A dressmaker came on the second day. She introduced herself as Celeste.

  Agnes must have arranged it. The white haired woman arrived with two assistants and fabric samples floating before them. She immediately seemed competent and efficient from posture alone, wearing a professional smile with trained ease.

  Well informed, she came prepared with outfits designed for a court mage with long loose sleeves and structured silhouettes. In professional colors like navy blue, charcoal grey, and emerald green. Appropriate for a mage of any age making their formal introduction to society in capital.

  I took one look and said:

  “I want it in pink.”

  Celeste proved she was no rookie.

  "For a court presentation," she began carefully, "these shades convey—"

  "Pink," I said again.

  She looked to Agnes. Agnes kept staring outside the window lost to the world.

  "You are a known mage," she again, in a kind but condescending tone, which I suppose she was. "There are expectations in the wider world. The silhouette, the color—these are tools to communicate with the world in a language they understand.”

  "What would pink communicate?"

  She didn’t become thoughtful. "That you are a four year old girl.”

  “Indeed.” I said in a mock adult tone.

  "Additionally," she pressed on, gathering herself, “if the robes are same as your hair color. The pink on pink is—" she searched for the word “—would be a great deal of pink."

  This was her strongest argument and she seemed to know it.

  I looked at my hair. I considered the point seriously because she was not wrong, pink on pink was in fact a great deal of pink.

  "Can you do the robes in pink," I said, "but in the mage silhouette? Long sleeves, long hem, golden embroidery on the border. Like those—" I pointed at the navy blue set "—but pale luminous pink."

  The dressmaker went quiet, actually thoughtful now.

  She picked up a bolt of pale silk the color of early morning light and held it near my hair. She tilted her head.

  ""I can work with that.”

  Finn, who had been sitting in the corner eating an apple he had acquired from somewhere, pointed at the dressmaker. "She nearly had you."

  "She made a good point," I said.

  On the third day papa took us out.

  The noble quarter had its own market—wider streets, shopfronts with a painted signs and window displays arranged precisely with care.

  I smelled something savory and rich drifting from a shop that sold prepared food in glazed earthenware pots. The stone underfoot was the same pale limestone as everywhere else in the quarter, swept clean, and overhead the buildings on either side had been built close enough that they almost touched at the roofline, making the whole street feel like a covered gallery. Lanterns hung at intervals even in daylight. Everything was lit to look its best.

  Finn got new boots almost immediately and wore them out of the shop. Brown leather boots that didn’t make a peep to announce him as he monkeyed around.

  We stopped to eat at The Pale Terrace, a restaurant Agnes had recommended.

  It had small tables under a terrace open on three sides, the fourth wall was covered in climbing greenery someone was keeping in clean yet natural shape.

  The food arrived in courses.

  First, a consommé so clear you could see the bottom of the bowl through it, a deep amber that smelled of roasted bone and bay leaf and vaguely herbal. Floating in it were three thin coins of what I eventually identified as parsnip, caramelized until they were almost translucent. I drank it slowly savouring every sip.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  This was followed by a duck breast, sliced thin and fanned across a dark cherry sauce—tart, sweet and just the tiniest bit bitter to keep it from being cloying. The meat itself was pink at the centre and tender to cut into.

  Finished with a buttery short crust pastry tart that shattered cleanly—it was filled with a soft cheese that was both mild yet slightly grassy. Fresh herbs on top, bringing in the sharpness.

  Before I knew it I was staring at an empty plate.

  Finn had eaten with outright aggression. Thus finished much earlier leaving him to stare at everyone else as they took the time to savour it.

  Rowan was eating carefully making sure to use only the right cutlery for each bite.

  Papa somewhere between all that ate happily.

  On the walk back we passed an intersection where two knights were escorting someone away.

  Not roughly or anything gauche like that. In fact, there was no visible force involved. The person went with them entirely of his will it seems. Not resisting or protesting it. No one except us even paused to look.

  "What was that?" Rowan asked papa quietly.

  "I don't know," papa said.

  We would learn much more about the capital in time.

  Kieran found me on the fourth day.

  Or rather I followed the sound of him to the far end of the palace gardens, where there was a space clearly used for training. He was working through forms with a practice sword, alone, he must come here to get away. I sat on the low wall nearby and watched.

  He noticed me after a moment and lowered the sword. Neither of us spoke immediately. The last time we had been in the same place it was underground in the dark waiting to find out if the ceiling would hold.

  "You look better," he said.

  "Then when I was unconscious bleeding from my ears? Yes, somewhat," I agreed. "The bar was low."

  He considered this. "I heard you've been training with your brothers."

  News traveled quickly in palaces. "Finn is six years old and I cannot hit him," I said. "It's humiliating."

  "He's fast?"

  "He disappears. I don't know where he goes. He's just suddenly behind me."

  The corner of Kieran's mouth moved. "I can show you a counter for that."

  "I'd appreciate it."

  He stood and picked the practice sword back up, then held out a second one he retrieved from the rack nearby. It was lighter than I expected when I took it, balanced for someone still learning the weight of it.

  "Your brother moves unpredictably," he said, taking his position on the grass a few feet away. "Show me what you do when you lose him."

  "I stop and look around like an idiot," I said.

  "Before that."

  I thought about it. "I track where he was. Try to project where he's going."

  "That's the mistake." He moved to stand beside me rather than opposite, looking out at the same empty space.

  "You're treating it like a problem of location. Where is he. But fast fighters aren't in locations—they're in motion. You track the motion, not the position, and you stop trying to find him and start making him come to you."

  "How?”

  “Go still. Completely. You’re the target now.”

  I looked at him sideways.

  "It feels wrong," I said.

  “But a moving target that can't find you is in control of nothing. A still target that knows exactly where you aren't—that's different. He'll come to you eventually. They always do."

  He stepped back to his original position and raised his sword. "Try it. I'll move. Don't chase me."

  I went for it.

  He was slower than Finn, obviously, but the principle held. The first two times I broke and tracked him and immediately lost the thread of where he was. The third time I held still, sword up, and waited. He circled. I let him. When he came in from my left I caught it—barely but a catch is a catch.

  "There," he said.

  "Finn is faster than you."

  "Yes," he said, not offended.

  "But he's six. He'll do it on instinct, not strategy. Once he knows you're not chasing him the instinct will be to come and find out why."

  He lowered the sword. "That's when you have him."

  I turned over this advice. It applied to many many other sort of battles.

  We returned to the wall.

  "Are you ready for tomorrow?" he asked.

  I thought about papa receiving a barony because he threw himself in front of a child he had never met. About mumma at the farm gate knowing we were coming home before we had even arrived.

  "Yes," I said.

  He nodded. A comfortable silence settled between us.

  "The house they're giving your family," he said, after a moment. "It's a good one."

  His tone made me scrutinize the otherwise innocuous statement. His face looked even and uninformative, the mask was on.

  “How is that?“ I asked.

  “Is close to the palace. Good position."

  There was more and he would say if I waited long enough.

  A beat and then, “the previous family left willingly."

  Which is codeword for they did not if you’re keeping up.

  "Did they," I asked anyway.

  Something moved behind his eyes—maybe recognition of our shared situation. The acknowledgment of a person who has just confirmed something they suspected about you.

  He nodded.

  I turned back to the garden. The palace behind us loomed quitely. Every road in this city pointed to it like an accusation—the thought came to me before and it hit me once again.

  The silence that followed was maybe not as comfortable but still peaceful.

  Neither of us said anything else about it.