Switched (22 page)

“What do you know?” I asked gently, startled by his confessions.

“Have they told you?” Tove eyed me up again.

“Told me what?”

“Well, if they haven’t told you, I’m certainly not going to.” He scratched at his arm and put his back to me as he walked away, looking around the room.

“Whatever it is you’re doing, it’s not helping,” I said, growing frazzled. “You’re only confusing me more.”

“My apologies, Princess.” Tove stopped moving and bowed at me. “Finn wanted me to talk to you about your abilities. He knows you can’t start your real training until after the ball, but he wants you to be prepared.”

“Finn asked you to come over?” My heart thumped in my chest.

“Yes.” His brow creased with confusion. “Does this upset you?”

“No, not at all,” I lied. Finn had probably sent Tove over so he wouldn’t have to deal with me. He was avoiding me.

“Do you have questions?” Tove asked, stepping closer to me.

“Tons,” I sighed. He cocked his head at me. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

“You have nothing to be afraid of, you know.” Tove watched me closely, and I think I might’ve preferred it when he was scared to look at me.

“I’m not afraid.” I squirmed away from his gaze.

“I can tell when you lie,” he said, still watching me. “Not because I’m psychic, but because you’re so obvious about it. You should probably work on that. Elora is very good at lying.”

“I’ll practice,” I muttered.

“That’s probably for the best.” Tove spoke with an intense sincerity that I found disarming. His scattered insanity had its own charm to it. Running a hand through his thick hair, he looked down at the floor, his expression turning sad. “I rather like you this way. Honest and flustered. But it’d never work for a Queen.”

“No, I don’t suppose it would,” I agreed, feeling a bit of melancholy myself.

“I’m a bit scattered myself, if you hadn’t noticed.” He gave me a small, crooked smile, but his green eyes stayed sad. With that, he crouched down, picking up a small, oval stone off the floor. He flipped it around his hand, staring down. “I find it hard to stay focused, but I’m working on it.”

“So… not to sound mean or anything, but why did Finn want
you
to help?” I rubbed my arms, hoping I didn’t upset him.

“Because I’m strong.” Tove tossed the stone aside, apparently tiring of it. “And he trusts me.” He looked back at me. “So let’s see what you can do.”

“With what?” I asked, confused by the abrupt change of subjects.

“Anything.” He spread his arms wide. “Can you move stuff?”

“With my hands, yeah.”

“Obviously,” he rolled his eyes. “You’re not a paraplegic so I assumed you were physically capable.”

“I can’t do much. Just some persuasion and I haven’t used it since I’ve been here.”

“Try.” Tove pointed to the chandelier dangling above us. “Move that.”

“I don’t want to move that,” I said, alarmed.

An image flashed in my mind. The painting I had seen in Elora’s room, all dark smoke and red fires around broken chandeliers. Except the image seemed much more vivid, as if I could smell the smoke and the fire seemed to move, casting new shadows in the painting. The sound of glass shattering echoed in my ear.

I swallowed hard and shook my head, taking several steps back from the chandelier. I hadn’t been underneath it exactly, but I wanted to get further away.

“What was that?” Tove asked, cocking his head at me.

“What?”

“Something happened.” He studied me, trying to decipher my reaction, but I just shook my head. It felt like too much to explain, and I wasn’t sure that I didn’t imagine it. “Interesting.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled.

“I hate do this since you look so frightened, but I need to get you out of my head.” He looked up at the chandelier, and my eyes followed his.

My heart raced in my chest, and my throat felt dry. The shards of glass twinkled and chimed and started to shimmer. I took several steps back, wanting to yell at him to stop, but I didn’t even know if he’d listen. Then the whole chandelier started to sway, and I couldn’t hold back.

“Stop!” I shouted, my voice echoing through the front hall. “Why are you doing that?”

“I am sorry.” He exhaled deeply, and looked back down at me. I kept my eyes locked on the chandelier until I was certain it’d stopped moving. “I had to do something, and there was nothing else in the room I could move, except for you yourself, and I didn’t think you’d like that either.”

“Why did you have to move anything?” I snapped. My panic had started to fade, replaced by a pulsating anger, and I clenched my fists at my sides.

