I glance at the clock every now and then, watching Stevie enthusiastically greet every girl that shows up, and Odette giving each of them a scalding once-over. Only about a third of the ones who enter end up sticking around us while we wait. 

Agra gives us Bellatrix, a beautiful curvy woman with sparkling dark eyes. She’s the quiet type, exchanging polite hellos before proceeding to the bar, but I catch her looking our way more than once.

Representing Ascia is Blythe O’Neil, who has such striking pale eyes that it looks almost painful, and I realize I’ve seen her on many an advertisement, usually selling luxury perfumes or diamond jewellry. She seems a bit lost, says hi and sits on Stevie’s other side, but ends up fading from the conversation and getting lost in her phone.

Myra finally gets someone to talk to with the arrival of Hana Howell, from Fontenoy. They have some sort of weird internet handshake. They talk loudly in their corner and get more than a few pointed looks from other girls. Hana seems nice enough, very cute with her pastel pink hair, but I don’t think I’d be able to keep up with her energy.

From Beaumont, we get Cristia Malika, a girl with hair dyed bright red and a stern face. Cristia is the artist prodigy, I think. She and Odette appear to have met before and strike up an overly polite but clearly enthusiastic conversation, and soon they both forget Stevie and I are even there. The unfortunate thing about Cristia is her outfit; it’s a dress like the rest of us are wearing, but it has a print of an old classical painting depicting angels or some such. Props for branding, I suppose, but it is surprisingly tacky for someone who’s supposed to be artistic.

Esme Piper from Melleret joins us around half past seven and sits on my right. She’s soft-spoken and seems a bit too mature to be participating in this. Her dirty blonde hair is made to look like a deliberate mess, and it suits her, gives her strong mom-vibes. The freckles and slight tan of her skin makes her look worldly and warm.

“I wonder how many we are now,” she says, raising her voice a little to be heard over another series of squealing laughs from Myra and Hana. 

“Nineteen!” Stevie answers before I can open my mouth. 

“Oh, wow! We should be done soon, then. Did you keep track of which provinces we’re missing?” 

“Nope!” 

Esme chuckles and reaches into her bulging, brand-new purse, producing a slightly scuffed-looking leather notebook. 

“Alright, let’s figure this out.” She rifles through the pages, which crinkle satisfyingly, until she reaches a spread with one empty sheet and one that’s littered with messy pencil drawings of people’s heads from different angles. 

“Hey, those are pretty good!” I point out.

“Oh, heh, thanks.” Esme blushes a little. “They’re just doodles of my characters. I use them to hype myself up, imagine they’re drawn by fans to keep myself going. It’s a little embarrassing.” 

I think it’s kind of adorable, but I don’t get the opportunity to say so before the red-headed girl, Cristia, perks up and scoots closer to reach over the coffee table between our couches. 

“Did you draw those? Let me see?” 

Esme hesitates and her blush deepens. I don’t blame her — I also wouldn’t want the nationally recognized art prodigy to critique my private doodles. Especially since the smile she’s attempting reaches her eyes about as well as a gerbil reaches a basketball hoop. 

“You don’t have to show anything if you don’t want to,” I say to Esme, feeling bad that I drew attention to this in the first place. 

Cristia shoots me a sharp look, her hand still hovering in front of us, then widens her smile when looking at Esme, “I’ll be constructive!” 

Poor Esme tries to look appreciative as she hands over her notebook. Cristia frowns as soon as it’s in her possession, flipping through the pages, squinting, grimacing, seemingly having a face journey for every sketch. Odette peeks over her shoulder, too, and poor Emse’s smile turns so strained it might as well be dripping pasta water. 

“You have some sameface syndrome going on,” Cristia finally says. “Look here, for example. These two are supposed to be different characters, right? But look at their cheekbones and chins. You can’t just use hair and eyebrows to distinguish features, the bone structure and underlying anatomy is far more important than surface-level details.” 

Esme nods valiantly. 

“And this one, hold on” — Cristia flips to a different page — “the hair on this one. If you’re trying for realism, you’ll do better by breaking up the hair in chunks instead of drawing each strand, it will look way less messy.” 

“They’re just doodles, man,” I interject. 

“So? Doodles can be good, can’t they? Just because these are private doesn’t mean they have to be bad. Besides, she said she uses them for inspiration. Isn’t it more inspiring to have your characters look right?” 

I grimace, though I can’t refute her points. Not because she’s right, but because she’s responding to an argument I never made. Who cares if her doodles are good or bad? She made them for herself, not for anybody else. 

