At dawn, we wake up, wake each other up if needed. We get changed for swimming. Neither of us has a mirror that faces onto the other's side of the room, that's our concession to privacy and modesty: we face away when we change and that's it. We have never asked for separate rooms and Their Graces seem to understand.

  We skip down the stairs at a probably-unsafe pace, and grab towels from the hamper before we head out. The water is like ice, the sun has barely touched it and has had no chance to warm it up. We scream like barbarians as we dive in headfirst. I swim smoothly, evenly, training for endurance. Nathan is already working to build strength as well, so he pushes a much harder pace. We're both wearing a short-sleeved woolen top and knee-length woolen trousers with a drawstring; this world is not yet ready for bikinis.

  After we have exhausted ourselves and shivered to death and back, we haul out of the water, and run inside to have breakfast with our parents. Mother and Father are early risers also, but they have better things to do in the morning than chop water with the two of us. I understand. Nathan will get it someday. Breakfast conversation is always lively, bringing news of the day, plans and hopes, scheduling and updates, and a fair trade of wit and quips. It's a whole cycle we've got there: I dunk on Father, Nathan dunks on me, Mother dunks on Father, and Father pleads for mercy.

  We hug and head out. Nathan and I get our showers, the water tanks for the ducal apartments share a wall with the kitchen chimney, so we have hot water year-round. Fire warms the brick and through that the water. Magic pumps the water up into the tanks. I don't know why they don't use magic to warm the water itself. Anyway, after hot showers Nathan and I head for our classrooms to convene with our tutors. He's got normal classes for someone a year older than him, I'm basically getting a postgrad education mixed with magic.

  Lunch is another family affair, and after that we go back to our classes until afternoon starts to look like evening. Nathan and I grab a snack, and I grab some of my books and he grabs some of his swords and we spend the next couple of hours in the courtyard. I sit on a deck chair and study, Nathan practices with blade and bow, dagger and grappling. He has different instructors for each of those, and he cycles through them smoothly. They rarely spar, it's all instructional at this point: he's talented and dedicated, but he is only eight years old and no amount of talent or wit can offset a hundred pounds of muscle and a foot of reach.

  Some of my reading here is my magical tomes, stretching and training my brain for the day I can cast magic. But some of it is natural philosophy: science, as we would call it. My parents, at my urging, have begun assembling a library of the most advanced and rigorously-difficult science texts in the kingdom, gathering works that were barely circulated because nobody could understand them. All told, it's about equivalent to a ninth-grade education in science for a twenty-first century public school. I have found one, count them one, book in that whole library that includes a partial version of the periodic table.

  After that I dump a bucket of water over him, he changes out of his training gear and we go sit down to supper with Mother and Father, which is usually a grander affair than breakfast and midday. Two or three courses, and if there are guests or visitors to the palace they will eat with us at dinner. Sometimes this is a more formal arrangement where we dress up and mind our etiquettes, but sometimes it's "fuck it, you're basically family anyway" and they get included in the fun and teasing. A surprising number of our guests try to defend Father from our trash-talk; I think it's those big sad puppy-dog eyes that he can make. He's a six-foot pillar of muscle and callus, but he can draw sympathy from nearly anyone with those big yellow eyes.

  After dinnertime it's usually all right for my brother and I to behave like kids again. Romping, playing, roughhousing, mischief and laughter. Good times. I'm glad we get some years like this, it's going to be important. We do lots of let's-pretend, but our games are always cooperative. Neither of us likes to pit ourselves against the other, even in the smallest matters.

  We find lots of good trouble to get into. Sometimes I am the ringleader, and he helps me with whatever prank I've thought of. Ambushing one of the guards with a blanket as a net, smuggling a goat into the shower stall of our parent's bathroom. Sometimes he's the ringleader, and I contribute to whatever childish crimes he's decided on. Mostly sneaking sweets out of the kitchen, he's got a fondness for gumdrops. And obviously, stolen candy is sweeter than given candy.

  If we do not find our way back to our rooms before we drop of exhaustion, we can usually count on one of the house staff to find us and move us to our bedrooms. Except that one time that some jokester moved me to my classroom and entombed me inside of a cairn of a hundred books. I was impressed by that.

  I think it was Father who did that, but nobody has ever confessed to it.

  On Sevenday we interrupt this schedule somewhat, we dress up and take a carriage to the town's cathedral to take church services in public. No communion or confession, which feels weird to me. Plenty of stained glass murals, but no crucifixion. The religion of this place has its own sentiments and stories, but this is not the time to sketch out the rudiments of an entire faith. But, there are churches and preachers, and pews and books, and the local lords are expected to be active in the religion, but only up to a point. Observing the teachings, but not trying to lead or intervene.