“When you get frightened like that, you project it so intensely.” He held up his hands, pushing them out to demonstrate. “Most people can’t hear it or feel anymore, but I’m particularly sensitive to that. And when I move things, it helps focus me. It kinda shuts off the noise for a while. You were too strong. I had to silence it.” He shrugged. “I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t need to freak me out like that.” I calmed a bit, but my words still came out hard.

“It’s such a shame.” Tove watched me, looking both bemused and rueful. “They won’t even be able to see what you really are. They’ve all gotten so weak that they won’t be able to tell how powerful you are.”

“What are you talking about?” I momentarily forgot my anger.

“Your mother is so powerful,” Tove sounded almost awed by it. “Probably not as much as you, and maybe not as much as me, but it’s in her blood, crackling like electricity. I feel her walking through a room, and she’s almost magnetized. But the rest of them…” He shook his head.

“You mean the other Trylle?” I clarified, since Tove insisted on being so cryptic.

“We used to move the earth.” He sounded wistful, and his whole demeanor had changed. He hadn’t been pacing or looking around, and I realized that the moving the chandelier really had done something to him.

“Are you speaking literally or metaphorically?” I asked.

“Literally. We could make mountains, stop rivers.” He moved his arms dramatically, as if he could move them now. “We created everything around us! We were magic!”

“Aren’t we still magic?” I asked, surprised by the passion in his voice.

“Not the way we were before. Once the humans created their own magic with technology, the dependence switched. They had all the power and the money, and we started to depend on them to raise our children,” he scoffed. “Changelings stopped coming back, when they realized we didn’t have that much to offer them anymore.”

“We came back,” I pointed out emptily.

“Your gardener, who makes the flowers bloom, she’s a Marksinna!” Tove pointed to the back of the house, where the garden lay. “A
gardener
! I’m not one for class, but when one of the most powerful members of your population is the gardener, you know it’s a problem.”

“Well… why is she a gardener then?” I asked.

“Because. Nobody else can do it.” He looked at me, his green eyes burning with something. “Nobody can do anything anymore.”

“You can. I can,” I said, hoping to alleviate whatever distressed him.

“I know.” He sighed and lowered his eyes. “Everyone’s just gotten too fixated on the human system of monarchy. With designer dresses and expensive jewels.” His lip curled back with disgust. “Our obsession with riches has always been our downfall.”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “But your mother seems to be the worst with it.”

“I know.” Tove raised his eyebrows with a knowing weariness. Something softened, and he looked almost apologetically at me. “I’m not against humans. It sounds like I am, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t know. It sounds like you’re passionate,” I said.

When I’d first met him, I’d mistaken his inattention as boredom and arrogance. But I was starting to think his abilities had something to do with that, giving him kind of an unfocused ADD, and behind that, he had a fearless honesty that few Trylle seemed to possess. 

“Maybe.” He smiled and lowered his eyes, looking slightly embarrassed.

“How old are you?” I asked.

“Nineteen. Why?”

“How do you know so much about the past? You talked about the way things were like you were there, like you saw it happen. Or like you’re a major history buff or something.”

“My mother is keen on me studying, in case I ever get a chance for the throne,” Tove said, but the idea seemed to tire him. I doubted he was any more excited about the prospect of ruling than I was. Aurora’s scheming for the crown was entirely her idea.

“So you just study a lot?” I asked.

“What’d you see when you looked at the chandelier?” Tove asked me directly.

“I don’t know.” I shook my head. I wanted to answer honestly, but I didn’t know how to. “I saw… a painting.”

“Some people see the future.” He stared up at the chandelier, the lights twinkling above us. “And some people see the past.” He paused, thinking. “In the end, they’re not all that different. You can’t prevent either of them.”

“How profound,” I said, and he laughed.

“I haven’t helped you at all, have I?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted.

“You’re too much for one afternoon, I’m afraid,” Tove said. I didn’t know what he meant by that, but if I asked, he’d only answer with something that confused me more.

“Sorry?”

“I know you have a lot to go over, and you don’t need me wasting your time.” He walked towards the door, and I had a suspicion that Tove was a rather abrupt person.

