The Samhain Formal, just like Antoinette had told me, wasn’t any simple school dance.

Guests came from all over the kingdom of Eavredor, hoping to mingle with the impressionable children of the elite and score beneficial matches for their children. Families surveyed the quality of the new generation, and precocious students forged connections to assure their careers. Antoinette had assured me that amongst the kisses and break-ups that happened in that ballroom, there were also decade-defining business alliances and reputation-crushing scandals.

As for me?

I was mostly worried about the kisses.

When entering the golden ballroom, I was immediately bowled over by a wave of awe that had me freezing in the doorway, mouth dropping open as I took in the glitz and gleam. Sure, I could compare the La Belle Lavande ballroom to about a billion fantasy films, but nothing captured the feeling of being surrounded by its swooping ceilings, sea of glamorous dancers, and chandeliers jingling with diamonds that seemed about to rain on my face. Like the majesty of the place entered my heart and swelled up.

Rémi slid in out of nowhere and caught my hand, leading me out of the entry–where I’d been blocking the way.

He gave me a twirl. “Didn’t recognise you until I saw that deer-in-headlights expression. Here I was, thinking the Goddess Liria had just stepped into our humble little academy.”

I rolled my eyes at his comparison to this world’s Persephone stand-in. “Come on, Rémi.”

“I mean it. Nothing makes you look more like Chloé than wide-eyed confusion.”

I curtseyed in my sunny-yellow gown with daisies embroidered all over its skirt and its draping sleeves (I’d have to be careful to not drag them in my food…or spill food on my dress…maybe I shouldn’t eat at all). “You don’t look so bad, yourself!”

Super handsome–without sacrificing his usual devil-may-care style. His hair was slicked back as always, but the bottle-green suit made it look less punk and more regal. The colour brought out his eyes. A brash white narcissus bloomed from his lapel. Of course, all the inessential buttons and knots were undone, in true Rémi fashion.

He caught me looking at his lapel. He plucked out the narcissus and offered it to me.

I waved my hands. “I couldn’t! Your outfit looks so good with it.”

“Ah-ah, don’t you worry your pretty little head about that.”

I tucked the flower in my hair above my ear, then watched, at his indication, as another flower bloomed from his lapel. “Oh!”

“I had a friend charm it.”

“Soooo, you’re telling me…I’m nowhere near the first or last girl who’s gotten a flower from you?”

“Maaaybe. But you’re the only girl I’ll show that trick to.” He winked.

The ballroom was packed with guests, most of which I didn’t recognise. Hell, I barely recognised my own classmates, considering how dolled up they were in silk gowns, shiny suits, and jewelry that made the room glitter like Smaug’s hoard. At the top of the room was a raised stage, presenting a live ten-piece orchestra. Waiters slid through the crowd like fish, letting guests snag hors d’oeuvres off their trays; over by a chocolate fountain, glasses filled with pink champagne were stacked in a precarious tower twice my height.

I asked the resident Tall at my side, “Where are our friends?”

"Well, first off, Étienne’s being passed around like a blunt between this season's scum-suckers."

He jerked a thumb to the left of the ballroom. Sure enough, there was the prince in his white suit and gold adornments, seemingly holding his own in a pack of smoking, furrowed-brow businessmen.

Good. I needed to stay out of Étienne’s sights tonight.

“Lou?”

Again, Rémi pointed me in the right direction. Louis looked like he was in a terse argument with Cécile near the flower arrangements. "He's a serious pack of nerves. His sisters are all into the helping-the-school thing, so they volunteered him to be waitstaff before he knew his parents were coming. He said the Duke and Duchess are gonna give him hell for it, because it makes him look poor. And as for Sylvain, he’s brooding it up.”

He took my shoulders and spun me around to see Sylvain. He was standing between some gargantuan flower arrangements (note to self: no big freak-outs tonight) and scowling.

“I’ve been watching girls trying to hype each other up to ask him to dance, but so far, no one’s managed it.”

“And, uh, and Antoinette?”

He smiled at me. Weirdly knowingly. “She left your dorm without you, huh?”

