A quiet murmur went through the crowd.

People bowed.

Curious faces peered at me.

I was uncomfortable with the whole thing.

For a long time, being stared at like this meant that mockery awaited me.

Never in my dreams, who mocks a princess loudly when she stands in front of you?

But this was no longer a dream.

I grimaced in despair.

Some faces I recognized, some I was unsure about, others I had never seen before. Such a large group of people had never been present at one of my aunt's balls. There were also 'less important' noble families and rich people who could afford to walk among the nobility.

Wonderful.

Wendy, on the other hand, beamed with ecstasy and let her gaze wander over the crowd. She was probably scouting out the male prey for a potential dance partner.

Aunt Tanja now took the floor: "I am very happy to see you all here. And I am also happy that this festival is being celebrated for the first time. Today we want to be exuberant and celebrate the beginning of a promising summer. We expect good harvests after a few years of drought. Therefore, we celebrate today, together with the common people, to honor their hard work and patience! Our arrival should not interrupt this wonderful festival."

The crowd clapped. My aunt nodded, then continued, "Today we are also honored by my wonderful niece, Princess Naomie. This is her first big celebration among so many wonderful people. A truly wonderful moment."

My aunt pointed to me with one hand. I waved embarrassedly, but as gracefully as possible.

She did not mention the flour at all.

Instead, Aunt Tanja forced my uncle to say a few words as well with a very stern look. Wendy and I were spared. Such speeches were not yet part of our tasks,

Aunt Tanja was still smiling sublimely, while my uncle muttered a few words bored. Finally, he signaled to the musicians to start playing again. The music started, and the party took its course.

With the common people?

I wanted to laugh.

What a sovereign hypocrisy.

We were still separated from them, except for the parade through the city.

Certainly also, for security reasons.

"Can I go dancing right away?" Wendy asked. No, she pushed. Wendy literally tugged at the sleeve of her mother's dress, which amused my uncle.

"Sons of certain families will have the honor of stepping forward and asking for a dance. It's not your job to storm the dance floor. And it's still too early." My aunt looked at the dancing crowd. "Let the people exhaust themselves first. We'll be served wine and appetizers in a moment. And please, don't tug at my dress."

"Boring!" Wendy rolled her eyes, but let her mother reach for her hand and hold it.

"Wendy! You're a princess." Aunt Tanja shook her head, but my uncle laughed softly.

"I want to choose for myself who I dance with! Appetizers? There's a whole buffet!" Wendy pointed to the tables set up, on which the delicacies were piled up.

"We are served our appetizers," Aunt Tanja repeated.

"And if we let you loose on the young gentlemen, they'll probably run away. You'd better wait here for some brave offers," my uncle teased.

Aunt Tanja, on the other hand, looked at me. "There will be offers for you too. You can't turn down all of them. You'll have to dance with at least one candidate. Anything else would be an insult."

"Would it be?" Well, I felt extremely willing to offend people. "But the candidates would get spared from the flour." Win-win or something.

Aunt Tanja smiled at me encouragingly. "Naomie. You've been to so many balls. This one is no different. I'm sure you'll remember many of the faces?"

I nodded. Yes, some of the faces were not foreign to me.

"And come up with something about the flour. Say it's a protective spell from Hilde, or something like that, if someone asks."

"If," Wendy whispered to me, amused.

"At my last ball, feet had to suffer. No one will ask for a dance with me," I murmured.

"That would be beneficial for the feet of all the young gentlemen here," my uncle agreed.

I nodded.

My aunt, on the other hand, didn't find it funny. "I don't want you two, you and Wendy, to just stay on this pedestal. This festival serves to represent our solidarity with the people. This city is representative of the entire people. Naomie, if someone asks you to dance, please don't be rude. You can refuse a dance, maybe two. I wouldn't dance with some of the young gentlemen here either..." She grimaced for a moment. "You still have the choice, but remember! A rejection is often shameful for the nobility. Those who dance with you rise in reputation. And not everyone here is privileged enough to ask princesses to dance. Luckily!" She winked at Wendy and me.

"Shame..." Wendy murmured.

"I'm full of flour!" I protested. Yes. It was my own fault. "The fewer people ask, the better."

"Well. I want to see you dance with at least one young gentleman. It's expected, Naomie. And the flour will definitely keep some contenders away..." She said the second very quietly, as if she didn't want me to hear it. She turned to her daughter. "Wendy, please don't dance with all the males present. I don't want you to get a bad rap."

"My reputation is excellent. Thank you." Wendy snorted. She said something to me, but I was distracted. Someone walked up to us, and someone else, a figure in the shadows, was watching us. Sure, many looked at us, but this figure didn't seem to want to be noticed.

When our eyes met, the person disappeared completely into the darkness of the trees.

A good distance from us.

We were watched...

An elderly man now reached the platform. He wore a black coat and bowed politely. The man stopped in front of the wide staircase to the platform. "Your Highness, representative Queen. It is an honor!" He bowed again, this time all the lower. "If I could take your time. There is new information about the peasant uprisings. I thought I should inform you about it."