  The tone was very Catholic in a lot of ways, with a lot of art and pageantry, but I had been an atheist my whole time on Earth so I was really just taking my best guesses there, mostly what I knew from TV and movies.

  The other big disruption was parties and social events, usually every two to four weeks we'd lose a few days traveling to and from someone's estate or manor, we mostly kept ourselves to events that were a couple day's carriage-ride from home. The first couple times my parents were upset that we would be losing time from our schooling, but then I ordered a desktop from a carpenter, and some lap pillows from a small local shop, and stapled them together for a nice lap-top bench desk.

  On a smooth road with good spring suspension, the ride was even enough that we could write in formal calligraphy while we traveled. And as soon as they saw that, Mother and Father began traveling with us again. If they could keep up ledgers and correspondence without having to rely on their own writing-desk, they were suddenly far more free to accompany us out and about. With my brother and I, both our governesses, both of our tutors, and Their Graces, plus the guards and retinue.... well, our travel arrangements started to get out of hand. We were more of a caravan than a carriage.

  I was halfway through inventing a hitch so that multiple carriages could be joined together like cars on a train, when Father ordered a set from a local blacksmith and had them installed. I was annoyed that a simple solution already existed, but I dealt with it. I'd had rather little success as an inventor so far.

  My concept for the typewriter was fairly solid, and I had some guilds that were willing to start on it, if I could write them a blank check for all their labor and material costs while they created the thing. And, they wanted to hold the patent after it was perfected. Turns out, the tinker and clockwork guilds are owned by rival Houses from the Harigold. I tried inventing crayons for Nathan's friend Geland, who likes to draw. But I could not find the right kind of wax, and altering the consistency of wax was not simply done either. I wound up mixing pigments into melted beeswax, which made an inferior and difficult crayon, but still sort of worked. More RoseArt than Crayola. But it worked and Geland was effusively grateful and loved to show off his crayon drawings.

  If I knew how the small parts of a spinning wheel worked, or a cotton gin, I could have revolutionized industries and earned millions, but it turns out that coming from a technologically-advanced setting does not automatically grant the kind of knowledge that would upset the social order. I know four ingredients of gunpowder: so what? It could take years to trial-and-error the right ratios. Industrialization? Not even close. Aeronautics? I taught them to make paper airplanes, maybe in a hundred years those principles will find someone who understands fluid dynamics well enough to make a proper airfoil. Probably not: I think I'm the world's leading expert in fluid dynamics because I can at least visualize an airfoil.

  What inventions I do get off the ground? Candles in cakes. Lap desks. Standing desks. Egg races. Pi?atas.

  Papier-maché was easy, just a light glue and water over paper. But balloons were hard: I got by with a sealed bag of silk that I could inflate, and then apply the papery-glue mess, then deflate and remove. Everyone went completely bonkers over pi?atas when I introduced them.

  And then, finally, I found it.

  "Hm? Electricity," I repeated myself. "It only shows up in a couple of the books."

  "The stuff lightning is made out of?" my father recoiled, horrified.

  "Well, yes, but only a small amount," I said. "It doesn't need to be an entire lightning bolt."

  "Sure, and next a small earthquake, a tiny tornado," he joked, nudging his wife. They laughed at my hilarious joke.

  They had no concept of electricity smaller than a stroke of lightning. That was the province of wizards. Wizards are like sorcerers on a different scale. A wizard cannot light a candle without blowing up the house with it. A wizard cannot target a man without the town he lives in. They're strategic-level magic. Mostly weather effects during peacetime, but having a large number of wizards was essential to protect you from enemy nations that had their own wizards. A fantasy-era Cold War of stockpiled munitions and nuclear escalation.

  Sorcerers were smaller-scale: just me and whatever's in front of me. Can't affect the weather over a space more than fifty feet, can't calm the tides or cause an earthquake, but they can throw fireballs, and fly, and carry rad staffs and wear bitchin' robes.

  There was damn little I could do with this information right now. I filed it away. It would have its time. Oh yes.

  In the early summer we rode out to the Coltorn estate in south Meadowtam. Coltorn was a cadet house of Snairlin and generally we would not have been invited to a birthday party there, except that it was Filita. Her family was expanding mercantile trade along the southern roads, and moving members of the family to a location generally assured investors that the family was proportionately committed to new endeavors in that area. Sending a count's second-born daughter to Coltorn let the local merchants know to a precise degree to which they should expect House Snairlin to promote this trade.

  Rather than be dropped on her own, she was being fostered by the Coltorn house, and until she moved from there she was Filita Coltorn instead of Snairlin.

  And since the Harigold House was eager to engage long-distance mercantile endeavors in south Meadowtam, it was obviously our position to honor the Snairlin commitment, so we all attended the girl's birthday party. And not just because she had been Nathan's second-best friend for four years now. Nathan made many friends, and he treated them well. To be second best, after only me, was a big deal. In the game's original script she was the best friend, and if people read from that same script here I was not going to be offended.