“Yeah. After lending me her earrings.” Sun-shaped gold medallions with a teardrop of jade that made a fun jingling noise when I moved my head. “She said that everyone knows by now that we room together so she wouldn’t let me embarrass her by being an unfashionable dork.”

“That’s nice. Y’know, for Princess Delphine. What’s the frown about?”

Nothing. Just thinkin’ about the volleyball I took to the face.

Rémi didn’t even need to point Antoinette out: I spotted her immediately, surrounded by a pack of girlfriends and overeager boys. She’d looked great in our room, but now with the drama and gold of the ballroom surrounding her, she embodied the title of a glorious heiress. Her red hair was immaculately curled into a waterfall of silk, tucked back just enough to show off her massive butterfly-shaped gold earrings. That plus the iridescent butterfly wing decor on her deep purple dress exemplified the game’s early-2000s release date. Regardless, she pulled it off effortlessly.

A wistful sigh just came out of me. Totally accidental.

Rémi said, “She really is gorgeous, huh?”

Gorgeous and villainess…-y.

In Love Blooming, it was after this ball that Antoinette escalated from schoolyard bully to seriously wicked romantic rival. This event was essentially an affection point dump and where the plot began to diverge depending on who you danced and flirted with.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

(Or worse, if Étienne was your guy.)

If the volleyball thing hadn’t happened–plus the ring-planting and the paint-pouring–I’d be spending my time scheming to get every single guy dancing with Antoinette and make her as flustered and flirty as Marie. Now, I felt unmoored, like I’d been shoved into a whole new world…again.

Maybe it was naive to not have guessed this would be a problem.

She wasn’t the Antoinette from my fanfics. She was something else entirely.

Still. I couldn’t fail her!

Against my better judgment, I asked Rémi, “Stay with me?”

“Of course.” He offered an arm and I happily took it.

Rémi and I went around, chatting with his buddies, a few businessmen he knew by name, and even his mother, a confident, gray-haired woman whose charming, crooked grin was passed down to her son. We occasionally twirled to the music. Rémi got us drinks from Louis’s tray and teased the poor guy.

I held my glass like a lifeline, even if my stomach was already flipping around like Charlie Bucket after chugging fizzy lifting drink. I didn’t take a single sip.

A young woman approached us from the crowd. While the whole room was filled with Disney princesses, she made me think of Sleeping Beauty, with her floor-length blue gown with tight sleeves, and shoulders that swept around her upper arms in layers of fluffy, glimmering fabric.

“M. Fontaine,” she started. “And…Chloé, yes? Antoinette’s roommate?”

Damn, Antoinette was right.

Rémi said, “Just Chloé and Rémi, hey? How are you?”

“Feeling quite popular, thanks to you.” She tucked her hair behind her ear, showing him a huge silver earring sculpted like a delicately-painted amphora. “Even the prince complimented them.”

Rémi lightly touched the earring. “I had to practically beg my father to keep the design under wraps for you. Give it a couple days and the formal release will be all over the papers, and everyone here will remember you as the woman who modeled the first set.”

As he pulled away, his fingers brushed her cheek. She went pink. Who could resist him? The fandom sure didn’t give him his dues.

“You see her?” Rémi pointed at a portly woman in a royal purple fox stole, laughing with Lou’s mother. “That’s Huguette Yves. Her company’s hoping to expand into jewelry, if her deal with my family shakes out well. Let’s just say I have it on good authority that it will…and she’ll be looking for models. You have the complexion and pretty hands for jewelry modeling. Not to mention the eyes. Any gem would make you shimmer. You should talk to her. Mention my name.”

“You’re the gem here, Rémi. Thank you.” She danced off in Huguette’s direction.

“What was that about, ya flirt?” I touched my glass to my lips–but the crazy smell coming off of the drink made me jerk it back down. Fantasy world, fantasy flavours, I guess. Blech.

“Eh, nothing big. I let her wear some early prototypes. Hopefully this’ll lead to some career opportunities for her, or at least some nice connections that she can use down the road. I owe her.”

“Owe her?” I asked. Memories of his game route slotted into place.

Rémi explained, my recollection swelling with each word. “A few years ago, not as many years as I’d like, really, I cheated her brother at a gambling table. I took more from him than I should have. It’s eaten me up. So I’m trying to pay the siblings back a little.”