“Anyway, those were just my opinions. Take it or leave it. I have formal art training, so I like to share my knowledge whenever I can. But you’re quite good for a beginner! You can only get better!” With that, Cristia puts Esme’s notebook on the table and pats it, then scoots away to join a conversation between Odette and Blythe.

Esme retrieves her notebook. 

“Sorry about that,” I say. 

“It’s all good. I’m mostly just baffled,” she replies with quiet amusement. “Not sure what I’m supposed to do with all that.” 

I snort, “Be grateful for the free formal art training, I guess.” 

She rolls her lips to keep herself from smiling and buries her nose in her notebook again, searching for the page she’d had open before. 

I catch Cristia staring at me, which is probably not great. I wonder if this would make for juicy TV, like the start of some drama. How unbearable would that be?

“Do you think they’re recording us right now?” I ask Esme. “I mean, my, uh, manager said no, but I don’t know how much I trust her.” 

“Oh, they’re definitely recording!” Stevie pipes up again. “But probably it’s just for B-roll.” 

“B-roll?” 

“Yeah, footage that’s shown between more important scenes, or as background visuals when someone’s talking in voice over.” 

Esme leans over me to look at Stevie, “Why wouldn’t they use it as normal footage, or whatever?” 

“Too risky. Some of us don’t have media training, so there’s less control over the content. Plus, it gives them some time to make sure we’re all presentable. I mean, imagine if a girl makes a total fool of herself, starts saying hate speech or something? They need a buffer to rein in people who would otherwise make the producers and royal family look bad.” 

I’m pleasantly grateful for Stevie’s expertise. It calms me a little to know that the royals have a vested interest in keeping things above board. 

“I would’ve thought they want that sort of raw, stinky-hot drama?” I ask, and Esme hums in agreement. 

“Oh, they do usually!” Stevie chirps. “But the stakes are much higher in this show. One of us is supposed to become queen, after all. If we’re all nasty and silly, nobody will want any of us on the throne. We have to look like real royal candidates, all of us.”

Esme nods like this makes sense, and I suppose it does, technically, but even if I unraveled all my brain wrinkles I still couldn’t wrap my head around the notion. Why would the royal family give up so much control over who the Crown Prince will marry? Sure, they made the initial selection, but isn’t that still too many variables? 24 fighting over one throne. 

It can’t be that simple and needlessly complicated at the same time. There has to be something else going on, some underlying logic that makes this make sense. 

The arrival of another two girls stops my thoughts before they can begin their centrifugal descent. Esme recognizes the taller one from Carriden from a TV show — her name is apparently Nora Quincy. She’s stunning, and wears an easy, wide smile with the confidence of someone who’s clearly used to talking in front of crowds, which makes sense. Esme informs me that Nora is a professional adventurer and survivalist, which explains the toned biceps. I didn’t even know adventuring is still a job someone can have. 

The other girl is Cressida Pomeroy, with bright red hair and a sea of freckles across her nose and cheeks. She’s a model, I recall Sheri saying, but her eyes are panicked when she enters the room, like she thinks we’re all about to gnaw the flesh off her bones. 

“She looks a bit sickly, don’t you think?” Esme says to me once Cressida passes us and finds a less populated spot to tuck herself into. “Pale and wan.”

“I doubt she is,” I reply. “They wouldn’t let her in if she was. Besides, I’ve been on the verge of throwing up since this morning. Anxiety does that to you.” 

Esme leans away from me with an alarmed look on her face, then laughs. She thinks I’m kidding, which is insulting to my frankly immense self-control, but I laugh along to keep up the illusion of being a normal human being. 

“Only three left!” Cristia says loudly.

“One hundred cygnets on Liu arriving last and making us wait, as usual.” 

We all look at Odette, who smirks knowingly at Cristia. 

“That’s when the real party starts.” Cristia rolls her eyes and they both chuckle. 

I can’t tell if they’re talking about a friend or a foe.

They end up being right. When the final contestant arrives I’m not sure if it’s her sheer presence or the fact that this means we’re leaving soon, but everyone falls silent and stares toward her. 

Junzhi Liu is built like a snap bracelet, long and flat, and wears a slinky black dress that appears to be swallowing the light around it. It’s a bit angular and geometric, reminiscent of the Queen’s usual fashion choices, which I assume is intentional. Her lipstick matches her dress, and the only color in her makeup is the blood red eyeliner. She scans the room, looking each and every one of us in the eye, then smiles.

“I hope I'm only fashionably late.”