My room was the last one at the end of the Western hall. It was the furthest possible room from the main family, and directly up a flight of service stairs from the servants' quarters. On most days, this placement only served to remind me that I wasn't welcome here. A sort of in-house exile. But today, it felt like a good place to be.

  I was looking out my window, past the garden, and towards the guest house. There sat the snow white lady, and she was having tea under a large umbrella in the yard. I was imagining how nice it would be to be sitting there next to her, and dreaming up all sorts of things that we might talk about. I wondered about her mysterious eyes, and about her paper white skin. I contemplated the parasol she carried with her everywhere. I found myself fantasizing about holding that parasol for her as we walked, and she could tell me all about what the snow was like.

  I was startled from this reverie from the feeling of my sister's face brushing past mine to look out the window.

  "You've been staring out there all morning."

  "She's... pretty."

  "Well... alright. But you're wasting time. You need to be making your next move, Sophia."

  "My next move?"

  "I hear that Adrian has been sneaking into our library without permission. This presents an opportunity, no? A shared secret builds bonds, you should go and meet him there before your dinner with him this evening."

  I rankled a bit at the thought. Bonding with Adrian didn't sound very interesting, and Erika's way of thinking felt oddly cold to me, but after a long pause I nodded. With a gentle tug, my sister motioned for me to go to the center of the room for her to dress me properly: heels, gloves, and all. I sighed, holding out my arms in front of the mirror as she hid herself behind me again. If my sister was telling me to do something, it was probably for my own good.

  We needed to get out of here. Adrian was one of many ways.

  ---

  My heels clacked uncomfortably loudly on my way to the library.

  ---

  The family library was quite familiar to me, being one of the few places that Hugo and Agnes never visited. Safety. Just being here made me feel a little less exposed. Maybe, if Adrian really was here to read, we would have something to talk about after all.

  The books here were of all sorts, but were primarily the journals, records, and personal libraries of past dukes and their wives. While Duke Printemps had his own personal library in his study, the less confidential works enjoyed by his father had been moved here after his passing. They weren't really interesting to me, but hiding in a library for several hours a day naturally led me to read at least a few of them. Duke Printemps' father must have really liked history.

  It seemed, however, that another collection of books had made its way here: that of the Duchess Printemps, my stepmother. She had left the duchy to return to her family's estate shortly after the decision was made to officially recognize me as a member of House Printemps. It seemed that, all these years later, the decision was finally being made to accept that she wasn't coming back.

  Once again, it was my fault.

  My birth had been a wedge in the family that threatened to pull it apart. The day I manifested my magic was a hammer to that wedge, officially factionalizing the entire estate and its vassals.

  "Seventh son of the seventh son," I whispered to myself quietly.

  I am what is formally called a "Seventh". While any child to someone with magic has the opportunity to develop magic, the seventh child in particular has the highest likelihood of doing so. As such, my father participated in the rather popular practice of having branch families: every odd child would be born to Duchess Printemps, while every even child would be born to some mistress, maid, farmgirl... or whoever else took the Duke's fancy. That he had done so was a given, and it was the exact same practice that had led to his own birth. My birth, however, had never been intended.

  My sister and I had been born together, her just a few minutes before me. There was a great debate among the family scholars about whether or not that my birth fulfilled the requirements, or if the birth of twins meant that one or the other didn't "count" towards the fabled number. As it turns out, it did. When I manifested my magic, I became a Lady of Printemps, and Erika became my servant.

  "And servants aren't allowed to read."

  I swallowed the sudden lump of guilt, and focused on looking at the new additions. One in particular, "Why did the Lady give the Knight a Piece of Bread?" caught my eye. The spine of the book had a rather lurid image embossed on it, and it seemed out of place amongst the more sober looking books in the library. I slid a ladder over, and cautiously stepped my way up to the top to be able to reach the book, carefully balancing my toes so as to not slip off in my heels.

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  The cover of the book was even more exciting. A beautiful woman was carefully placing a piece of bread into the mouth of a man who was dressed in a rather un-knightly fashion, her slender and soft fingers caressing his cheek while her thumb pressed in a fluffy white bite. Looking around me to make sure no one was looking, and fully prepared to quickly put the book back in its place should anyone walk in, I slowly opened the cover and began reading it with zeal.

  Oh wow. Flushed hot with embarrassment, I devoured page after page, all pretense of being here to wait for Adrian forgotten. Was this the sort of thing Duchesses read? Books about pretty girls falling in love?

