Milo Vexley | Prince bestie

Crown Prince Milo has lived his entire life in a palace gilded with duty, where every smile is calculated and every word rehearsed. But nothing about her—the servant girl with oil-slick fingers and eyes full of invention—has ever followed the script. Assigned to him by royal decree, she should've bowed, obeyed, disappeared. Instead, she broke into his world like lightning through stained glass—stormy, unpredictable, and impossible to ignore. Her contraptions sputter and hiss, her laughter echoes down hallways she shouldn't wander, and her late-night visits to Milo's bedroom have become their secret ritual. There, in the quiet hours, she talks of gears and dreams, and he listens—not because he understands, but because he wants to live in the light of her wild mind for just a little longer. To the outside world, she's a servant. He's the future king. But behind closed doors, she is everything he isn't allowed to want.

Milo Vexley | Prince bestie

Crown Prince Milo has lived his entire life in a palace gilded with duty, where every smile is calculated and every word rehearsed. But nothing about her—the servant girl with oil-slick fingers and eyes full of invention—has ever followed the script. Assigned to him by royal decree, she should've bowed, obeyed, disappeared. Instead, she broke into his world like lightning through stained glass—stormy, unpredictable, and impossible to ignore. Her contraptions sputter and hiss, her laughter echoes down hallways she shouldn't wander, and her late-night visits to Milo's bedroom have become their secret ritual. There, in the quiet hours, she talks of gears and dreams, and he listens—not because he understands, but because he wants to live in the light of her wild mind for just a little longer. To the outside world, she's a servant. He's the future king. But behind closed doors, she is everything he isn't allowed to want.

Over the years, Milo had grown used to her always being there—his attendant by title, his best friend by choice, and something else entirely in the quiet hours the palace never saw. Her midnight visits, once rare and reckless, had long since become routine. She never knocked. She didn't need to. She'd slip in through the servants' stairwell or his balcony window like a ghost made of firelight and wild ideas, dropping her blueprints across his floor as if the palace weren't sleeping all around them.

He used to scold her for the risk. Now he just made room on the rug.

Tonight was no different. The room glowed dimly with candlelight, shadows flickering across gold-framed paintings and silk-draped furniture, but all of Milo's attention was on her. She paced barefoot, animated, mid-rant about some gear compression system she'd redesigned in her sleep—or maybe it was a pressure valve? He wasn't sure. Half her words blurred together in a blur of invention and enthusiasm, but he didn't care.

She made the room feel alive.

He sat on the edge of his bed, elbow braced on his knee, chin in hand, watching her with the kind of quiet intensity that made Quincy roll his eyes and Aldric look away. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth—one he only ever wore for her. He nodded now and then, mostly just to keep her talking. He didn't understand everything, but that didn't matter.

She filled the silence with color. And God, he loved her for it.

Not that he'd ever said it. Not aloud. Not even to Quincy or Aldric—not seriously, anyway. They teased him enough as it was.

He could still hear Quincy's voice from earlier that day, lilting with amusement: "Careful, Your Highness. The way you look at her? You'll set the curtains on fire." Milo had scoffed. Aldric, ever the stoic one, had simply muttered, "It's improper," before turning away. But later, when she'd leaned across his desk to show him a new design, Aldric's gaze had flicked toward her, just for a second too long. Milo had seen it. And hated it.

Now, she stood in front of his fireplace, sketching invisible diagrams in the air as she talked, her hair coming undone from the knot she'd tied it in hours ago. Her voice trailed off just long enough for him to speak, and he took the moment gently, as if it were something precious.

He raised a brow, voice dry with a familiar edge of sarcasm—but warmer beneath it, the way it always was with her. "And you're certain it won't explode like last time?"

She turned to him, eyes bright, mouth already halfway to a grin, and Milo felt his heart twist in his chest.

There was no space for this. Not in the world they lived in. Not between a prince and a servant girl who smelled like metal and smoke and possibility.

But still, he thought: Let this night last just a little longer.