“My perfect princess,” he said sincerely. “I have never been happier in my life. I have never been prouder.”

  It was a wrench to leave her, and somehow, Laura sensed it. At the door, she gave his hand a gentle squeeze, scooping a cooing Hasan up to sit on her hip.

  “We're ready. We'll walk you down.”

  “Thank you,” he murmured, and they went down to face the crowd as a family.

  The courtyard was full of people. There were of course security teams keeping them back, but it was a public event. The natural roar of the crowd was familiar territory for Ziad, but he realized with a pang that it was brand new to his children. He glanced at them, suddenly nervous, and he blinked in surprise.

  Hasan was as happy a baby as he ever was, and Jamila was smiling and turning to face the crowd as if she were born to it. She recognized a few reporters that she had met at the museum, waving at them specially, and it was easy to see that the country would soon be besotted with their new princess.

  Clearing his throat, Ziad stepped up to the microphone, and as they had discussed, Laura and the children came to stand by his side.

  “Welcome to the palace,” he said, his voice strong and resonant. “This place has always been the symbol of Yeni, and it always will be, but today, I invited you here to my home. It is only appropriate, for today I stand before you not only as your sheikh, but as a father. Today, I want to present to you, the people of Yeni, your new Crown Princess Jamila Khalid.”

  Her chin up and a brilliant smile on her face, Jamila stepped forward, and the crowd went wild. The cheers bounced off the courtyard walls, and Ziad's chest swelled with pride. This was the princess of Yeni, his daughter, and nothing would ever change it.

  Then suddenly, the sky was full of violet ribbons, and Ziad stared, not sure what he was seeing at first.

  A fair number of the citizens had brought along helium balloons, and instead of string, they were tied with lengths of violet ribbon, identical to the one that had so charmed Jamila at the museum. They rose up in the air in a colorful flurry, and only Ziad's long experience at public events prevented him from losing his cool.

  This is not dignified, he thought helplessly. This is…vulgar and common, like something you would use to announce a birthday party. This is not fit for a princess.

  Obviously, Jamila did not agree, because she gasped with delight, throwing her arms up as if she could embrace the silky ribbons flying through the air. Then she turned to the crowd, her eyes glowing with delight.

  “Thank you!” she cried. “Oh, thank you!”

  The press conference began, questions about Jamila, what she liked best about being Ziad's daughter, how she would be educated. It was, as the press secretary said later, a roaring success, but Ziad gritted his teeth through it.

  How in the world will they respect her as a queen if they only see her as a little child?

  The children's party afterward had been the press secretary's idea. It would give Jamila a chance to meet some of her peers, it would be a charming photo opportunity for the palace photographer, and best of all, it would be contained entirely within the palace, allowing for control over the situation.

  Control, Ziad reflected, was something he sorely needed.

  The decorators had outdone themselves, turning one of the smaller ballrooms into an undersea grotto complete with gleaming cave walls, bouncy slides, and treats. It was a carnival in miniature, and Ziad watched it from the mezzanine level, the bouncing children watched by their caretakers, their shrieks of joy echoing through the place.

  Hasan had been put to bed, tired out from a long day, and now Laura came up behind him, a slight smile on her lovely face. For a single instant, Ziad was overwhelmed by the urge to simply pull her into his arms and kiss her, not as a passionate lover might—though he certainly would not have said no—but simply because they had been through a long day together, and he thought it would be good to kiss her.

  “Everything going well?” she asked, and he gave her a crooked smile.

  “No one's bleeding.”

  She laughed, as he hoped she would, but then she tilted her head to one side, looking at him carefully.

  “What's the matter? No one's bleeding, but you don't look thrilled.”

  He gestured towards the party, where the children raced around in delight, Jamila at the heart of all the commotion.

  “She's racing around like crazy,” he said. “She may hurt herself or someone else. She doesn't care what she looks like—”

  “She's seven,” Laura said gently. “And look, Imran's more than twenty and he's still taking a turn at the beanbag throw.”

  Imran was, as a matter of fact. As Sarah looked on indulgently from her seat on the sidelines, he was teaching the children of the British ambassador how best to throw their beanbags, but Ziad suspected he just wanted a turn himself.

  “He's childish,” he snorted, but Laura didn't seem to notice, only humming in response as she gazed over the cheerful chaos. Ziad wondered if she noticed any of it, any of the things that were wrong with this picture of a princess.

  The thought was ugly and sobering.

  “Hey.”

  He jumped as Laura nudged him.

  “Let's go down. We should make an appearance, make sure no one's eating too much cake.”

  He followed her, and the moment he came down, Jamila looked up immediately. She halted in her sprint across the room. Her face bright and glowing with happiness, she straightened and walked to him, just as a princess should.

  “How are you liking your party?” he asked, and she beamed at him.

  “I came to say thank you, Daddy,” she said. “I'm having a great time. So is everyone else.”

  Ziad smiled, bending down to kiss her forehead, but as she turned to play with her new friends, some of whom she would be meeting at school in just a short while, he noticed with frustration that there was a smudge of chocolate on her dress.

