Switched (16 page)

“You did exactly what I told you,” Finn said. “If anyone ruined things, it was me. But the night wasn’t ruined. Elora is just sensitive about the Kroners.”

“Why? Why does she let them get to her so much?” I wondered. “She’s the Queen.”

“Monarchs have been overthrown before,” Finn answered calmly. “If you seem unfit for the position, they can contest it, and they would be next in line to take the title.”

All the color drained from my face. There was suddenly way too much pressure on me to perform. I felt sick, and I swallowed hard. The ball had scared me enough before I knew that if I failed, my mother could be overthrown.

“Don’t worry. You’ll be fine.” His expression saddened again, and he added quietly, “Elora has a plan to appease them.”

“What is it?” I asked.

 Instead of answering, his eyes got far away and his expression blanked. His brow furrowed, and then he nodded.

“I am sorry,” Finn said. “You’re going to have to excuse me. Elora requires assistance in getting to her room.”

“You’re helping Elora?” I stumbled over the question, unable to hide my shock.

Somehow, it seemed vaguely inappropriate that Finn would be helping her to her room. Maybe it was because she had just asked him inside his head, and I couldn’t get a read on what exactly was the nature of their relationship.

I might have been feeling a little jealous of my mother, and that added a nauseous feeling on top of everything else.

“Yes. Her migraine is quite severe.” Finn took a step away from me.

“Alright, well, have fun with that,” I muttered. 

The door closed softly behind him, and I went into the bathroom to take off my jewelry and change into baggy pajamas. Sleep was very difficult for me that night. I was too anxious thinking about all the things I was expected to accomplish.

I knew nothing about this world or these people, and yet I was supposed to rule over them someday. That wouldn’t have been so bad, except that I was supposed to master everything in less than a week so they would believe that I could rule.

If I didn’t, everything my mother worked so hard for would be taken away. Even though I wasn’t that fond of Elora most of the time, I was even less fond of Aurora, and I didn’t like the idea of ruining my family’s entire legacy.

13. Being Trylle

Lazy Sundays happened even in Förening, thankfully. I woke up late, and the chef was still on hand to make breakfast. I saw Finn briefly, passing him in the hall, but it was no more than a nod hello.

I flopped in my bed, thinking I would spend the day bored out of my mind. Rhys knocked on my door, interrupting my plans for moping, and invited me over to his room to watch movies with him and Rhiannon.

His room was a masculine version of mine, which made sense since he had helped decorate my room. A huge overstuffed couch sat in front of his TV, the one addition to his room. We ended up watching
The Lord of the Rings
trilogy because Rhys insisted it was much funnier once you’d spent time with actual trolls.

I sat on one end of the couch, and Rhiannon sat on the other, with Rhys between us. He started out directly in the middle, but somewhere around three or four hours into the marathon, I noticed him moving closer to me, not that I minded.

He talked and joked a lot with Rhiannon, and they had a way of making me feel comfortable. After spending the weekend failing to be the perfect little princess Elora wanted me to be, it felt good to just relax and laugh.

 Rhiannon left right after the third movie started, saying she had to get up early in the morning. Even after she’d gone, Rhys didn’t move away from me. He sat so close to me on the couch, his leg pressed up against mine.

I thought about moving away, but I didn’t really have any reason to. The movie was fun, he was foxy, and I enjoyed being with him. It wasn’t too long before his arm “casually” went around my shoulders, and I almost laughed.

He didn’t make my heart race, not the way Finn did, but his arm felt nice. Rhys made me feel normal in a way that I never had before, and I couldn’t help but like him for it. Eventually, I leaned into him and rested my head on his shoulder.

What I didn’t realize is that watching all three extended edition versions of
Lord of the Rings
in one sitting ends up being over eleven hours of movie viewing. At one in the afternoon on a boring Sunday, that sounded genius, but by the time midnight rolled around, it became a war on sleep, and I eventually lost.

In the morning, while I slept soundly on the couch in Rhys’s room, I had no idea of the commotion going on the house. I would’ve been happy to sleep through it, too, but Finn threw open the door in a panic, jolting me awake. 

