“It’s time to begin your skin regimen,” they said. “Your bridesmaids can come, too, of course.”
Bridesmaids. I realized I hadn’t even chosen my bridesmaids yet.
“I wanna be a bridesmaid!” Lalia gushed, zooming out of the door.
“I’ll be your bridesmaid,” Dafne said.
“And of course I will, too,” Rose said, coming to my side.
“Mom?” I grinned at my mother.
“I’ll be your matron of honor,” she said proudly.
“What about your outfits?” I wondered.
“Don’t worry about that,” Rose said. “I’ll sort it out with Corrine.”
The dragons led us down to an atrium of steaming, scented baths down in the lower levels of the castle. Here the maids scrubbed and exfoliated and massaged until my skin felt brand new. As I looked at myself in the mirror afterward, I’d never seen my face so luminous.
We dried and dressed in flowing gowns provided by the maids, then returned to our respective apartments. Since we still had some time before dinner, Rose suggested that we explore the castle a bit.
“Sylvia’s in there with Jeriad,” Rose said as we roamed the corridor outside, pointing to the door on our left. “It’s weird to see so many of my classmates getting married—”
“Hello.”
We turned to see Queen Penelope behind us. She had just stepped out of a dragon couple’s room, and she was carrying a bouquet of orange roses.
“Hi,” I said.
“Thank you for all of this,” Rose added. “It’s wonderful here.”
“You’re really very welcome. Theon has spoken to me so highly of all of you.” Then she paused. “Are you lost at all? I know how these corridors can be winding…”
“Oh, no,” I replied. “We were just wanting to explore a little.”
“Would you like me to give you a tour?” she offered.
I exchanged glances with Rose, not wanting to suck up the queen’s time. I could only imagine how busy she was. At the same time, a tour sounded amazing.
“We would love that,” Rose said. “If you have time.”
“I can make time,” she said with a grin. She led us away from the corridor and took us on a tour of the entire castle. She showed us the hall of trophies, the vast library, the treasury, even the dungeons. All the while, she recounted to us the story of how she and Theon had met, which Rose had been particularly curious about.
Her story truly was fascinating. And it was quite a revelation discovering how much I had in common with Penelope. She was just a girl like me. A girl who’d been plucked from the mundane world of humans and dumped into the wacky world of supernaturals… in the process losing her heart to one.
Yet when I looked at her, she almost struck me as a dragon herself… at least, she didn’t strike me as a regular teenage girl from DC. She spoke with grace and exuded a regal elegance, as though she were born to be a queen.
After she finished giving a thorough tour, she returned us to our apartment. Kissing each other’s cheeks, we parted ways until dinner time. We all gathered in the corridor, which was now crowded with other females and males intermingling. With a leap of my heart, I spotted Ben, standing in one corner, talking to Griffin. I crept up to him from behind and placed my hands over his eyes.
“Guess who?” I whispered.
“Oh… That is a difficult question,” he muttered, even as his hands reached down and clamped around my thighs. “River. Definitely River.”
I giggled, letting go of his eyes. He turned to face me. “You look… rather sparkly,” he said, running a hand through my freshly washed hair.
“You look quite clean, too,” I remarked.
“Dinner is about to be served!” a voice boomed over to our left. “Please make your way down to the grand court.”