  He heard Laura's voice murmuring in his head, she's only seven. She's allowed to be seven.

  It wasn't just the chocolate, though. It was all of it. The ribbons, the dashing around and shrieking, Laura's acceptance of it all. It all added up.

  Would it add up someday to a Yeni queen who could lead her people wisely?

  Would it add up to a good future for Yeni?

  13

  As she climbed the stairs to the observatory, Laura could only vaguely remember what had happened that morning. It felt as if she had been running after two rambunctious kids all day, and any break she had managed, even with Ziad present and working just as hard as she was, was a fast and fractured thing.

  And he even tried so hard to give me time for lunch.

  She had gratefully gone out on the balcony to eat, but then her parents had called. The news from home—well, it had been almost painfully obvious that they were trying to keep it together for her. Andrea was a fighter, and it was far easier than it would have been without Ziad's support, but she could see the lines of stress and worry on their faces, how tired they were, how their daughter's pain never left them.

  It had been pretty hard to muster up an appetite after that. I just need a little time to myself, Laura thought, settling on one of the couches and looking up into the dark night sky. I just want to spend some time resting. That's all. That's all I want to do.

  She wondered if she had dozed off for a short while, because the next thing she knew, Ziad was settling on the couch next to her, one arm draped over the back of it, his body relaxing by inches next to her own. This hasn't been easy for him either. She reached for his hand.

  He held her hand for a moment, and then, to her surprise, he disentangled himself from her. “I was hoping to catch you alone,” he said.

  She offered him a half-grin.

  “Well, here I am,” she said. “What's on your mind?”

  She knew what she hoped was on Ziad's mind. It felt as if it had been forever since they shared much of anything that wasn't the kids, as if a gulf had grown between them. Having him here made her feel warm, startling because she hadn’t even known that she’d been cold.

  Laura blinked when he pulled his phone from his pocket, straightening up with a stern look on his face.

  “Over the last few days, I have been watching the children and observing what's been going on.”

  “I thought you were just playing with them and caring for them,” Laura said blankly, but Ziad ignored her.

  “It has come to my attention that there are some points in their behavior that need to be addressed.”

  A creeping feeling of dread made its way up her spine, and Laura straightened, folding her hands in front of her. This was starting to feel more and more like an ambush, and she forced herself to keep her tone light.

  “All right. What have you got?”

  “Well, to begin with, I have noticed that Jamila has started using some American slang. It's nothing egregious, but I believe it has been cropping up more and more. Not a problem in and of itself—her school will be handling proper diction and speech, but it is better if she has a solid base to build on, don't you agree?”

  “Well, yes, I mean—”

  “And Hasan. Hasan has been sleeping and eating better, but he also seems to do it whenever he wants. He's not sticking to the schedule that you proposed a while back. Some days he's close, and others, he's just all over the map.”

  “That's what kids do,” Laura said, a slow simmer rising in her chest. “Not every baby can stick to a rigid schedule. They sleep when they're tired.”

  “Adults do as well, but no one gets to nap whenever they want,” Ziad retorted, and then he continued as Laura fumed.

  She stopped responding even as she listened, waiting for him to get through a list of what was beginning to feel more and more like complaints directed at her. He doesn't mean it that way, she reminded herself. He's just worried about the kids. He really doesn't mean that I'm failing at the job that he is paying me to do.

  She sat on her temper, and when Ziad finished reading off his list of notes, she gave herself a moment to moderate her tone before she spoke.

  “Okay, I am glad that you have been so observant, but the truth of the matter is that everything on this list is something that kids do. All kids. This is what they're like when they're small. They grow out of these habits and develop healthy adult habits. The best way to make sure that they have good adult habits is to let them have safe and secure childhoods, ones where they are not criticized at every turn for—”

  Ziad snorted.

  “I cannot believe that overnight, Jamila will learn that she shouldn't shriek and run through the halls when she is overly excited. It's unreasonable.”

  Abruptly, the temper that Laura had been trying so hard to hold on to snapped like a twig.

  “And I think it’s unacceptable that you are expecting two children, one of whom isn't even potty trained yet, to act like little adults! You are the one who is being unreasonable, Ziad. Jamila is doing just fine. She will be the queen someday, but she is not the queen yet. She is a little girl who has suffered an enormous upheaval in her life, and it will not be improved by forcing her to act like an adult in the middle of all of this!”

  Her brief burst of temper dissipated with her words, and she took a deep breath. She was braced for Ziad to come back twice as hard, but instead he sat in silence, looking at her for a long moment before he sighed.

  “It's my fault,” he said. “I have allowed our romantic relationship to cloud my eye.”

  “I don't understand,” she said hesitantly, and he shook his head, taking her hand again.

  “I do not regret our romantic relationship. It has been wonderful, and I would not take a moment of it back. However.”

  “However?”

  “I let it blind me to what has been happening, how Jamila and Hasan are slacking off on the work they should be doing on themselves.”

