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Eleanor is not petty.
Eleanor is eighteen. She is an adult. She is the queen of Illyria. She is calm and in control and not petty .
She also does not speak to her mother for a week after finding out about the Society.
Sam was too young to remember their dad well. She was too young to remember how she broke down completely after his death. But Eleanor wasn’t.
Being born first means she experiences it all first. The eyes she views the world through are new and clear, and she uses them to shield her younger sister — her baby sister — from the worst.
There’s a shift. Eleanor watches it happen in real-time as Sam floats further and further away from her. Sam gets angry. Sam lashes out. Sam clings to their dad’s music and absorbs ideas about the monarchy that make Eleanor’s heart stutter.
Eleanor’s tutors have taught her of revolution. She knows that when it comes, her neck will be under the knife.
When Sam disobeys, when their mother snaps, Eleanor closes her eyes and takes careful breaths. Every moment of her life is supposed to be devoted to being the best queen she can be.
For her people.
For Sam.
The more genuine her smile, the more charming her interviews, the more pleasing her policy ideas, the fewer people focus on Sam.
Eleanor tailors her social media to be picture-perfect, even as a PR team hovers over her shoulder for the majority of her early posts. She insists on running it herself, because she wants to be accessible. She follows her ‘friends,’ she follows other royals. She puts on the airs of perfection.
The only person she has notifications turned on for is Sam.
Eleanor is the firstborn. She will be queen. From her first breath to the one she takes at eighteen, it all leads to a heavy crown on her head, and an entire population of subjects watching her every move.
Eighteen years.
Two hundred sixteen months.
Nine hundred thirty-eight and five hundred seventy-one thousandths weeks.
Six thousand five hundred seventy days.
One hundred fifty-seven thousand, six hundred eighty hours.
The hands of the clock wind and Eleanor loses more time.
Her life is an eternal countdown. But she feels the crown on her brow every day. During each lesson, every meeting, every fitting. She feels her father’s hand heavy on her shoulders.
She lifts her chin, and smiles for the camera.
Sam’s first foray into makeup is messy and dramatic. Eleanor offers to help, to show her some tricks, but Sam refuses. At first.
After a week of looking like a raccoon, Sam agrees to let Eleanor show her how to do eyeliner. But just eyeliner.
“I think I like girls,” Sam whispers as Eleanor sits in front of her on the bed, one hand pulling the skin by Sam’s eye, and the other holding the best liquid eyeliner Eleanor’s found.
“Okay,” Eleanor says.
“Don’t tell Mom yet.”
“Of course not.” She finishes the wing with her tongue between her teeth. “The hardest part,” she says, “is making them match. But who cares if they do.” She meets Sam’s eyes. “I love you, you know that, right?”
Sam hugs her tightly, and Eleanor can’t remember the last time they hugged. When Sam pulls away, her eyeliner is smeared, and they have to start over.
Eleanor tries to hear Sam out when she yells about destroying the monarchy. But it rips something fundamental inside of her. The monarchy is all she is . All Eleanor is Royal. Queen. Leader.
Without that…who is she?
Sometimes, Eleanor thinks about how, for the first several weeks after their dad’s death, she and Sam would sleep in her mom’s bed. After that, Sam would sneak into Eleanor’s room to share with her. When they couldn’t sleep, Eleanor would read Sam stories— old fairy tales about knights and dragons and curses easily broken by a kiss.
Sometimes, her eye catches the book of fairy tales collecting dust on her shelves, and has to take a moment.
“You’re late,” Eleanor says again, because Sam was late again .
Sam shrugs. “Who cares.”
Eleanor takes a deep breath through her nose. She can’t snap around other people. That’s for home. That’s behind closed doors, when she’s truly fed up with her sister’s blatant disregard for responsibilities.
“I care,” she says. And it takes all her training to keep her voice steady.
Sam just quirks an eyebrow. “Good for you.” She snags an hors d’oeuvre off a passing tray and eats it in one bite.
Eleanor turns and smiles for a picture.
Eleanor will be queen, it’s in her bones, trained into her since her first scream, but she is an older sister first. Before she understood what the word ‘royalty’ meant, she knew how to make a bottle for Sam and tickled Sam’s feet.
Every event Sam skips, every night she sneaks out, fear seizes Eleanor’s heart. Because she already lost her father and uncle. She can’t lose her baby sister too.
She can hear Sam and Mike practicing their music above her, isolated in the clocktower like an intentional Cinderella. Eleanor closes her eyes as a stylist does her hair. By the time it’s done, there won’t be a single flyaway.
Mike crashes on the cymbals, and Eleanor aches for a friendship like that. Illyria is small, but it’s hers. And her mother taught her very early on that friendship is not something an heiress apparent should approach lightly.
Eleanor has her acquaintances. She has other royals she is friendly with.
She has her sister.
She doesn’t.
It’s jarring to see herself on billboards and signs. To see coronation countdowns plastered throughout the city. Eleanor keeps her sunglasses on and head down.
If she changes her outfits and puts up her hair, she really isn’t that recognizable.
She’s unremarkable. Ordinary.
She listens to Sam and Mike’s musical protests from a distance, and when the police are called to break them up, she slips into a coffee shop, orders a latte with an accent she stole from a royal she met at a gala, and carefully sips as she makes her way home, slipping into the castle the back way and circumventing the security.
“Jail!?” she almost shrieks, but doesn’t, because it’s late and they’re trying to keep this under wraps. Sam is a minor, so this won’t be publicized despite being a public figure, but had she been eighteen—
“Yes.” Queen Catherine crosses her arms and leans against her desk. She is still the picture of perfection, while Eleanor feels frumpy and caked in creasing makeup.