“Aren’t you a gentleman!”

He leaned down to my level so he could point me towards a few faces in the crowd. "Him, I broke the windows of his new cobbler shop when it opened. He was expanding, so it's not like the windows set him back, but it was his employees who had to clean up all that glass and got scolded for letting it happen. Her, we went to a private middle school together, and after I found out her pops messed with mine in some ancient feud, I took it out on her show pony, shaving its mane and tail before a competition. I was a serious shithead."

"I'm sure if you explained yourself–you know, you were a stupid kid and everything–they'd understand."

Rémi shook his head. "It's not about forgiveness. It's about putting things back to rights. Evening out the universe."

A flash of violet drew my eye to Antoinette. When she reached us, Rémi brightened up and kissed the gold rings on her fingers, thankfully not handing her a flower. I stepped away from Rémi, very aware that our arms were touching.

“Good evening, you two.” She flicked open her purse and took out a pencil and a folded piece of paper. She twirled her finger at Rémi. He turned around; she put the paper on his back and started scribbling. “You were wro-ong,” she sing-songed. “Sophie Lavigne lost her internship because they caught her writing for a rebel newspaper.”

“What! I swore she got kicked out because of her dad’s affair with the secretary. Are you sure the newspaper thing wasn’t just a cover?”

“Likely not, since M. Lavigne is here with the secretary in question on his arm. What did we say…ten silvers?”

“Argh. Yeah.”

Antoinette smiled, folding up the paper and slipping it into her purse. “I bet you another ten that Cécile Chapelle leaves here in tears.”

“Her parents are here. She’s gonna batten down the hatches. No way.”

“She’s already screamed at Louis and Colette, and she hasn’t even discovered that she lost a caterer last-minute. She absolutely will cry.” They shook on it. Antoinette frowned at me. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

I blinked. “Like what?”

“Like I was going to take a knife out of my purse.”

Rémi set a hand on my back. “You forget how intimidating us elites are.” He plucked my glass from my hand and to my surprise, offered it to Antoinette. “She hasn’t touched it. And if you’re gonna win more bets, princess, you need to loosen up a bit.”

She rolled her eyes before taking the glass. When she drank, one phrase burst through my nerves: hey!! That’s like an indirect kiss!!!! (๑*ᗜ*)

She wiggled her fingers at us and vanished into the crowd. I breathed a sigh of relief. At least until I saw that Étienne was coming towards us from the other direction.

The poor prince was smiling at and apologizing to everyone who tried to get his attention–which was literally everyone. Was it for better or for worse that Étienne rebuilt his reputation post-Gambling-gate by being a personable, friendly, approachable prince to contrast his chilly parents? Better for me right now, since it was taking him about six hundred years to reach us.

“You know,” I blurted, turning away, “I should really thank Antoinette properly for the earrings. I’ll–”

“Give it a sec, Étienne’s coming.”

“Oh, sure, but I–”

“Chloé, Rémi.” Étienne emerged from the sea of admirers. He sounded a little out of breath. “Wait, Chloé. I haven’t seen you yet tonight.”

I was giving him a spastic little curtsey, ready to run off, when Rémi asked, “Do you want to steal one of us for a dance, after all that talking, Your Highness?”

“Only the lady, if she’d allow it.”

“Damn it.” Rémi looked down at me. “How about it? There’s no chance a girl like you wants to dance with the crown prince, is there?”

Étienne put out a hand to me.

image [https://64.media.tumblr.com/72f68107ec53ecb6e3fd1375d39d7e52/3a6819a4ad1a40d9-3d/s2048x3072/7dc31d781da085631da0477d2b85988e10337a7c.jpg]

Oh thank god. I could just refuse to dance with him and avoid this whole situation.

…And dance with Rémi instead.

The frozen chunk of time that the dialogue box granted me was comforting, for once. I had time to think. To reconsider.

And steel myself.

Was I gonna spend the rest of my school year dancing around scenarios? Was I gonna scurry around the Samhain Formal like a mouse, hiding in Rémi’s shadow, until Antoinette took offense to that too?

Nope. Phew. Okay. Time to face the game and its scripted flirting head-on.

After all, it was only gonna get harder from here on out.

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