27. Freya

As predicted, my acceptance of Gustav calmed the whole castle down. I even got a thank you note from Nikolai which only made me roll my eyes. Only Gustav, my potential groom, did not care in the slightest. If anything, those intense blue eyes looked at me even less during dinner.

The jeweller visited as required too. The wrong one. I didn’t want the handsome, chisel-jawed apprentice who winked at me with the falsest “congratulations” I’d ever heard.

With Maddox on duty again as my guard for the day I informed curtly that I wanted Oscar, the wizened little gnome of the jewel room brought to me. I could hear him grunting and cursing all the way down the corridor towards my room.

“Summons me! Summons me! For some poxy bit of shiny nonsense no doubt.”

He reminded me of a mole. His eye buried beneath wrinkles, a small, pencil thin nose which struggled to keep his horn-rimmed glasses positioned. Most peculiar were the white tufts of hair poking out of the side of his head. They looke