“Oh my gosh!” I shouted, jumping up off the couch. Finn scared the hell out of me, and my heart pounded manically in my chest. “What’s going on? Is everything okay?”

Instead of answering, Finn just stood there, staring at me. Behind me, Rhys woke up much more slowly than me. Apparently, Finn hadn’t terrified him the way he did me.

I glanced back at Rhys, dressed in a tee shirt and sweats that somehow managed to look good on him, and it dawned on me how this looked to Finn. I still wore my lazy day comfy clothes, but we had been curled up together. My mind scrambled to think of some kind of excuse, but suddenly, even the innocent truth escaped me.

“She’s in here!” Finn said flatly.

Rhys groaned, so I knew things weren’t good. He looked completely alert now, and he stood sheepishly next to me. I wanted to ask what was going, what Finn looked so pissed off about it, but Elora interrupted my thoughts.

She appeared in the door, her emerald robe flaring out from behind in her a dramatic billow. She stood behind Finn, but she somehow managed to eclipse everything else. Several times before I had thought she looked unhappy, but they had nothing on the severe expression she had now. She scowled so deep, it looked painful, and her hair still hung in a thick braid down her back. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” Elora’s voice echoed painfully inside my head, and she had added some of her psychic voice to make it more intense.

“Sorry. We were just watching movies and fell asleep,” I stumbled through an apology.

“It was my fault. I put the-” Rhys attempted to come to my aid, but Elora cut him off.

“I don’t care what you were doing! Do you have any idea how inappropriate this behavior is?” Her eyes narrowed on Rhys, and he shrunk back even more. “Rhys, you know this was completely unacceptable.” She rubbed her temples as if this was giving her a headache, and Finn looked at her with concern. “I don’t even want to deal with you. Get ready for school, and get out of my sight!”

“Yes, ma’am,” Rhys nodded. “Sorry.”

“As for you-” Elora pointed a finger at me but couldn’t find the words to finish. She just looked so disappointed and disgusted with me. “I don’t care how you were raised before you came here, you still know what kind of behavior is ladylike and what isn’t.”

“I wasn’t-” I started, but she held up her hand to silence me.

“But to be honest, Finn, you disappoint me the most.” She had stopped yelling, and when she looked at Finn, she just sounded tired. He lowered his eyes in shame, and she shook her head. “I can’t believe you allowed this to happen. You are supposed to be educating her in the ways of Trylle. You know you need to keep your eyes on her at all times.”

“I know. I won’t let it happen again.” Finn bowed apologetically to her.

“I do not want to see any of you for the rest of the day.” She held her hands up, like she was done with the lot of us, and then shook her head and turned out of her room.

“I am so sorry,” Rhys apologized emphatically, his cheeks red with shame, and somehow, that only made him cuter. 

Not that I was really paying attention to how he looked just then. My stomach had twisted in knots, and I was thankful that I hadn’t started to cry. I didn’t even fully understand what I’d done wrong, or why everyone came storming into Rhys’s room so early in the morning.

“You need to get ready for school,” Finn snapped, glaring at Rhys. Then he pointed to the hall and turned to me. “You. Out.
Now
.”

I had to sneak past him on my way out the door, and normally, I loved that but not today. My heart pounded erratically, but none of it was happy. Finn tried to keep his face expressionless, but tension and anger radiated from his body. I slunk across the hall to my room, and Finn barked something at Rhys about behaving himself.

“Where are you going?” Finn demanded when I opened my bedroom door. He had just emerged from Rhys’s room and slammed the door behind him, making me jump.

“To my room?” I pointed at my room and looked confused.

“No. You need to come to my room with me,” Finn said.

“What? Why?” I asked.

A very small part of me felt excited about the prospect of going to his room with him. That sounded like the start of a fantasy I might have, but the way he was looking at me now, I was afraid he might kill me once we were inside the privacy of his room.

“I need to get ready for the day, and I can’t very well let you out of my sight.” He wore pajama pants and a tee shirt, and his dark hair wasn’t as sleek as it normally was. He had just woken up.

I nodded and hurried after him. He walked fast and pissed off, and I fell about a step or two behind. I didn’t understand what had him so upset.