  We rode through verdant and bountiful countryside, the road flanked by fieldstone walls and shaded by hazelnut trees. Bends in the road and walls were engineered to gather the fallen hazelnuts into convenient piles. The squirrels, birds, hogs and badgers got the first pick, but whatever was left was free to the villagers and workers. The fields beyond the trees were waving seas of grain, with alternating waves of hybridization to keep the best stock available, without committing too hard if conditions changed and one strain could not survive. Fallow fields were overrun with clover, and fade-in fields were mostly planted with peas and root vegetables. Falconry was a big hobby around here, it kept down rabbit depredations and culled the local populations, and added game meat to the local diet.

  I read a lot of books about agriculture and food-culture. It was a valuable subject in Meadowtam.

  Coltorn house was on top of a hill; it had started as a fortress against bandits before the land was tamed and the bandits were eliminated by offering good wages for work. So it had a command view of the area, and the high-walled central house was covered over with a broad roof that joined the garrison and keep into a single house, and then expansions and additions sprouted from the curtain walls like woodear mushrooms. Years ago it had been straw-thatched, but now fired-tile shingles covered the roof, and the sun baked them to the same color as the straw they had replaced. A massive central chimney from the middle of the main keep was burping out a slow series of gray-white smoke clouds, more steam than cinder.

  We were only halfway up the hill before we saw a horse riding down the road to meet us, traveling with giddy haste. From way back, I could still see the lavender hair and the fair skin. And as I'd said, she had her father's eyes, moss-green.

  The coachman pulled up to a stop when she approached, and I opened the door nearest to her and stepped out onto the road. She came at a run, stopped to give me a hug at the bottom of the running-board and then she ran up into the coach to hug Nathan. I took a minute to acquaint myself with her horse, it was a new one I had not met before. Once we were on good terms, plus the apple in my pocket, I swung up into the saddle and rode alongside the carriage the rest of the way up to the house.

  It was early summer still, and she was celebrating her seventh birthday. In three months my brother and I were turning nine. But, because of the Academy's entry schedule, Filly would only need to skip one grade to attend with us at the Academy. And she was more than good for it. Her brother Yheta would be three years ahead of us, at the start.

  I dropped the horse off at the stable at the manor, and the hostler's boy told me the mare's name was Blackcoat, for the long black splash over her saddle and shoulders that looked like she was wearing an extra saddle blanket. I thanked him for the help, and walked in through the courtyard entrance to the main house, and followed the flow of maids and valets to the front hall, where my family and their entourage were handing off their traveling cloaks and greeting their hosts. Father and Mother were deep in discussion with the Lord and Lady Coltorn, so I was free to trade out my riding boots for house slippers and go to Nathan's side.

  His hand and mine found each other as if magnets, and Filita favored me a warm smile and a hug before she turned her attention back to Nathan. I had him all the time, she only had letters from him for most of the year, they only really saw each other at social events when everyone else was looking to distract them from each other. What they had was very cute, and very genuine, but it was not due to blossom into anything romantic for another decade. Just one of those really sweet platonic friendships that seems to block out everything else when they got together.

  Filly was the only person I knew outside my own household that seemed to realize how wonderful Nathan was.

  One of the things I liked about this game was the fact that the protagonist was an uncomplicated hero. He did not have any morally-ambiguous routes that were not forced by plot contrivance. He did not have any endings where he took advantage of the love interests or played them off each other. You could pick a dozen different routes, a hundred subplots, all manner of endings- but in every single one of them, Nathan Harigold was a prince of a man. Bad endings happened because he failed against adversity, not because he failed against temptation. The character could not be played as a scumbag.

  And right now, he was going a mile a minute. "- where they have competitions where they swim the horses, if you can believe that, and-"

  "- I know, I was reading about that too," Filly jumped in. "It's Akatan, and the tradition dates from the six-fifties. I really wanna see it! I've seen pictures but-"

  "- but the paintings never match what people say about it!" Nathan despaired. "Everyone writes about how majestic it is when they breast the water, but the paintings are only ever the riders sitting atop them like boats!"

  Filly's response was excited and breathless, something about the special stirrups they use. I am not terribly interested in everything there is to know about Akatan equestrian events. I don't need to share his every interest, nor he mine. We were not just halves.

  I tuned out for a bit, watching the household staff. These moved very differently than the Snairlin staff, much more like back at Harigold manor. They seemed comfortable, and some seemed to speak to the lord and lady of the house more directly, as friends. And Filly seemed more comfortable here too. The Count and Countess had seemed very personable and earnest when I met them, but there was something heavy hanging over that household. I'm glad that she was out from under that roof, it seemed to do her good. I felt a smile trace my lips.

