Autumn Rose. Abigail Gibbs

know him better than the magazines, don’t you?’ Tammy asked and I was surprised at her perceptiveness – I didn’t think any familiarity had shown.

      ‘We played together as children when I visited court. But I have not been to Athenea since I was twelve, so I do not pretend to know him.’

      The lead of the pencil snapped once more, this time following a violent twist of the sharpener.

      ‘So do we have to, like, curtsey to him?’ Gwen asked, and judging from the quiet that had descended, most of the class was listening.

      ‘You can if you like, but it is not obligatory.’

      ‘Okay then, if I married him, how rich would I be?’

      I couldn’t help but crack a smile at Gwen’s question, lighthearted as always. ‘Extraordinarily rich.’

      ‘Well, Gwen,’ Mrs. Lloyd said, appearing at the door carrying a tall mug of tea, topped with a lid. ‘If you work a little harder this unit than you did in the last, you’ll be able to make your own wedding dress.’

      ‘I was thinking Kate Middleton-esque. But in black,’ Gwen mused, holding up the square sample of lace she had brought along.

      ‘You can’t have black for a wedding!’ Christy protested and they started to bicker.

      ‘Girls,’ Mrs. Lloyd began, neglecting to address the three boys in the class as usual. ‘There shan’t be any time to make anything as extravagant as a wedding dress considering the powers that be have only granted us one lesson a week. Therefore, I expect each and every one of you to attend after-school sessions on a Thursday. If you don’t attend at least two per month, you will be struck from the register.’

      A roar of disapproval erupted, all thoughts of the prince forgotten, if only temporarily.

      ‘Hush girls, if you dislike it, take it up with those who created the new timetable. Autumn, what are you doing?’ she exclaimed, noticing me for the first time. I lifted my pencil to explain, but she was already barking her orders for me to sit down.

      I trudged back to my seat, flopping down into my chair with little grace. As I returned to my sketch, I distinctly heard Gwen giggling to herself on the opposite side of the wooden bench. ‘The prince has an after-school lesson on a Thursday too. I saw it on his timetable.’

      I succeeded in avoiding him for the rest of the day. I did not regard it as an achievement, however; to even get close to him one would have to fight through a horde of girls and even the odd teacher.

      Third period brought English, and with it, the arched, disapproving eyebrows of Mr. Sylaeia as I handed him my summer coursework. He made no comment, but placed it on the pile with the two or three others that had been completed.

      Lunch presented the most problems. We sat in our usual spot on the field, splayed out on the steep banks that enclosed the track, my stomach growling because the canteen was devoid of anything vegan – again. The others eagerly watched the football team practice dribbles and tackles as talk turned to the prince; after ten minutes, there was a commotion beside the tennis courts from the direction of the main school buildings. I didn’t hang around to find out what was causing it.

      As I neared one of the gaps in the fence that led back towards the school hall, I heard someone – a boy – call my title. A few seconds later, louder; closer, came the call of my name and the gentle probing of another conscious against my barriers.

      The part of me that longed for this all to be a bad dream told me to hold my tongue, whereas my rational side demanded I answer – he was a prince, after all. My prince.

      I turned my back to the fence. ‘Your Highness.’ I lowered into a quick curtsey, aware of how his entourage, my friends and the football team were all watching.

      ‘You dropped this.’ He held in his hand a strip of silk material that was usually tied around the handle of my bag.

      I blushed. I ignored him and this is all he wanted?

      ‘Thank you. I’m much obliged.’

      I took the tail of the material, but he would not let go. I tugged, yet he held fast.

      ‘You’re much obliged for everything, aren’t you?’

      I did not miss the meaning in his words. My breath caught. If he were to tell the students, it would spell the end of any of the normality I maintained here in this micro-bubble, so far removed from the whirling social scene where I was Duchess, not Autumn. My eyes became wide – he wouldn’t, would he? – and I yanked on the scarf.

      He laughed. ‘Sure you do not wish me to keep it? As a token?’

      Like a length of string twisted into a knot I felt my patience shorten. If he refuses to let go, I will leave it.

      A snort of contempt sounded from the sidelines of the pitch, where Valerie Danvers had stopped playing to massage her elbow. ‘Don’t bother with her, Fallon; she’s not worth your time. She never says a word.’

      The material drifted away from the prince’s hand. Seizing the opportunity, I wrapped it back around my bag and squeezed through the gap, leaving the field behind as fast as I could. When I stole a single glance back, he had gone.

       CHAPTER FIVE

       Autumn

      Brixham was quiet when I returned home. It was too late for the tourists and the fleeing of school children, and the driveways and streets were still empty of parked cars. Only across the road from my own house was there movement, where a father talked in undertones to his son about the night shift down at the fish market. Beyond the whitewashed picket fence of our garden however, all was still. As the front door slammed shut behind me I could still hear the jangling of the keys in the lock racing along the vacant hallways, breaking through the silence of a house that was used to its own company.

       Grandmother, why do Mother and Father live so far from London when that is where they work?

       Because your father does not enjoy London society, child.

       He doesn’t enjoy it? But how can he not enjoy it?

      My sword followed me upstairs, my thoughts ever lingering on the arrival of the prince. Why? was the imperative question. There was always a why with the Athenea, and I had no reason to doubt that this occasion was any different. As I stowed my sword beneath my bed, those thoughts wandered further, back to the whispers in London. The Extermino gather …

      My hand was still clasped around the buckle of my scabbard and I yanked the sword back out, replacing it between my bedside cabinet and the bedpost; it was a small comfort in an empty house.

      In the fridge several containers were set out, my name scribbled on Post-it notes stuck to the lids. Peering into one I found a tomato-looking sauce and behind that, egg-free fresh pasta. From the colourful, fruit-adorned cardboard crate on the top shelf I pulled out a few mushrooms and an onion. Reaching up to the hooks lining the wall, I lifted a heavy-bottomed copper pan down.

      Here were the signs that I had not a surname, but a ‘House of’; that I was ‘Al-Summers’ and not Summers, and that we were not a family of little means. The Mauviel pan I was filling with water cost well over three hundred pounds; our entire collection of cookware – extensive, due to my father’s love of cooking – was the same brand. Every day, a new box of fruit and vegetables was delivered to our door from the local organic farm; the countertops were brand new, replacing the old ones which were barely a year old.

      We were not a bustling London household of thirty that entertained, or the peers swamping the Athenean court on Vancouver Island, but that was only through