“I really am sorry, you know,” I said, hoping to lessen his anger. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep there. We were just watching movies, and it got late. If I had known it would be like this, I would’ve made sure to be in my room.”

“You should’ve known, Wendy!” Finn exclaimed, exasperated. “You should know that your actions have consequences and the things you do matter!”

“I am sorry!” I repeated. “Yesterday was so boring and I just wanted to do
something
.”

Finn whirled on me suddenly, startling me so I took a step backwards. My back hit the wall behind me, but he stepped closer to me. Putting one arm on the side of me, his face only a few inches from mine, and his dark eyes blazed. Somehow, his voice was calm and even.

“You know how it looks when a girl spends the night alone with a boy. I know you understand that. But it is
so
much worse when a
Princess
spends the night alone with a
mänsklig
. It could put everything in jeopardy.”

“I-I don’t know that means,” I fumbled.

Finn stayed there, glaring at me for another painful minute, then sighed and took a step back. He rubbed his eyes and stood in the middle of the hallway. I swallowed back tears and caught my breath.

When he looked back at me, his eyes had softened a bit, but he didn’t say anything. He just walked to his room, and uncertainly, I followed after him.

His room was smaller than mine, but a much more comfortable size. One of his walls was entirely glass, and he had the blinds shut. Dark blankets covered his bed, and books overflowed from his several bookshelves. In one corner, he had a small desk with a laptop on it.

Like me, he had an adjoined bathroom. When he went into the bathroom, he left the door open, and I heard the sound of him brushing his teeth. Tentatively, I sat on the edge of his bed and looked around. 

“You must stay here a lot,” I commented. I knew that he stayed here on and off, but to have a room this full of his stuff implied a more permanent living situation.

“I live here when I’m not tracking,” Finn said.

“My mother is quite fond of you,” I said dimly.

“Not right now she’s not.” Finn turned off the water and came out, leaning on the doorframe to his bathroom. Sighing, he lowered his eyes. “I’m sorry for yelling at you.”

“It’s okay,” I shrugged. I still didn’t understand why he’d been
that
mad, but he had a point. I’m a Princess now, and I had to start behaving like one.

“No, you didn’t deserve it.” He scratched his temple and shook his head. “My anger was misdirected. When you weren’t in your room this morning, I panicked. With everything going on with the Vittra…” He shook his head again.

“What’s going on with the Vittra?” I asked, feeling my heart speed up nervously.

“It’s nothing to concern yourself with,” Finn brushed it off. “My point is that my emotions were high when I couldn’t find you, and I snapped at you. I apologize.”

“No, it’s my fault. You guys were right.” I said, but Finn just ran a hand through his hair and looked away from me, and then I realized something. “How did you even know I wasn’t in my room?”

“I checked on you,” Finn gave me a look like I was an idiot. “I check on you every morning.”

“You check on me when I’m sleeping?” I gaped at him. “Every morning?” He nodded. “I didn’t know that.”

“Why would you know that? You’re sleeping,” Finn pointed out.

“Well… it just feels weird.” I shook my head. Matt and Maggie used to check on me, but it felt strange knowing that Finn would come in and watch me sleep, even if it was only for a second.

“I have to make sure you’re safe and sound. It’s part of my job,” Finn said.

“You sound like a broken record sometimes,” I muttered wearily. “You’re always just doing your job.”

“What else do you want me to say?” Finn countered, looking at me evenly.

I just shook my head and looked away from him. My pants suddenly became very fascinating, and I picked lint off them. Finn kept looking at me, and I expected him to move on to finish getting ready. When he didn’t, I decided that I had to fill the silence with talking.

“What is a mänsklig?” I looked over at Finn, and he exhaled.

“The literal translation for mänsklig is ‘human.’” He tilted his head, resting it against the doorframe, and watched me. “Rhys is human.”

“I don’t understand. Why is he around?” I shook my head.

“Because of you,” Finn said, and that only confused me more. “You’re a changeling, Wendy. You were switched at birth. Meaning that when you took the place of another baby, that baby had to go somewhere else.”

“You mean…” I trailed off, but it was incredibly obvious once Finn said it. “Rhys is Michael!”