A bright light. The sound of women's voices. The smell of flowers warmed by the sun.

  "Ah, I guess that means I'm still alive, then."

  Despite my desperate wishes otherwise, I awoke to another day in the Printemps manor, and sat up in my bed.

  The maids stopped their chatter, and one of them brought over that morning's tea to pour it for me. I watched her hands as they set about their work, unable to turn my gaze up to look her in the eye.

  "My lady, I hope you enjoy this blend this morning. I picked it out for you myself."

  There was pride in the words. It was customary, expected even, for the ladies of noble houses to be interested in the particulars of various warm, brown liquids. However, my total disinterest in the subject matter had led me to leave it to her to decide.

  "I'm sure it will be quite nice, Erika," I managed to say, but truthfully, I had no such belief. My father did not permit me access to sugar, as such luxuries were considered wasted on me.

  While knowledge of tea was valuable for a daughter to have, enjoying tea was not.

  To my surprise, it was sweet, rich, and full of flavor. "Is this even tea?" I gazed up to look into her eyes.

  Blue. The same as mine.

  "One of your father's merchants brought a new curiosity from the south called 'sugar leaf', and I mixed some into the tea leaves before brewing. It's not technically sugar, no?"

  My pleasure must have been present on my face, because the satisfaction in her voice was palpable. I nodded my assent, too engrossed in sipping the beverage to speak.

  "Shall I help you dress, Lady Sophia?"

  I sighed with resignation, and I did not resist the gentle pulling motions that brought me to my feet. I held out my arms and adopted a mannequin-like disposition in the center of the room. A flurry of hands changed cloth, tightened strings, and straightened lace.

  I didn't know how anyone could stand being dressed by another person, even after ten years of it.

  Erika quietly whispered small encouragements to me, such as how the blue would bring out my eyes or how the flowery adornments would add some color to my black hair, but instead of listening I once again found my gaze drifting to her hands.

  They were worn down from years of labor, but no less delicate for it. Erika was precise, graceful, and beautiful, even in these rote tasks.

  My own hands had once been scarred and toughened from climbing trees. My knees had once been darkened and bruised from crawling into the abandoned dens and shaded holes where interesting bugs could be found.

  Father's surgeons had done much to correct this, but I was still a fraud. Erika had always been the real lady between the two of us, and she had had such beautiful dreams.

  I had taken those dreams from her simply by being born. The day I had developed magic, Father had taken me in as a member of the main house.

  From that day forward, Erika was no longer my twin sister, but my servant.

  Erika finally finished fussing with the last of the flowers in my hair and swept her hand up my back to break me out of my thoughts.

  "There we are, my lady. You'd best get down to breakfast soon; it's not often that you're invited, so you shouldn't make your father wait."

  "Thank you, Erika. You are dismissed."

  With that, Erika faded into the background along with the other maids, standing to the side of the room. Despite now being on free time, she and the other maids waited for me to exit the room first.

  This was what respect meant to the Printemps family: I was meant to ignore the servants of the manor as if they did not exist, and to think of the room as vacant the moment I dismissed them. When I made my exit into the hall, I noticed several of the staff members scurrying away into side passages and rooms to present an empty, lifeless corridor to me for my morning walk.

  Respect and loneliness came hand in hand, here. I wondered how the rest of my family could bear it.

  I made my way down to breakfast, quietly bracing myself with deep breaths. I was to my father as the servants were to me; someone who should not be seen. I was here by an accident of my birth, and everyone knew it.

  ---

  The moment I sat down at my place in the grand, green, and golden dining hall, I became invisible. My father discussed politics with my older brothers and sister over steak and eggs, while I ate the slice of toasted bread and quarters of fruit that had been offered to me.

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  "It's all I deserve, anyways," I thought, idly pushing around a slice of chilled grapefruit.

  To the right of me sat Agnes, my older sister. Her knife was held elegantly, making smooth cuts.

  "She'll probably be getting married this year. Maybe then I won't have to see her anymore."

  Across from me sat Hugo, the youngest other than me. He kept stabbing his steak with force, eating hard boiled eggs with his other hand, as he pretended to listen to Father and William's discussion.

  Next to Hugo, in the seat of honor, was William. His food was untouched, as he had spent most of his time speaking to Father rather than eating.

  At the head of the table was Father.

  He and the rest of his children had bright red hair, and spring green eyes.

  There was no amount of error that Father would tolerate at this table, and so I avoided looking in his direction, and did my best to hide behind Agnes.