“And you’re leaving her there?” Eleanor hides her shaking hands in the folds of her skirt. She won’t let her mother see weakness, not now, when she’s trying to convince her to bail out her sister . “All night?”
“She has to face consequences.” Catherine holds up a hand before Eleanor can say anything more. “They were at a bar while underage, they disrupted a private concert, and ruined thousands of dollars of equipment. Not to mention everyone’s night. And I specifically told Samantha to come straight back here to study and sleep. She needs to learn discipline.”
Eleanor tries not to wince at the name. Sam hates it.
“They’ll be bailed out tomorrow,” her mom promises.
“Sam has a history final,” Eleanor says weakly.
Catherine raises an eyebrow, and Eleanor sees Sam.
It’s strange not having Sam around. The castle feels emptier. And so does Eleanor.
The thing she’s always missing — probably those things called emotional relationships that people talk about — is more prominent than ever. She keeps thinking she hears Sam playing guitar, or stomping around in her boots.
Eleanor keeps going to Sam’s room to ask questions, to see if she wants to go grab boba or watch a movie.
Summer school , she reminds herself each time. Which is good. Because Sam needs discipline.
That’s all they need.
Eleanor plans her policies carefully, in several journals. They’re color-coded, with individual symbol and color keys. When a journal is complete, she carefully types it up into a document or spreadsheet and considers. She consults historical texts and academic analyses and reads about failures and successes.
And failures.
And failures.
And failures.
And the chain around her neck tightens.
In the middle of the night, Eleanor swears she hears music. Piano. She can’t remember the last time someone played piano— Sam gravitates to guitar, and Sam isn’t here. Their dad played piano. Eleanor played once, but…
Eleanor hears voices, and she swears one of them is Sam’s, but by the time she’s out of bed and up to Sam’s room, its empty.
The lights are still on.
Feeling cold, she flicks them off before she leaves.
It would be nice to have Sam back if something weren’t so clearly wrong. And Eleanor can’t ask, because Sam’s walls are up high and Eleanor hasn’t been allowed in for years.
All she asks is that Sam is on time for the coronation.
Sam gives her a flat smile. The one she gives people when they ask for a picture. At this point, Sam should have the perfect smile prepared at all times, but she’s never been able to fake it.
Eleanor wants to take Sam’s hands and pull her onto the bed and demand to know what’s wrong. But the coronation looms.
And she can no longer prioritize being an older sister.
She has to be queen.
Looking out over the crowd, Eleanor searches for Sam. She can spot her sister anywhere, not just because Sam’s styles tend to the more casual and alternative.
Eleanor can’t find her face.
No one sees the way her jaw clenches for just a second. Or the three rapid blinks to stay off tears. They just see the smiling princess, about to be crowned queen.
Her sister didn’t want to see this.
And that’s fine.
So without her sister by her side, Eleanor steps out of the role of princess, and into the role of queen.
Her mother only explains everything the next day. When Eleanor’s feet still ache from her heels and her voice is hoarse from thanking everyone. When exhaustion has sunk deep into her bones, but she’s queen now, and a kingdom never sleeps.
It takes all her training to remain seated until her mother has finished. To not storm out of the room. To not scream in Catherine’s face. To not break down in tears.
Her anger at Sam for missing the coronation, for missing the thing that Eleanor’s entire life has been leading up to melts away. Because her sister almost died. Her sister has been at risk for weeks, and no one had bothered to tell Eleanor. No one felt it was important to mention that instead of trying to boost her history grade, her sister was undergoing intensive training that verged on horrifying to Eleanor.
And when Eleanor hadn’t seen Sam at the ceremony, she assumed the worst. When her sister was saving her life. And the lives of everyone there, people who were only there because of Eleanor.
So her anger melts. It melts and hardens into something sharp and dangerous. And she swallows it back and keeps her face impassive.
“Thank you for telling me,” Eleanor says. The words feel like ice and she wonders if her mother can hear it. Feel it. She hopes it pierces. If her mother is the head of this Secret Society of Second-Born Royals, they’ll have to work together at times.
Right now, Eleanor can’t even bring herself to look at Catherine and think “Mom.”
Their father was murdered. By a dead uncle who has been alive all this time. Alive and in a prison for superheroes.
He tried to kill Eleanor. He tried to kill all the royals.
He tried to kill Sam.
Eleanor stands and her skirts twist as she turns to the door. “I’ll request more information as I see fit,” she says. And she leaves her mother in her office to go find her sister.
“It was my turn to protect you,” Sam says.
Tears well up in Eleanor’s eyes. Protecting Sam was the job she chose , not like the crown. She has always had the crown. But Sam was her choice.
Eleanor sweeps Sam up in a hug before she can protest, and squeezes her hard until Sam squeaks.
“Bruised ribs!” Sam wheezes and Eleanor pulls away quickly, carefully pressing her hands to Sam’s abdomen.
“Did you get these checked?” she asks, tears still running down her face and no doubt ruining the makeup she maintained throughout her entire conversation with their mom.
Sam rolls her eyes. “Yes, Nor, of course I did. The Society takes care of us.”
Eleanor doesn’t believe her, but she has to trust her.
“My baby sister has superpowers.” She tries for a teasing tone, quickly wiping away her tears.
“How else am I supposed to save the world?” Sam asks with a raised eyebrow.
Take me with you , Eleanor wants to say.
You don’t have to , sits on the tip of her tongue.
You’re fifteen , circles her mind.
But Eleanor is eighteen. And Eleanor is queen. And Eleanor can see that her baby sister is growing up. So she steps back. And lets her sister — her powerful, loving, fierce sister — step into the light.