THE THINGS MOTHER WAS WRONG ABOUT COULD FILL the Kaiservilla, seep into every nook and cranny and steal the air from each of its elegant, ethereal, goldtrimmed rooms. She was wrong that Franz only wanted Helene to be pretty and polite. She was wrong that if Helene just followed the rules, everything would work out. And she was wrong that a walk would fix what was becoming abundantly clear: Franz wasn’t interested.

Helene had been happier back when she didn’t follow the rules. Happier when she hid frogs under her skirts and laid under the stars with Elisabeth. Happier, even, when Mother would hit her for stealing freshly cooked pies, and Helene would respond by hiding a single earring from Mother’s favorite pair—and watching in satisfaction while she spun out over the loss.

She wished she was back home. Anywhere but here, trying so hard to reach across the space to this man she was supposed to marry—and finding no one reaching back. She was trying so hard that she could barely breathe, and still nothing had gone right since they arrived. Not the dresses, not the introductions, not the lunch with Sisi embarrassing them all.

Now they were walking through the gardens—perhaps the most magical gardens Helene had ever seen in her life. The grounds were threaded through with a playful stream, bursting with flowers in every shade, from bright magenta to cloud white, and shaded occasionally by clusters of trees. They strolled slowly past horse-head fountains and along walkways of perfectly inset stones. The air smelled of rose and honeysuckle. It should have been perfect. But all Helene could notice was the sun beating down like a hammer through her parasol, the bugs sticking to her sweating skin, the man beside her looking distant.

She wanted to cry.

“I have a present for you,” she tried, taking Franz’s hand as he helped her down some narrow mossy steps. “For your birthday.”

She pulled it from her waistband, wrapped in delicate paper and—Helene was horrified to discover—damp with her sweat. She thought she might faint from the embarrassment.

Franz looked surprised, murmuring his thanks as he reached for the package and took it carefully without touching her hand at all. As if she were poison.

Of course, they weren’t supposed to touch—except when he was helping her down the stairs or kissing her hand in greeting. Still, Helene wanted him to. If he touched her, perhaps she would feel something. Perhaps the tightness across her skin would snap back like a rubber band, releasing her from this terrible tension.

Instead, Franz pulled back, polite, unwrapping her gift. It was a handkerchief she’d embroidered. The flowers had made her happy at the time, so green and purple and blue and bright, popping against the cream of the cloth. She’d sewn an F at the bottom, in the same style as the ribbon tying the flowers together.