“Hey, wait,” I said, and he stopped. “You said that Finn wanted you to help prepare me. For what?”

“Finn’s a protector. It’s his job to worry,” Tove explained, and my heart twisted. I hated it when people pointed out that I was just part of Finn’s job. “He needs to know that in any event, you’ll be taken care of. Whether he’s there or not.”

“Why wouldn’t he be there?” I asked, feeling fear ripple through me.

“I don’t know,” Tove shrugged. “But when something really matters to you, you make sure it’s safe.”

With that, Tove turned and walked of the house. I thanked him for his help, but I wasn’t even sure what he’d done. Other than confuse me more. And I felt a new sense of dread settling over me.

I had no idea what was going on with Finn, and my thoughts insisted on going back to the other painting I’d seen in Elora’s secret room. I had been reaching off the balcony, looking horrified. Tove’s words echoed through my mind, sending a chill down my spine.

You can’t prevent the future
.

I looked up at the chandelier. I’d been too terrified to even try to move it, thinking it would collapse, and I’d bring Elora’s other painting into life. But I hadn’t.

Had I changed the future? Or was I simply wrong about what the pictures were interpreting? Was the worst still to come?

19. Christening

With the party only twenty-four hours away, Elora felt the need to check on my progress, not that I blamed her. Her plan was a dress rehearsal through dinner, testing my ability to converse and eat, apparently.

She didn’t want a massive audience to witness my possible failure, so she just invited Garrett, Willa, and Rhiannon over to join her, Finn, Rhys, and me. It was the biggest group she could assemble without risk of embarrassment. Since I had already met with these people, I didn’t feel all that nervous, even though Elora informed me beforehand that I needed to act the same way I would tomorrow night.

Everyone had been instructed similarly, and they all appeared far more regal than normal. Even Rhys had dressed in a blazer, and he looked rather handsome. As usual, Finn was unnecessarily attractive.

Thanks to Finn’s random confession of jealousy, I wasn’t entirely sure how to act around him. He had come into my room before dinner to make sure that I was getting ready, but I couldn’t help but feel that he was purposefully avoiding looking at me.

When I reached the dining hall, Elora instructed us where to sit, with her at one end of the table, and me at the other. Rhys and Finn flanked me, and Rhiannon and Willa filled in the empty places.

“Who will I be sitting by tomorrow?” I asked between careful sips of wine.

“Between Tove Kroner and I.” Elora narrowed her eyes at the way I was drinking my wine. “Hold the glass by the stem.”

“Sorry.” I thought I had been, but I moved my fingers, hoping I was holding it more correctly.

“A Princess never apologizes,” Elora corrected me.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, then realized what I did and shook my head. “That was an accident. It won’t happen again.”

“Don’t shake your head; it’s not ladylike,” Elora chastised me. “A Princess doesn’t make promises, either. She might not be able to keep them, and she doesn’t want them held against her.”

“I wasn’t really making a promise,” I pointed out, and Elora narrowed her eyes more severely.

“A Princess is never contrary,” Elora said coolly.

“I’ve only been a Princess for like two weeks. Can’t you give me a little break?” I asked as kindly as I could.

I’d grown frustrated by all the Princess talk. Nearly every sentence she’d said to me in the past two days had started with “a Princess” and it was followed by things that a Princess never or always did.

“You’ve been a Princess your entire life. It’s in your blood,” Elora said firmly, sitting up even straighter in her chair, trying to loom over me. “You should know how to behave.”

“I am working on it,” I grumbled.

“Speak up. Use a clear strong voice no matter what it is you’re saying,” Elora snapped. “And you don’t have time to work on it. Your party is tomorrow. You must be ready
now
.”

I wanted to snap something back at her, but both Rhys and Finn were giving me warning stares to keep my mouth shut. Rhiannon stared nervously at her plate, and Garrett just went about munching his food politely.

“I understand,” I exhaled deeply and took another drink of my wine. I’m not sure if I held the glass right this time, but Elora didn’t say anything.

“So, I got your picture of the dress,” Willa smiled at me. “It was really stunning. I’m a little jealous, actually. You only get to be the belle of the ball once, and you definitely will be tomorrow. You’re going to look amazing.”