Maddie's life looked a little like this: Maddie's mother, Estelle, had been a debutant princess once upon a time. She had been the first woman to bed the current king of Aster. With dark hair and eyes, and a devilish attitude to match, she hadn't cared about the king's engagement, and she'd convinced him not to care, either. The king's princely tryst with Estelle had been short-lived, and her persistent pursual of the king, even after his marriage, had led to a lifelong banishment. Madeleine had been born into this banishment, her name springing up from the ever-growing well of Estelle's bitterness. Madeleine cookies, after all, were the only nice thing that Estelle was still allowed in her new dreary life of solitary confinement. Estelle's solitary confinement meant Maddie's confinement. Being homeschooled by a woman driven mad by her isolation had downsides, but Maddie always did the best she could. Like making friends with the grocer boy, Oliver, who brought Maddie and her mom their rations. Life was as good as it was going to get. But things in Maddie's tiny world are being turned on their head. Oliver's brought a letter from the palace bearing Maddie's name. Things will never be the same.
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