug to share our presents. Dominik, as the youngest, has the most numerous and the most interesting presents, the prize of which is a model train from Barany, including a functioning steam engine in miniature. With the addition of a lump of burning coal set into a well in its guts, the train runs across the sitting room floor until it gets trapped in the curtain which it sets on fire. Henryka douses the fire with the tea left-over from breakfast and Duchess Maria confiscates the train.

I am nervous that my gifts will not be well-received, but every time one of my presents is picked up from the pile, whoever opens it exclaims with polite gratitude. Zofia, I think, cannot really care for the silk shawl I give her, and the box of sweets I give Dominik palls in comparison to his mechanical train. I watch Mariusz particularly carefully when he opens the books I bought him, but he respects me too well to fake a smile. Instead, he flips through the pages, examines the illustrations, and remarks distantly that they are very fine editions and he will enjoy reading them.

I find it harder to receive presents. Dominik carved me a wooden horse from pine, which I find delightful, though I don't know how to adequately express it. The more I try to convince him that I like it, the more he blushes and seems to believe I do not. Duchess Maria gives me a locket which once belonged to her grandmother, which makes me feel guilty, as though I am stealing from the dead. I feel even guiltier for secretly thinking that it is a very ugly locket, even if it is very kind of her, and that I will struggle to wear it enough to make her feel as though it was worthwhile giving it to me.

Perhaps the real struggle is that I know presents are what you give people when you like them, and I know these people do not really like me. They are only being kind and polite.

That might be why Mariusz does not get me a present at all. We reach the end of the pile of presents, the last one is a bottle of perfume from Duchess Maria to Henryka, and still I have received nothing from Mariusz. I try to pretend I have not noticed. It is easy enough, as Dominik is trying to convince his mother to let him open the box of sweets I bought him even though, according to Selician tradition, we should all be fasting until supper. Perhaps no one else has noticed either. At length, Duchess Maria wins the argument and Dominik retreats sulkily to the table to practice shuffling the deck of cards he received from Zofia.

"What did you get Alexandra as a present?" Zofia asks in the silence. "She only has four presents — what did you get her, Mariusz?"

Mariusz colours. "It is not ready yet."

"Hah." Zofia looks superior. "You forgot. You always forget someone, and you forgot Alexandra."

"I did not forget." Mariusz's cheeks are quite pink now. "It is in my room."

"But not ready?" Zofia raises an eyebrow. "Princess Alexandra, he forgot you. Don't take it ill. He always forgets someone every Christmas. His little head cannot hold so many ideas at once."

Zofia has drunk generously of the mulled wine all day, and I think she is a little drunk. Mariusz looks annoyed. I don't think he did forget really. It was perhaps too much a chore for him to want to bother, or he disliked the whole polite performance of buying me a present and decided not to take part in it.

Duchess Maria looks skeptical too. Henryka pauses in the act of dabbing her new perfume on her wrists.

"It is true that Mariusz can be forgetful," she says, diplomatic and slightly nervous. "He gave me the same book two years in a row once."

"You didn't read it the first year!"

"I didn't read it the second year either. I still haven't read it." Henryka looks guilty. "I did try."

Between Henryka's guilt and Mariusz's frustration, the room falls silent bar for the sound of Dominik spilling cards all over the table.

"It doesn't matter if you don't have a present," I say to Mariusz in Rothalian. "I don't need one."

"I do," he says shortly. "I will give it to you later. I just need a little more time."

It sounds like an excuse.

"I would not forget to buy you a present," he adds, as though he can see my thoughts written on my face. "I forgot Zofia once. Perhaps more if you count her birthdays. I never remember anyone's birthday. But I did not forget you."

Duchess Maria cannot possibly understand our conversation, but she must perceive the uneasy cloud of emotions in the air. She looks theatrically at the clock.

"I'm getting very hungry," she says in French. "It must be nearly time for supper. Let's all go downstairs. Come on, Dominik, you must look for the first star to appear."

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2024-12-22: I apologize from the bottom of my heart for the long delay and thank you so much to everyone for your patience with me these past 2-3 months or however long it's been. What happened was... I finished my masters degree and went into like a 10 week burnout because all the pressure and stress was gone and I, apparently, no longer know how to function when I'm not under pressure. This chapter is the first of three about Christmas, so book time is matching up with real life time I guess.