Someone was screaming.
Mai was fairly sure they were screaming with delight but they were screaming nonetheless.
It was probably around seven in the morning and everyone bar the servants was supposed to still be asleep.
All but falling out of bed, Mai stumbled to the doors of her bedrooms, tumbled through the entrance hall and threw open her apartment doors, finally identifying that particular note of operatic delight as Geneviève.
"Can't a man sleep around here?" Henri choked, hanging off the doorframe to his room, hair a mess and eyes closed.
"No, only women," Joliette snapped, appearing from her room resplendent in silk dressing gown and satin curls, looking perfect even when so rudely awakened.
Henri gave her a bleary eyed look and Joliette clamped a hand onto his face and shoved him back into his room.
"Henrietta, you should make yourself decent," she said before walking out to the balcony beyond the rooms to look to the floors below, joining Mai as she and other siblings started to appear from their rooms with disgruntled gentlemen- and ladies-in-waiting.
"What are you screaming about, you damned banshee?!"
That would be Dax.
He exploded out of his room, his hair on end and his eyes bloodshot with the distress of a youth woken before midday.
The Howling Beast from Hell appeared suddenly in a shower of pink nightclothes, waving a page around for all to see, not that any of them knew what it actually said.
"They're coming!" she screamed.
"To sack and pillage and have their wicked way with us?" Zola asked, dumping her cheek in her palm, frowning down to the floor below.
"My, I do wish they'd given us some warning," Adalicia said. "I'm not even dressed."
"At least they were so good as to send a letter to the noisiest princess, word does get around fast when you scream it," Mai pointed out.
"How true!" Adalicia said, clapping her hands, "Tell us, sister dear, what monster brings an army this way to burn down our fair kingdom?"
"Oh shut up!" was the reply. "Laugh all you like but I have here a letter Mama received last week!"
"Are you to find yourself in possession of a truly awful stepfather?" Azalea sneered.
"The Midnight Troupe has agreed to preform at the palace!"
Everyone was silent, just looking at her.
"Is that it?" Thiago asked, his lips curling with distaste.
"PAH! Is that it?! That is everything!"
"I'm sure they're quite awful," Mai said, draping her arms over the balustrade and looking across to Etienne.
"Oh it's guaranteed," he said, "Anything that builds this much anticipation never lives up to expectations. I suspect we'll be devastatingly bored."
"You don't know!" Geneviève snapped.
"Neither do you," Dax snapped back, "Go back to sleep, you stupid romanticist! No one cares about your obsessions this early in the morning!"
"Oh now, Dax," Daphne chided when Genevieve's lip trembled, clearly hurt.
Dax just bared his teeth at his sister and stomped back into his room.
"Not one for early mornings yet, I see," Mai said, straightening. She glanced down below, watching Geneviève looking at her letter like she was reading a lover's goodbye on it. "Tell us all about them at dinner, Gene," she said, her sister looking up. "You shall have our rapt attention when we sit to dine tonight."
YOU ARE READING
Dancing on Strings
Fantasy"A Princess to your kingdom before A Principal to your stage." Mai, Princess Royal and first of twelve daughters has only two priorities. Her family and her dance - and sadly her dance can never come before her family. Because of this, despite her...
