THE PALACE GATE WAS MOBBED WITH PEOPLE JOSTLING excitedly for a view of Elisabeth—their future empress. Nothing so exciting had happened in Vienna in years. Not since Luzi was born. Now, as the carriage rattled toward the gates, mothers bounced babies on their hips. Fathers swung small children onto their shoulders for a better look over the crowd. Older children darted through or clung to a forest of legs.

“Empress!” they shouted. “Elisabeth!”

Elisabeth’s breath caught in her chest. This was all for her? For her arrival?

“This is insanity.” She said the words with wonder, waving tentatively from the carriage window, and the crowd went wild with applause.

“Indeed, Your Majesty.” Father affected a joking bow at her.

The crowd slowed the carriage’s progress, and Elisabeth impulsively reached through the window toward them, shaking hands and squeezing fingers as she rode past. Their hands large and small, white and brown, soft and calloused, old and young, dirty and scrubbed clean. A symphony of people, a reflection of Vienna—her new home.

“Make way!” She heard the bodyguards shouting ahead of the carriages, as they roughly shoved people back. She frowned, wished the guards would be gentler. This crowd was happy—not dangerous.

As the crowd parted, Elisabeth’s eyes were drawn beyond it. It was her first real glimpse of the palace, and her heart leapt into her throat. The enormity, the glamor—it was as awe-inspiring as the map of Habsburg on the Kaiservilla’s marble floor. She’d been told the palace housed five thousand people, but she hadn’t really understood what that would look like, how large it had to be to hold so many.

It was a city unto itself—an estate of multiple buildings, each of them several stories tall, their green and red rooftops sloping in every direction. An enormous rectangular fountain, all clean lines and sparkling water, beckoned them toward the grand two-story archway leading to the central building.

“This is incredible.” Elisabeth pressed her face to the window.

Father’s smile was surprisingly sad, still snagged on his worries. “You know, these people believe God himself chose them.” He meant it as a slight and a warning not to get swept up in the luxury and self-importance of it all.

“You know I don’t believe that,” she answered, reassuring.

“The imperial family are just like you and me: just as sad, just as broken, just as hungry.”

“Just as loving?” She tried to pull him from whatever shadowy mood had struck him.

“I’m less certain about that one.”