I suppose it depends which articles she means. The media has been writing about me incessantly since six months before my birth. The coverage was positive enough until I was around four years old and started crying during a military air show, at which point it was decided I was rather ill-behaved. My delinquency only continued from there. Insider sources informing the papers how rude I was in the classroom when I was seven, photos of me yawning without covering my mouth at the midnight Christmas mass making the front page when I was nine, a major story about me getting a detention when I was twelve for laughing with Molly in history class.

My parents were never too concerned about these articles, and nor was I. It’s common for princes and princesses to be examined, they told me. Even more so in my case, as I have no siblings to distract from me. When I began to truly test the rules at Bramppath, I half expected the papers to immediately know every detail. Sneaking out in the middle of the night, drinking and smoking in the woods, skipping school events. Somehow, they never did find out. Until Amsterdam, of course.

I shrug. “I can hardly expect Amsterdam to be brushed past, can I?”

“I guess, but they’ve made their point, and then some. Hopefully they back off soon.”

My smile is tight. “Honestly, I’m not sure what’s going to happen now. If I’m perfect, it’s ignored. If I’m not, it’s condemned. Not a lot seems to be in my power at the moment.”

A rare flush heats my cheeks at that. What an inappropriately intimate thing to say. I’m certain Danni doesn’t want to hear me whine about my public image. She was only asking to be polite. Maybe it’s the way she keeps looking at me, long and intense, as though she sees something I’ve endeavored to keep hidden. It’s hard not to sink into a false sense of ease when you’re speaking to someone who looks at you like they know you to your bones.

She doesn’t know me, though.