  These were people I already liked, because I knew what they would do when it mattered.

  I tuned back in to the conversation. Filly was upset, "- out of the garden entirely! I didn't do anything wrong! I was trying to help, and what I did was right! I followed instructions like I was supposed to!"

  Nathan frowned just a little. He spent a minute thinking before he spoke. "The things you did were fine. And why you did them was fine. But I think you just got it out of order. If you want to help someone, even with something small, then helping them is the third step, not the first step."

  "What's the second step?" I asked, amused.

  "Asking them questions before you get involved," Nathan said.

  "What's the first step?" Filly asked, confused.

  "Figuring out which questions you should ask," Nathan said firmly. "Like, 'do you want help', 'do you have a plan for these tomatoes', or 'is there room for me to help with this', those are good questions. If you want to help and you just help without asking, anything can happen. If you want to help and you just ask questions, then you're bothering someone who may need help. But if you think about the right questions, then ask them, then you can help on their terms, not yours."

  "Oh," Filly said, downcast.

  He immediately moved to her side, hand on her shoulder. "You did the right things, for the right reasons, and she knows it! You just wanted to help, and you let that get in front of your questions. You're really smart, so you're gonna do really good from now on."

  She perked up, nodding. "Right! Like you told me last year, it's only a mistake if you do it again!"

  This fucking kid is eight years old and gives better advice than my parents ever gave me. I patted his other shoulder, and stood by while he caught up with his friend. They both had so much to say to each other, now that they could say more than a few pages' worth at a time and did not have to wait for a saddlebag to make it from Harigold Manor to the Coltorn estate. I could be patient. They were kids for the first time, after all.

  Also, I find it much easier to be patient and still in this life. I don't know if Natalie just has a neurochemistry that is naturally suited to contented patience, or if this is all me. After all, when it really mattered I was ready to consign myself to become a silent observer buried in someone else's soul. Sometimes I still think about that. If I had gotten my wish without the goddess interfering, I would be locked away without limbs or a voice, not even enough volition to control what I was looking at. For a crucial moment, that was what I was trying to become. So everything I have now is actually more than I had hoped for.

  " - and my foster father is thinking about hiring on Mester Demes when your parents release them next year," Filly was saying.

  Nathan looked over at me. "Demes is leaving us?"

  I glanced away, and dug at the floor with one toe. "Uh, yes. Father and Mother want to get me some new tutors. Specialists. Mester Demes is a world-class polymath, and very well-versed in many subjects. But half their talents are wasted on me and half my talents are wasted on them. They're much more suited to a well-rounded education, and I'm a bit of an oddball."

  Filly looked excited. "Oddball? Is that a new game you're inventing? It sounds interesting!"

  Nathan looked hopeful. He loved it when I invented new games. I smiled at him. "It's a working title. I'll show it off next time we have enough people together. I may have a different name for it by then."

  "But what are you going to do after Demes leaves?" Nathan asked. "They're like part of the family. A cranky, difficult, condescending part of the family."

  He delivered that perfectly, so earnest. Filly and I both had to laugh. "Filita, don't listen to him, Demes is not nearly that bad. And Father says I need one tutor for civics, one for sc- natural philosophy, and one for magic. He and Mother are taking over to drill my handwriting," I rolled my eyes.

  Nathan looked a bit abashed. "Oh. About that..."

  "Yes?"

  "Mother spoke with me about that. They're not tutoring you in your lettering, I am."

  My jaw dropped. "What?"

  Filita chortled, muffling it with both hands over her mouth but her eyes sparkled with glee. She bounced on her heels, and her lavender hair bobbed around her shoulders.

  I gave her a playful smack at the shoulder. "Oh, it's not that funny. Nathan, why are they having you tutor me in handwriting?"

  "Well, they said it's time you learned calligraphy, and-"

  "I'm doing quite well with calligraphy!" I shot back.

  He made a wincing grimace, and waggled a so-so hand. "I've looked over it and-"

  "My writing is very tidy!"

  "You write like a typesetter," he corrected me. "Each letter is tidy enough, but your joins are- "

  "Oh my god," I said, putting my hands over my eyes. "My twin brother is going to coach me on my lettering."

  He patted my shoulder. "You need to balance perfect legibility with a sense of artistry. Pleasing to the eye, not merely decipherable."

  "Must you make Filly watch when you stab me so?" I moaned.

  "I wouldn't miss this for the world," she said, beaming.

  "Surrounded by betrayers," I gasped in shock, and pressed a hand to my chest.

  Nathan patted my shoulder consolingly. "This is the life of high station and political intrigue, I'm afraid. It's better that you learn this sooner than later."