  Suddenly, a noise shocked me out of my immersion, and Adrian was standing just below me. The door hadn't opened, which meant he had been in here the whole time! How long had he been there, watching me read this... this...

  "Why hadn't I felt his magic?"

  My foot slipped as I turned, too quickly, to shove the book back in its place. My gloved hand on the ladder failed me, and I fell down towards him. My eyes caught his, and I let out a quick yelp. The pit in my stomach told me that I had lost all control, and that I would hit the floor rather hard.

  Adrian didn't move forward. His cold, icy-blue stare held the entire time, watching me fall.

  I closed my eyes.

  --

  Erika has to be the prettiest girl in the village. Mom tells me that I'm pretty too, 'cause I look just like Erika. But she's wrong. Nobody would ever think that I'm Erika. Erika's hair is long, and clean. My hair is short, because it gets in the way and it's always getting caught on something. Mom decided to cut it because she was tired of having so much to clean. Erika knows how to read, too, just like Mom taught. I like the way her eyes move when I watch her read.

  But that's okay. I'm the fastest runner in the village, and the best climber. Today, I'm going to climb Big Tom.

  Big Tom is an oak tree on the edge of the village, near Daddy's house. Mom said that's where she and Daddy first met, but she won't tell me more. Big Tom is the best because his branches are all squiggly and there's lots of holes to find bugs in.

  When Erika and I get to Big Tom, she's reading a book. She's always reading a book. One day, she's going to go to school. A nurse, or a doctor, or a teacher. Maybe even a librarian, so she can read even more books all the time. I think she'd make a great teacher, since she's always teaching me how to read. I'm not very good at learning, though. But that's okay, because she's not very good at climbing.

  I love her the most of anyone. Except maybe Mom. I love her even though she won't climb with me. I start looking for a way up, and I find one. One branch. Two branches. Three branches. Soon I'm up higher than Mom is tall. Erika looks up at me, worried.

  "Sophie! You're gonna fall!"

  "Am not."

  "Get down here!"

  "Make me."

  Erika's face is squished up all funny now. Already starting to cry. And she's wringing her dress like a washcloth.

  "Sophie, please come down!"

  I'm about halfway to the top and I hear a small cry. I look up, and see a kitty cat way up high, almost at the top of Old Tom. "Oh no! Is it stuck?" I think.

  "Hey kitty! Do you need help?"

  The kitty just cries back. I bet it's just scared, like Erika. Erika is starting to chirp chirp chirp down below, but I'm going up and up and up.

  Erika is twisting her hands now in fear. She looks like a bug from up here, and I raise my fingers to pinch at her like I can put her in my pocket. It doesn't work, but I laugh anyways, calling out to her, "Erika's a bug now! Teeny tiny itty bitty!"

  I can't really make out her reply, so I reach out for the cat. Ow! It bit me! Stupid cat, I'm only trying to help. I try to find a good spot to wriggle my way over, when one of Old Tom's branches breaks. The cat is getting smaller, and Erika is getting bigger.

  I'm glad kitty didn't fall with me.

  But now I'm coming down, even though I don't want to. I'm screaming. Erika is screaming. I'm about to hit the ground, and I'm only seven. It's my birthday today and this is going to hurt a lot. You're not supposed to hurt on your birthday. I close my eyes.

  --

  Pain. Pain in every part of me. In parts I didn't even have.

  "Where am I?"

  I was in the library, looking up at the ceiling. My hands felt numb, so I tried to raise them up to look at them, but they press against something hard. They're not moving the right way, I think. But then I realized, ah, my hands are pressing against the floor, pinned under me, and my head's the wrong way.

  With a sudden feeling of vertigo so strong that it forced me to close my eyes, I tried to gasp in surprise, but hot lightning coursed through my neck when I did so. I rolled over and carefully navigated my hands to the sides of my head. I dimly noticed that my magic was leaking out all over the place, and the room was inundated with the sweltering haze of it. With a crack, I snapped my head back the right direction, and slowly the agony began to fade. I took a deep breath in, and heard several smaller clicks and snaps in my neck as a number of small bones popped back into place. I breathed out the spent magic, and the haze palpably thickened. I breathed in, and my suffering faded a little more, and then I held it, bidding my magic to hold as well, before I slowly exhaled out regular breath. After a few moments, my powers were suppressed again, and I opened my eyes.

  The light filtering in through the window was gone. It was nighttime, and I'd missed a very important dinner. I decided to let out a new word that I'd learned only a few hours before from that rather interesting book:

  "Shit."