  Laura jerked her hand back, staring at him in befuddlement.

  “They're kids,” she repeated. “They don't 'work on themselves.' They're learning and exploring and figuring things out. We're guiding them—”

  “And what are we guiding them towards? This is all very well for children who might be, I don't know, lawyers or scientists or homemakers—”

  “Those aren't shameful things to be,” Laura bit out, and Ziad waved her words away.

  “Of course not, but Jamila is going to be a queen. She cannot be so very wild and unrestrained. We would be letting the country down, letting Jamila down if we allowed this to continue.”

  His words struck Laura like a blow to the chest.

  “She is finally opening up to us,” Laura said, her voice low and controlled. “She is finally remembering that she is a little girl who does not always need to worry that the people who love her might walk out someday and never come back. Because, Ziad, that happened to her. That's going to be part of who she is, and for some people, that's the basis of everything they are. We have to help her understand that there is more to the world and to her than just that, and we are not going to do that by making her act perfectly in her own nursery.”

  “She's wild—” Ziad insisted, but Laura climbed to her feet.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head and stepping back. “She's not. She's a child.”

  “Laura.”

  “Ziad, I am under no illusions as to why I am here,” she said, her heart twisting inside her. “You can pick at my work all you like, tell me where I'm falling down on the job or failing to live up to expectations. However, don't you dare sit there and tell me that that little girl, who doesn't even know how to multiply yet, is failing you, is something unacceptable.

  “All those things you listed? They are things that kids grow out of. That's all. Stop being so rigid and unwilling to understand that.”

  Ziad sighed, as frustrated as she was.

  “Laura, you must not take this so personally. This is not a lover's quarrel. This is a professional discussion—”

  “You have to know that telling someone not to take things personally is the best way to make them take things personally,” she said, shaking her head.

  When it looked like Ziad was going to open his mouth again, she shook her head again.

  “We're not going to make any headway on anything tonight,” she said. “If you still want to talk about things in the morning, we can. Right now, I am going to my own bed.”

  She turned on her heel and marched straight down the stairs.

  14

  One of the most valuable things Laura had learned in her training for early childhood care was that children were little sponges. They soaked up things like language and motor skills and expressions from the people around them, a trait that helped them mature and fit into the world they lived in.

  However, this ability also included being able to absorb mental and emotional states, and Laura, realizing that her own mood was nothing that Jamila or Hasan should internalize, excused herself from the nursery.

  Let Ziad see how far his ideas for discipline got him.

  She paced the long halls of the palace, and almost by accident, she found herself in front of Sarah's door. She hesitated for a moment, and then rapped on the door gently.

  If she's sleeping, she can ignore it…

  Instead, Sarah opened the door nearly immediately, her eyes brightening when she saw it was Laura.

  “Hey, we've not seen you over here in a while. Come in. I was just sitting down to a lunch that's far too large. You can help me eat it.”

  Laura came to join her on the couch, where in fact there was a sandwich the size of her face and four small dishes of various appetizers around it.

  “I was really only eating this much a month ago.” Sarah sighed. “The kitchen stepped up, but then they kept it up. Help yourself.”

  Laura smiled, reaching for the chips and hummus, and the food in her belly helped her mood.

  “So what's the deal?” Sarah asked presently. “What's got you wandering?”

  Laura hesitated and then shrugged, pulling out the list Ziad had thoughtfully printed for her and handing it to Laura.

  “Have the reminders that Ziad wanted to give me regarding childcare.”

  It was gratifying to watch Sarah's quick eyes going down the list, her jaw dropped by the time she hit the end.

  “Wow, does Ziad think he's running his own tiny military school? This is nuts.”

  “Oh my God, thank you for saying that.” Laura sighed. “I sincerely was beginning to think that everything we learned in school was wrong, or that I had messed it up somewhere or—”

  She came to a stop as Sarah gave her a hug. It was a little awkward around Sarah's large belly, but the warmth was real, and Laura relaxed further.

  “Hon, trust me—this is nuts. If you showed it to any of our teachers, they would agree.”

  “I thought so, but these last few days have been throwing me for a loop, and I know the kids have been noticing.”

  She paused, and then came out with her fear about all of this.

  “Frankly, it's been going on ever since our relationship turned romantic. Maybe…maybe it's time to end that portion of things and to concentrate on why I'm here in the first place.”

  Sarah hummed a little, a concerned look on her face.

  “I have always trusted your judgment on things, and please believe that I am saying this with love, but, hon, I don't think it's going to be that easy.”

  “No?”

  “No. For a lot of reasons, and I think if you consider it, you'll see exactly what I mean. For so many reasons, ending your romantic relationship with your husband is likely going to be a bad idea.”

  “But it's not a real—”

  Sarah put up a hand, an inscrutable expression on her face.

  “Listen. I know that Ziad's going a little—well, a lot overboard right now. Things are hectic, and he's not making them better. However, at the bottom of whatever all of this is, he's a reasonable man. I'm pretty sure that he's the one who saved my relationship with Imran when things were rocky.”