She hadn’t been certain the anonymous email address could even receive an inbound email, but apparently it could.
Fine. I’ll meet you and Ethan at 4 PM, came the reply, with a link to an address outside the city.
Daphne had bit her lip as she typed, Ethan won’t be there, just me.
I know you’re working together, the anonymous emailer had scoffed. Bring him or the deal is off.
Which was why Daphne had called him and insisted that he come over now, because they had an urgent situation on their hands.
Ethan shook his head, his eyes still fixed on her message. “I’m guessing you didn’t run this by Rei.”
Daphne slid off the bed and paced toward the windows. “Rei isn’t moving fast enough! I need to get Gabriella off my back before she destroys our lives.”
“And you thought poking the bear was your best option? Do you even have a secret of Beatrice’s to give in exchange?”
Daphne did, actually. Samantha had once let slip that Beatrice was in love with someone else—someone who was not Teddy. Whoever it was, Daphne assumed that person must be very unsuitable, otherwise why hadn’t Beatrice just dated them?
She had then warned Beatrice that she knew about the secret relationship (though Daphne hadn’t a clue who it was with), effectively strong-arming the queen into sending Himari to Japan.
Not her finest moment, but she and Himari had made up afterward. As for Beatrice, she had never mentioned the interaction again.
“I don’t have anything on Beatrice,” Daphne fibbed, because she had no intention of actually using what she knew. She’d done enough damage the first time. “I just assumed Gabriella would only be tempted by the highest-ranking person in the country. So?” she demanded. “Will you please just come, like Gabriella wants?”
Ethan groaned. “I’ll come, but only because I don’t trust you to go alone.”
* * *
As they pulled off the freeway toward the address in Ethan’s GPS, and colorful castle turrets rose up before them, Daphne blinked in surprise. How had she not realized where Gabriella was sending them?
Ethan choked out a laugh. “Say what you will about Gabriella, she’s got a sense of humor, sending you here.”
“To a kitschy Disney-knockoff theme park?”
Ethan shrugged as he pulled toward a sign marked Enchanted Fiefdom. They had borrowed his mom’s car for the afternoon; Daphne was too spooked to get back on the motorcycle after that car had chased them the last time.
She hung back while Ethan bought their admission tickets, though she probably needn’t have worried. No one here was on the lookout for stray royals, or almost-royals. Forty minutes outside downtown, Enchanted Fiefdom was mainly visited by bored teens, or parents desperate to distract their young children.
When they passed through the turnstile and into the main park, a cobblestone street unfurled before them, vaguely evoking a European hamlet. Afternoon crowds surged in and out of the various storefronts.
Daphne’s eyes cut to a merchandise store, and she elbowed Ethan. “Should we get disguises?” There were plenty of costume pieces in the windows: pointed medieval princess hats, baseball caps with elf ears sticking out the sides.
He rolled his eyes but ducked into the shop. While she waited, Daphne drew further to one side, pretending to check her phone. A massive Christmas tree stood at the center of the town square, a kid-sized train chugging in a loop around its base. The sight filled Daphne with an odd sense of nostalgia for a childhood she’d never had, one where she would have assembled toy trains with her parents or hung up strings of golden lights.
“There you are!” Ethan came to join her. “You need to stay close by, Daph! You were too short for me to see in all these people.”
She sniffed. “I am not too short. Most people would say I’m the perfect height.”
“Yes, the perfect height for getting lost in crowds.” Ethan tossed her the shopping bag. Daphne opened it to find a black cat-shaped mask with feathery whiskers, as well as a Santa beard and red felt hat.
“You’re going to be Santa?” she asked as she fixed the cat mask to her face.
“Nope. You’re the only one being paranoid,” he reminded her. “I just wanted to give you options.”
“As if I would walk around dressed as Santa,” she muttered.
“Why not? You’d make a pretty cute Santa.”
There was a beat of silence after that declaration, a bit too meaningful for Daphne’s liking. She nodded back toward the park entrance.
“We need to figure out where Gabriella is waiting. Should we retrace our steps?”
When they were back at the turnstiles, there was no sign of Gabriella, or of anyone waiting for them. Daphne sighed and pulled her phone from her bag. She saw at once that she had a new email from the anonymous address: You couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you, Daphne? You really thought you could convince me to meet in person? Ha. Enjoy your afternoon at Enchanted Fiefdom.
Daphne had stopped in her tracks. Ethan stared at her quizzically, and she held out her phone.
“She’s not coming,” she said simply.
Ethan read the email, brow furrowed. “I don’t get it. If she wasn’t ever going to meet us, then why did she pretend to agree, and drag us here?”
“She’s hazing us. She probably loved the thought of us traipsing around this theme park trying to find her.”
Ethan gestured to the turnstiles. “Should we get going, then?”
Daphne hesitated. Her eyes cut back toward the park: the colored ribbons of the roller coasters looping above the horizon, the music emanating from a nearby show. Something smelled tantalizingly like sugar and cinnamon, and it made her stomach growl.
“We could stay,” she heard herself suggest. “We did come all the way here.”
Ethan seemed startled. “You want to stay?”
“I might as well take advantage of this rare chance to be out in public in sneakers.”
Daphne had to wear heels at all her official appearances. Last year, when she and Jeff showed up at a youth softball game, she’d ended up running a lap in her heeled boots, because what other choice did she have? There was something breathtakingly liberating about being in public, surrounded by people, in sneakers.
Ethan smiled, his cheek dimpling in a way she rarely saw. “Okay. What do you want to do first?”
“The Dragonfire coaster,” Daphne said automatically. She had a secret love of roller coasters, the ones so fast that they made your stomach drop.