Wendy and I exchanged a look: Me asking, she was perplexed.

"Of course." Aunt Tanja said goodbye to us and left the podium.

"Who was that?” I asked Wendy and looked after the two.

"The mayor of this city. A good friend of Father's." 

"And the peasant uprisings?"

"I don't know much about that. Father left the castle a few weeks ago to take care of it. That's all I know," she answered quietly. Her father frowned, but didn't say anything. He probably wasn't listening to us. Instead, he looked after his wife. "When he came back, he hid in his office as usual."

"Hm," I remembered that he had left the castle in a hurry.

Most of the time, Wendy's father was in his study and didn't want to be disturbed. He even ate there often. Alone. The staff whispered that he even slept there too. I had never entered his office, but I heard there was a comfortable sofa on which he could sleep.

Wendy and Aunt Tanja had never commented on the subject.

The fact was: I had rarely met him in my aunt's rooms. As far as I knew, he took care of the various relationships with other countries and within the country.

"But... Why peasant uprisings?"

"Probably against this tyrant. Naomie. Really! I don't know anything about it. Nothing important. Really. Mom and Dad keep quiet about this tyrant. Sometimes creepy guests come to the castle." She shrugged her shoulders. "Whether they belong to this tyrant or are just unsympathetic. Who knows? I saw a few of them in the crowd..." She nodded to our party guests. "My parents have hardly any decision-making power over the country. They get orders from this man. If it's a man."

"And then why was your mom just... Why wasn't your father called?"

"I don't know." Wendy shrugged her shoulders. "Because she's a woman and that doesn't seem more suspicious? Many men always think they're the heroes and we are the naïve decoration, but in reality we have the reins in our hands."

Oh, wonderful. Misogyny was probably everywhere.

She sighed. "But probably not at the moment, huh?"

"Wendy?"

"Yes?"

"Why are we having a festival when this country is oppressed?" I wanted to know. "That seems dishonest to me." And this festival remained somehow suspicious. I looked over at the trees, but the sinister figure was gone.

"Dishonest? He didn't forbid partying. We'd go crazy if we only thought about the tyrant."

"Is that so?" I asked skeptically. Apparently they didn't think enough about the tyrant here. Or did they? Maybe my family was selling me as stupid. That would explain why my dear aunt had reacted so strangely to the flour. "And what do we do now?" I grumbled, more unmotivated than Aunt Tanja probably thought was appropriate.

"We? We're waiting to be asked to dance." Wendy let her hopeful gaze wander over the crowded dance floor. "A few of the young gentlemen are a feast for the eyes."

"The next idea, please," I answered.

"Well, I AM waiting to be asked to dance."

Wendy didn't have to wait long. Soon after, the mayor's son, as he had introduced himself, asked her to dance. Delighted, she agreed and whispered to me with a wink: "It’s a festival! Don't look so angry, then it will work out for you too."

"I hope not."

Wendy floated to the dance floor with her hero; perhaps he was more of a victim.

"Who's looking angry?" I grumbled and watched them move through the dancing crowd. The crowd turned around in such colorful clothes that I inevitably got dizzy.

"Wendy is in her element," my uncle murmured to me.

I nodded. "I, on the other hand, just get dizzy."

Which is why I decided to take my eyes off the cheerful, dance-loving horde before I got a brain trauma from all the fuss and turned to the butterflies. They moved through the air with such ease that I was spellbound.

I found to my own horror that they also seemed to be dancing.

Slower than the dizzying play of colors in front of me, but they danced.

Somehow....

"Can I please become invisible?" I asked, depressed.

"Shall I go and get Hilde?" My uncle grinned. "I don't like all this dancing either. Your aunt, on the other hand, used to be just like Wendy. A whirlwind on the dance floor."

"Really?"

"Very really!" He nodded. "Try to look bored and unapproachable. Then you might not be asked. Has always worked for me."

I had to laugh. "Flour was obviously not enough."

"A terrific idea. You can always be relied on. I also liked the frogs. The ball had been terribly boring, and I couldn't avoid it," my uncle grumbled in agreement and sank back into his own thoughts.

"Do you think I could hide under the buffet?" I asked, but my uncle didn't listen to me anymore. The conversation, a rarity in itself, was probably over.

One thing was certain: I had to get down from this platform to escape the dancers.

Before someone asked me for a dance, and my aunt came back to remind me of my 'duty'. I didn't want to dance. I was even full of flour! If that wasn't saying ‘no’, then I didn't know what would.

Quietly devouring the snacks that servants were bringing sounded much better.

But as soon as my aunt came back...

I had to be able to hide somewhere?

The buffet was probably not a good idea. Everyone would see it.

Being invisible turned out to be more in the realm of the impossible. There were people everywhere, and they were all in the way!

The dance floor was simply overlaid, and my escape possibilities were close to zero. There were guards behind the stage. There were guards everywhere! All ways were blocked.

Only the dance floor remained.