He dabbed the water off his face with a cloth, staring into the mirror in front of him. His mother would hate how he was thinking, how intrigued he was by Helene’s sister.

He thought back to a conversation they had a year ago. Before the assassination attempt, before Helene’s name had crossed Mother’s lips. After months of meet and greets with duchesses and princesses he felt nothing for, Franz had asked, foolishly, why he couldn’t pick his own bride.

“The most important thing is finding the right girl for the position,” his mother had said. “Falling in love is not the point … As long as she’s likable, that’s better than many of us have had in our marriages.”

She had been speaking of her own marriage, he knew. Franz’s father adored his mother. She was life and breath to him. He was a sunflower, she the sun. But Franz knew his mother didn’t feel the same. He’d heard her say once that she loved his father as if he were a child who needed looking after. Perhaps that’s why his father no longer lived with them; Sophie had tired of raising yet another boy.

And now Franz was supposed to be Helene’s sun. And what would Mother say if he told her that he might not be the sun at all, but rather a sunflower, turned toward—

A knock sounded at the door: a servant checking on him.

“Coming,” he called, straightening.

He wondered what his mother would say now if he told her it was the other sister burning bright as a sun, and another conversation came back to him, tying his stomach in a knot.

“Now, her family is a little wild. I’ll give you that,” Mother had said of Helene on the carriage ride here.

“In what way?”

“Well, to start with, the father fraternizes with peasants. Remember that joke he made in his book about us censoring him? Ridiculous. And then there’s the younger girl, Sisi. My sister says that she’s always disappearing into the mountains, neglecting her lessons.”

He’d been mildly amused then. But now—now—the comment pained him. A promise that his mother did not and would not approve of Elisabeth.

“But we won’t worry about Helene’s relations,” she’d added. “They can’t be helped. Just spend time with Helene. You will like her—and you will learn to love her. Don’t forget your duty. Every empire needs an empress.”

When she’d said them, the words had been only words. He’d readied himself to marry Helene, to serve Habsburg. But now, something was changing. Someone had changed things. And his mother’s words were bonds, growing tighter.

SIXTEEN