After months of having our caravans ambushed in surprise raids that should not have happened, Father has finally concluded that Lewot Snairlin is aware that we are spying on his desk. Lewot has been feeding us false information so that we will react to it, and we walk into traps over and over again. So, he has given me back my ring.

  He believes it is of no more use to him. I had immediately reset the viewpoint for it to our own front door, so I could see who is ringing at the bell without having to lean out the window to look.

  And now today I'm holding the ring up to my eye so I can judge our dramatic entrance. It's our twelfth birthday, Nathan and I. He's dressed in sharp red and gold, I'm in dramatic white and gold. We split the house colors this way, and gives us both more room to play with the emblems and patterning. Nathan's outfit has the waistcoat, breeches and shoes specially custom-ordered, but his coat, cummerbund, cravat and undershirt are all pulled down from the attic. Our family has over a century of formal wear carefully stored away, organized so that nobody uses a piece that has been worn in the past ten years. Wouldn't do to be seen repeating outfits, after all.

  I swear, the trappings of nobility and wealth are ridiculous. When I rule the world, it will be acceptable to wear the same five t-shirts every week, and jeans don't need to be washed until you've worn them three times.

  This is why nobody's going to let me rule the world, of course.

  My outfit was, in a manner of speaking, entirely custom-made. My ladies and maids had waited while I got my slip and smallclothes on, then they had ratcheted me into a corset and I only fought them a little bit. Then, with their attention to detail and advice, I crafted my gown. Silk fibers woven in different manners can produce satin, velvet, or sheer fabrics. Percale cotton, suede leather, and a voile shrug were nice touches. I used gabardina across the bodice; I like the look of it shot through with gold thread but it's just too stiff for any other part of the dress.

  My ladies had all sorts of advice, adjusting the pile here, the weave there. Houndstooth or fishscale? How about a contrast fabric? Can this part be sheer? This doesn't look right without stitching.

  None of my fabrics are stitched at all, the threads are knotted together individually. It's impossible for human hands or machines to do, but I've got magic and I use it. I'm still no good at embroidery, but it lets me produce looks that few others can wear.

  Now, I wanted to make my whole outfit out of sorcery, but my various attendants had insisted that if anything went wrong with my spells, I'd be left naked in public. I fought them hard enough that I got away with just the shift, a single underskirt, and corset.

  I'm not the first to mix magic and millinery, or the best at it. Neither, by a long shot. But employing magical effects to fashion for a child's birthday party was a little much, unless you're the child whose birthday it is. So this was a more casual affair, and I was allowed to be fancy.

  My brother on the other hand had a scrivener's medallion pinned to his coat, so that every few minutes he appeared to catch fire for a few seconds. It was a neat trick that had been made for an uncle of ours for a masquerade that none of these people would have attended. He got to use the fire effect because he's in red. I'm in white because I have a hard time learning any of the materials for red dyes, unless I want to showcase the "rust" look. And our house colors are more of a deep scarlet than a ruddy orange.

  "You made a face," Nathan pointed out.

  "Did not."

  "Did Yheta just arrive?" Nathan asked.

  I took the ring down from my eye, and sighed. "Yes. I guess I did make a face."

  "There's a particular face you only make when you think about Yheta," my brother told me. "I call it your Yheta face. There's a voice that goes with it."

  "Really."

  "It sounds kind of tired."

  I put the ring back on my finger. "I do find him wearisome. And some days, repugnant. At times I'm frightened... not of him, but certainly around him. He's a boor and a brat, but he's also twined into far more deadly trouble than he represents by himself."

  "Today will be the last time we have to host him," Nathan promised me. "After this, he's at the capitol for school. And by the time he's out, we're in. And by the time we leave Academy, we're adults and don't have to invite anyone we damn well don't want to."

  It was a fond hope. But the children of a duke have duties, and rarely make decisions based on personal preference. On the other hand, I sleep on silk sheets, eat the best food, and someone else does my laundry for me.

  I spruced up my outfit. My hair was held in silver pins and combs, with a silk ribbons woven through the plaits. I took control of the cotton, flax, silk, silver, gold, leather, and wool, and I forced out every microscopic wrinkle or blemish, sculpted it all to perfection. It monopolized almost all of my mana, but a gal at the gala gotta make an impression.

  The maid tapped at our door, and we followed her to the herald who had moved from the main door to the descending stair. Father and Mother joined us a minute later. Kisses, affirmations, final checks. And then: showtime.

