It was clear that she wouldn’t tempt him from his mood, so Elisabeth turned and focused on the architecture of the main building, even more grand as its intricacies were revealed with every progression of the carriage: reliefs of swords and crests, stone statues of people in various states of armor or undress, garlands, circles, lines. A person could spend their whole life studying those facades and never memorize their every contour.

And then the palace lost her attention entirely, because of the people arranged in front of the doorway.

Sophie. Maxi. Ludwig.

Franz.

He stood tall, strong, even more handsome than she remembered. Her heart nearly flew from her chest and went to him. God, had his eyes always been that dark, that deep? How had she forgotten the contours of his eyebrows, the delicacy of those eyelashes? She drank him in, let her mind wander back to her daydreams, her hand clutching her thigh—a stand-in for his.

It would be his hand soon. So very soon.

Her mouth went dry, her heart so loud she could hear nothing else.

Franz didn’t even wait for the carriage to come to a full stop before he rushed toward her, opening the door and reaching in to take her hand. As his hand touched hers, she gasped. It was like that first touch: his fingers on her neck, placing Puck’s braid so gently on her shoulder. Her whole body warmed, sizzled.

Elisabeth knew what was expected now. Her mother had drilled it into her: present herself to Sophie, curtsy, press her forehead to the archduchess’s extended hand. No wild abandon. Everything according to tradition. But all of it seemed so foolish now. How could she not throw herself straight into her beloved’s arms? She thought of her father’s worries and smiled to herself. Watch this, Father, and then tell me I’m lost.

She stepped out of the carriage, wrapped a hand around the back of Franz’s neck, and leaned in to kiss him. She knew she’d disappear into the joy of it, everything but him forgotten. Palace, royals, scandalized nobility—all vanished in the perfection of the moment.

But he pulled back, more restrained than she could be. In place of a kiss, he lifted her hand and pressed his lips to it—and that was enough. For now. After months of only letters, Elisabeth’s skin soaked the warmth of him in like parched land in a rainstorm.

This was it. She was there, and he was there, and they were finally together. Engaged. This time Elisabeth would be the one wandering through gardens with Franz, mothers looking on in the distance. She would be the one to sit beside him at meals. The one to make him laugh.

Her happiness was perfect in that moment. Even after months of Mother’s ominous proclamations about how hard it would be to be empress, even with Helene’s stubborn silences.