“You know nothing of these matters. You’re just a child,” Josepha retorted.

“I know enough not to believe in silly superstitions.” Rolling my eyes, I looked at Antoinette. “Come on, let’s go to our rooms.” She got up and quickly followed me.

The moment we got to our bedroom, Antoinette fell onto her bed. “I swear, if I have to spend one more day with her, I think I will give myself the pox.”

“She’s like an old lady,” I said, coming to join her on the bed. “What if we escaped?”

Antoinette looked at me curiously. “Escape? How?”

“Trust me,” I said with a devilish grin.

I learned early that with a well-placed bribe, almost anything could be accomplished. A bit of gold, or even some the jewelry I no longer had use for, when placed in the right maid’s palm would allow us the freedom my sister and I so craved. It was with this lesson in mind that we managed to have Brandis occupied while Antoinette and I made our escape.

Our day out in the sunshine was even better than the ones I was forced to watch from a window under the tutelage of Countess von Ogre. Pleasant winds flowed from the east, pushing out all the clouds and revealing a deep-blue sky. Tufts of wild seedlings floated through the air.

“Josepha thinks she is better than the rest of us because she’s marrying a king,” I lamented as we made our way to a remote part of the grounds. “Just this morning, she called me an ignorant child! How can I be an ignorant child when she is only a year older than me?”

Antoinette spread a blanket out for us to lie on next to a patch of pink peonies. “Ignore her. Soon she’ll be married and living in Naples. Then she’ll no longer be our concern.”

Antoinette picked a nearby flower and began to twirl it between her fingertips, humming as she did, while a feeling of unease grew in my stomach. Mother was already busy making negotiations for my marriage and my sister’s. One of us would be married to the Dauphin of France, and the other to nobility with influence that would benefit Austria. “Antoinette, do you think when we get married that we’ll ever see each other again?”

Antoinette let out a little laugh that sounded like bells rising into the air. “That may be the silliest thing I have ever heard. If I am queen, I expect you to be one of the members of my court.”

I smiled at the thought. She reached over and took my hand in hers. “Oh, yes, I’ll need my older sister next to me. If I become queen, you’ll provide counsel and, at the very least, beat the heads of state into submission.”