  No specific theming this year, we did not want to be known for gimmick parties. Just a good old-fashioned social ball. We descended the stairs to a bellowed announcement of our names and titles. Mine ran a little longer this time, as I'd gotten a protectorate added to my holdings: Zhudten, the land that Cosher's village was built on. For once I descended the stairs more gracefully than Mother did: I was so enwrapped in spells and fabrics that I could literally float down without touching the steps.

  After the rescue from the cursed carriage, I've gotten stronger with my magic. My ability to make large objects move themselves, and small objects to levitate, has stepped up dramatically. A consequence of investing an Attribute point into Strength.

  Of course Yheta was the very last in my receiving line; he probably timed his arrival late just for this effect. I took my sweet gilded time working down that line, giving effusive and elaborate acknowledgement and appreciation for each generous and gentle representative to attend this festivity for us. I hoped he'd get bored and wander off. It didn't work.

  Nathan tried to save me: he finished his greetings and then took Geland and sent him to the back of my line, behind Yheta. This way, I'd have to move on and greet Geland. The flaw in that plan was that it relied on tact and traditional decorum on Yheta's part. He just refused to acknowledge Geland entirely. "Ah, Natalie!" he said, already weirdly sweaty. It's autumn! It gets cool early in this region! "You're certainly growing into a beautiful woman like your mother!"

  Oh right. That old saw about 'if you want to know what she'll look like in twenty years, look at her mother'. Cool, we're rehashing that thing. "That's very kind of you to say," I told Yheta, who had gotten a grip on both my hands. "Like every woman, I live for compliments about my appearance compared to my mother." As if he hadn't been obsessed with me since I was seven.

  "Of course, yes," he said, gazing deep into my eyes. One blue, one gold. His were a weirdly reflective gray. "I'm so sorry we've not seen each other in so long, I do look forward to telling you all about my recent adventure to Kosqo..."

  "Hello, Geland," I said to my right, turning my shoulder a little. Yheta still had my hands. "It's good to see you."

  "Yes, Geland is here, the whole gang is reassembled, hah hah!" the sweaty Snairlin said. "I'm quite parched, is the punch bowl this way?"

  And he shoved his arm through my elbow, clamped it with his opposite hand, and turned to drag me away through the crowd, to fall and get dragged if I did not go with him.

  Screw this.

  Long overdue, I tightened his cravat and the collar of his shirt. The trick is a deep, even pressure, I was not trying to choke his windpipe or the jugular veins, but the carotid artery. Deeper, requires more pressure, but if you get the pressure symmetrical you can restrict the blood flow to the brain. And the human brain, even Yheta's, does not like that at all.

  He dropped to the ground with a thud that sounded incredibly loud, even I jumped back with a startled squeak. Gasps and concern, his valet came running in from the attendants' waiting. Geland was there, crouching over him. I discovered to my surprise that my heart was beating fast, and I certainly looked freaked out enough that nobody was going to assume I'd Vader-choked the guy.

  Almost nobody.

  Nathan showed up at my side, melting out of the crowd. "Uncouth," he murmured to me, his voice only audible to me under the heated chatter and swift-moving gossip that flew through the air all around the dramatic events. I ignored my brother and stepped forward to Geland.

  "Is he all right? He mentioned that he needed something to drink, has he been poorly?"

  Geland, bless him, helpful and guileless, gave me a brief glance only. "He was sweating. Could have been a fever. I've loosened his collar, and he seems well enough now save a good-sized goose-egg on his forehead."

  Best birthday ever.

  His parents were seated at the far back of the room, his father still kept a cane at his side. Countess Snairlin and her sister came to direct the servants to bring her son out to the drawing room, where a healer might work on him. While he was gone, I moved quickly and got my dance card entirely filled out, twenty names. Some were kind of a stretch, but I did not want to give Sleeping Snooty a chance to wake up and scrawl his name in and then drag me around like a toddler.

  By the time he'd been roused, rejuvenated, given a drink and then his collar re-buttoned, I was in a comfortable three-step with a merchant prince's younger brother, discussing the effects of the weather on the price of sugar beets, and what that meant for the cane farmers of Ghert. Nathan had hooked me up; in addition to netting catches for my card he had then gone around to the orchestra and arranged for them to cycle their breaks, so that they would not need any intermission. Only a few minutes between each dance, to switch partners and find places. When my legs got tired, I used my spells to help me float along.

