His mother had loved the traditional songs and booked the local choir repeatedly to come and sing julesanger . She had said it was for the visitors, who filed through the public rooms to see the palace come to life throughout December, but Konstantin had always known on some level that it was for her; she hummed the songs wherever she was in the house.

It had been so much . . . Well, he was a kid. He hadn’t known anything.

It was special to live in a palace, he knew that. People mentioned it all the time. But actually, the really special thing had been having a mother who loved and adored him. He’d taken that completely for granted, not given it a second thought.

It occurred to him to tell everyone where he was from, get them to stop treating him like an idiot. But would they, though? The horror of it, thought Konstantin, if they didn’t believe him or, worse, thought it was funny. Laughed at him. He couldn’t bear it. Better they thought he was a drifter than an absolute loser who’d been banished by his own father. He bit his lip, hard.

“Uhm, are you okay?” said Isla eventually, realizing how quiet he’d been. Even Bjårk wasn’t gamboling anymore. She thought Mure looked beautiful—always did this time of year, when the lights were slung up along the lampposts on the quay. It was just the one string, and usually something was wonky, but it was like a fairyland to Isla. It always cheered her up.

“I miss home,” he said simply. Then he looked around the docks. “Are these all the lights there are? Is this it?”

“I like it,” said Isla.

He fell silent.

“What’s home like?”

“It’s amazing,” he said suddenly. “Where I’m from, up near Bergen . . . there are thick pine forests everywhere, up the mountains. You can smell the fir trees too. Everything smells of pine and fresh white snow. It’s dark like here but not so windy, and you can ski every day. It’s not flat like this place.”

Isla frowned. “Well, we’ve got the ben,” she said, referring to the hill behind the MacGregor farm, which was misleadingly treacherous to climb, and led to the spine up the northwest side of the island of craggy hills that bristled with heather in the spring but now were dull and bare. Konstantin looked at them like they were puddles.

But the dock grew busier and happier. Enterprisingly, Iona had set up a table with mulled wine and hot chocolate for sale while people waited to bid on the tree they wanted. Few were the children who, on seeing another child with a cup filled with marshmallows, cream, and cinnamon, didn’t immediately pester their parents for one. Although more than one parent pointed out that it was absolute highway robbery, most gave in with good grace. It was a part of it, and ritual was important at Christmastime.

“Okay, six-footer, would suit a flat or lovely front room,” bellowed the dispatcher again.