Joel huffs out a soft laugh in response and sinks down beside his brother, draping his arms over his bent knees as he looks out on the gardens. Besides the beach, which will always be the one place Joel feels most at home, the gardens are his favourite part of the palace. The gardens or the library, both perfect in their own ways. It's always quiet out here, though, the expansive area covered in green and bursts of colours, pathways leading to private little nooks with benches and gurgling fountains, vines crawling over nearly every available stone surface. Their mother had put in night blooming flowers as well and Joel loves few things as much as the stone bench near the end of the garden where the jasmine blooms and he can smell that and the salt from the ocean all at once.

"It's been a busy few days, hasn't it?" he asks in return, reaching up to push some hair off his forehead. They both have pressures facing them, he knows that. If the ball comes and goes, and Joel still refuses to pick a bride, he isn't entirely sure what might happen, but he suspects all the expectation put on him at the moment might be shifted to Caden. As much as he wants to avoid having to pick a bride, as much as he wants to avoid being any kind of leader, the thought of pushing it all onto his brother isn't something that sits well with him either, just one more thing that Joel constantly feels weighing on his conscience.

"Spencer's with mother right now, she's trying to find him something to wear to the ball," he says, his voice dry. Whenever he thinks about Spencer at the ball, his heart begins to race, his mouth goes dry and he finds himself slipping into fantasies where it's just the two of them and no one else. It's all so impossible that the more he thinks about it, the more frustrated he becomes with himself.