The Ring and the Crown by Melissa de la Cruz

His passing leaves daughter, Aelwynn Myrddyn, as the most powerful magician and new Morgaine of the Realm. Bound by blood magic, the Queen’s mage, Merlin, gives up his own mortal form. On the night of Wolf and Marie’s wedding, her mother, Queen Eleanor, dies suddenly and ends a centuries long reign. After a wild season of ballroom dances, magic, high treason, and wars abroad, Marie-Victoria Grace Eleanor Aquitane, Princess Dauphine of the Franco-British Empire, joins in matrimony with the Kronprinz of the Prussian Empire, Wolfgang Friedrich Joachim von Hohenzollern. When Marie comes to Aelwyn, desperate to escape a life without love, the girls form a perilous plan that endangers not only the entire kingdom but the fate of the monarchy.The glamour and enchantment continues in the sequel to bestselling author Melissa de la Cruz’s The Ring and the Crown. But Marie doesn't even want Leopold-she has lost her heart to a boy the future queen would never be allowed to marry. Isabelle arrives in the city bent on reclaiming what is hers. Meanwhile, Isabelle of Orleans, daughter of the displaced French royal family, finds herself cast aside by Leopold, heir to the Prussian crown, in favor of a political marriage to Marie-Victoria. But when she falls for a handsome rogue on the voyage over, her lofty plans are imperiled by her desires. Ronan is determined to make a good match to save her family's position. But the talk of the season is Ronan Astor, a social-climbing American with only her dazzling beauty to recommend her.

As the annual London Season begins, the great and noble families across the globe flaunt their wealth and magic at parties, teas, and, of course, the lavish Bal du Drap d'Or, the Ball of the Gold Cloth. While the enchanters faithfully serve the crown, the sun will never set on the Franco-British Empire. With the help of her Merlin, Eleanor has maintained a stranglehold on the world's only source of magic. Quiet and gentle, Marie has never lived up to the ambitions of her mother, Queen Eleanor the Second.

Now Princess Marie-Victoria, heir to the mightiest empire in the world, and Aelwyn Myrddyn, a bastard mage, face vastly different futures. Once they were inseparable, just two little girls playing games in a mighty castle.

The Ring and the Crown by Melissa de la Cruz