  As it would turn out, the sugar-beet situation was rather interesting. Because beet-sugar and cane-sugar carry different tones to the flavor, it would affect what sort of desserts were likely to be in fashion over the next year- more earthy treats like ginger and carrot cake, as opposed to more fruit-flavored items. And with less cane sugar to refine, the butchers and abattoirs would not have as much market to sell their bone char, which would put pressure on meat prices as well. I'm sure this is exactly the sort of thing that fills Father's day and his thoughts, but it was rather outside my wheelhouse and I was surprised by how engaging the issue really was.

  I caught up with him between two dances, and asked him about it. He acknowledged it all. I asked him if he had already started buying up cheap stock bones to grind for bonemeal, and he smiled at me proudly for having worked that out on my own. But, yes, he's been quietly buying up plenty of bone that did not have other buyers, and reserving time with the mill owners to grind it down to fertilizer. I had thought that maybe this time I was clever enough to give him a useful tip, but being a very clever twelve-year-old does not offset dozens of years of experience and a well-organized network of buyers, scouts and mercantile agents.

  The majority of my dance partners were tedious, and I weathered a lot of compliments on what a fine-looking young lady I was growing into, and how much I resembled my mother. When I was younger, Nathan and I were nearly identical, but as we've grown we've each come to resemble a parent all the more. Nathan has most of Father's features, favoring Mother somewhat, but I have almost all of my mother's appearance. I would not mind having his height, at least. Or his nose, I got Mother's snub tip.

  Some of the repetitions of shallow compliments were better-received than others. Most boys my own age said it with a fine air of respect- or even better, just sounded like they were repeating what they'd been told to say to a young lady. The grandfatherly types sounded cheery and wistful, clearly nostalgic for their own youth.

  As someone going through puberty again- reclaimed youth is a very mixed blessing.

  There were some older men that looked quite lecherous about my company and appearance, but they could usually be stopped cold with a little bit of assertiveness. It was the ones a few years older than me that skeeved me out. Maybe I'm just projecting from Yheta's behavior, but those seemed to be the ones that felt the most entitled to my attention and more demanding that I express some affection, compliment or respect for them. I think that age gap was enough to make them consider us peers, but not as equal peers. Close enough to relax decorum and civility, but not close enough to actually treat me as a person with agency and boundaries. One of them called me "feisty" when I told him to back off a bit.

  Obviously, I stayed away from the older guys that were visibly sketchy. There's not many ways for a twelve-year-old girl to interact with men in a setting like this. A lot of the conventions and traditions treat me as an adult, but only a provisional adult. A lack of clear-cut boundaries and identity markers just gives the worst people an opportunity to be their worst selves.

  Still, some of the other conversations were fun. Not everyone discussed agriculture and shipping with me. There was one lad, just a year older than me, who had heard rumors about my innovations in natural philosophy, or "science" as I kept calling it. He had been eager to speak with me in person for a while, but did not want to correspond by letter until we had at least met. He had some really interesting ideas about using electricity to ignite dangerous gas pockets in mines. Not feasible or usable ideas but interesting. And it was cool to have someone interested in my work and not just as a novel affectation.

  And one older fellow who turned out to have been a top composer in the kingdom some thirty years ago! He had sought me out because he heard about my interest. He chatted about the old work for the duration of a ten-minute waltz, and I learned more about composing from him than I did from actually composing on my own. I took his information to write to him, because I don't think I'm done with music.

  Every so often I'd get a glimpse of Yheta out of the corner of my eye, always watching me. Sometimes he was in the crowd, and periodically he got a partner and went out on the dance floor. I think that the women kept abandoning him because nobody wants to dance with a young man who's staring holes through a twelve-year-old girl. And every so often I'd see Nathan out on the dance floor, each time charming a different partner. There was no Filita tonight, so Nathan was not busy chatting with his oldest dearest friend.

  The night slowed, staggered, and ground to a halt eventually. I joined the line at the door as we wished people a safe trip and a good night. Yheta barely paused to bow to me before he left. Finally, the doors shut, and the household peace was restored. I started taking out combs and pins from my hair, and shifted my clothing down to something simpler and more comfortable. Absolutely everyone scowled at me. Envy on every face.

  And two hours later the house was in flames.