"This is the first time, no?" I ask to fill the quiet.
"It is, your highness." Emma can understand that I refer to it being the first time I've set foot in my father's palace.
With Jack's infuriating presence gone, the somber glamour of the palace threatens to choke me once again. Emma and I's footsteps alight the silent hall, only broken by the somber figures of guards intermittently posted throughout the central palace. I have never stepped into my father's wing, but the path seems mapped out in my mind as I navigate my way to my father's office with ease. After all, the layout is the same as my own wing, although I'm not sure if the similarity is comforting or annoying.
When I'd lived in the Rose Palace, the distance and pink touches had allowed me to differentiate between the two. Now, it's like I'm beginning to overlap with the very man who seems to have the most meager of attachments to my existence.