  "Sophia, answer the question."

  "Wh- What?"

  I didn't remember being asked a question. The stare coming from my father's eyes felt like it was going to freeze me solid. How could such a warm, green color be so cold?

  "Ah, is the magician too important to listen to father speak?" came Hugo's jeering voice.

  My father raised his hand to silence him, but I was the one who flinched. He waited there, his hand held up, for an agonizingly long moment.

  When it became clear that, despite my struggle, I would not be able to recall what had been asked of me, he relented, lowering his hand to grip his knife and rub his thumb along the handle.

  "I asked if you had made your preparations for the Hiems family's visit tomorrow."

  "Ah, that's right. This must be why I was called to breakfast."

  The Hiems family heir was now of age, and it was customary among the noble houses to introduce their children to one another once they became adults in order to foster new relationships among them. I had neither the hope, nor the desire, to be courted, and so I had let the customary gifts that the ladies of the house were supposed to be preparing slip beneath my notice.

  "I will assume from your silence that you have not. Go to your room and do not leave it, not even to eat, until you have something made."

  Agnes called after me as I stood and turned to make my exit.

  "I hope it's magical. After all, isn't your magic the only reason why you're even allowed to be here?"

  My ears burned but I didn't say anything in return. She wasn't wrong, but my magic wasn't the sort of thing that could be a gift for anyone.

  ---

  When I returned to my room, I found Erika sitting in the corner practicing her needlework. Seeing nobody else, I jumped onto the bed, letting it catch me with satisfying kerflumph. Immediately, she cried out in protest.

  "Sophia, no! You'll wrinkle your dress!"

  "Where's the fun in never letting it wrinkle a bit?"

  "I worked hard on it! It's killing me to see you mess it all up like that."

  She stood up, pulling on my legs with a smile.

  "And what will everyone else think? I'll tell you what: they'll think you're a lady who can't keep herself clean and that I'm a maid that can't dress you properly."

  "Let them think that I'm unladylike if they want, it's not your fault."

  "You are a Printemps, Sophie. It's always your servants' fault."

  The distance those words made me feel left me speechless.

  Her face softened as she saw my reaction, and she backed up a few steps. I barely managed to choke out a meek response.

  "I didn't ask to be."

  I buried my face into my pillow to hide my watery eyes. I heard my sister's quiet steps make their way over, and felt the weight of my sister on the bed next to me.

  When her fingers began to comb through my hair, I couldn't hold back my tears any longer.

  "Shh, hey. It's going to be alright. It'll get better once you marry and get out of this house."

  "It should have been you."

  "But it isn't me."

  "I don't even want to get married."

  "But it's our only way to get away from your Father. You should at least make the effort to make sure you don't end up with someone you hate."

  "I can't even prepare a gift properly; who's going to want me?"

  I heard my bedside table drawer open, and I turned my face from the pillow to see my sister pulling out something wrapped up in a light brown paper.

  "I know you can't, but I can. You're not in this alone, okay?"

  She offered the paper to me and I took it from her, my hand shaking.

  "Look. I don't think it's too shabby, no?"

  I opened up the wrapping to find a short, jet black shoulder cape. It looked warm, and the length felt like it was just about right for being active in without it getting in the way. As I ran my thumb over it, I realized that my sister had painstakingly stitched in an intricate, delicate pattern in black on the black so that you only saw it when the light gleamed off of the thread.

  It was stylish and subtle, and best of all practical, and clearly the effort of many nights.

  I wanted to keep it for myself.

  "I think, when giving a gift to a man, you should give him something both good looking and useful. The Hiems duchy is far north of us, in the mountains. It gets cold up there, and it snows often. If he likes it, he'll wear it. And when he wears it, he'll think of you when it keeps him warm."

  She smiled. "And, if nothing else, nobody can say that we didn't put the effort in."

  I didn't know what to say, so I didn't say anything. Not only had Erika predicted that I would forget to make a gift to prepare, she had spent all this time covering for my mistake. I held the cape close to me, and noticed that it smelled as comfortable as it looked. Like her, and mom.

  "Hey, you're gonna get it dirty if you cry all over it!"

  The cape was taken away from me and placed back in its paper wrapping.

  "So there. Just say that you made it, and everything will be fine. Now, let's get you warmed up and smiling again before your eyes get all puffy. Tea?"

  I nodded, and smiled. I was now asking for tea for the first time in years.

  "I don't deserve you."

  "But even still, you have me," she replied, laughing.