Hey, guys! This summer has been pretty productive, even if I am still terribly slow and kind of hooked on semi-colons. Thank you so much to The baava Project, Flutters, Ghostywings-Cricket, and especially to Misha, who’s been here all along.

o

Rolf was wearing black that day, as, I was to find, he nearly always did; black to match his eyes

and his mustache, and the hair underneath his silvered temples.

“Follow,” he said again, and I did. The walls were stone and the floor the same, harder than the road had ever been. He walked without character, for every step was precisely the same as the one before it; they were exactly proportional to his height, which was greater than mine; he did not slow and I dared not ask him, until I tripped upon an unexpected rug and fell.

He stopped and turned around, his forehead furrowed. “Are you well?” he asked, without feeling.

“Uh,” I said, because the air had been knocked from my lungs. “Yes,” I said, finally, once my wheezes had forced his implacable face into something resembling disdain. He offered a hand, but it was pale and mottled and shaking, and so I refused: disgust on my face for the disdain on his.

“Follow,” he said for a third time, and so we went, until the floors became wood and the walls, paler stone, hung with tapestries. Rolf cleared his throat once, and once again, until a woman appeared. Her dress was dark and plain, her hair pale and pinned in place. She curtsied to him; but it wasn’t quite low enough.

“Take her to the chambers that have lain in wait for three dozen years,” he said, lips curled.

“Sir?” said the woman.

Rolf’s nose flared and his mustache shook. “The chambers,” he said, “that have been saved for the chosen girl, flanked by tapestries of beasts both magical and common, that have been locked for three dozen years.”

The woman bit her lip.

“You daft fool,” said Rolf. “The room for the girl whose––”

And then she said: “Oh, I see,” and touched my arm to follow her. I did; Rolf cleared his throat and marched away.

“Sometimes,” the woman said, her face deadpan, “the only way to live here is to find fun where you may.”

I covered my mouth with my hand to hide my smile: finally, finally, something other than patronizing, somber intensity.

“I am Faith,” said the woman. “My sisters are Mercy and Charity, though they are not yet with here. We have been assigned to you.”

“Assigned?” I said.

“Yes,” said Faith, “to wash your hair and choose your clothes and educate you in what you need to know, or to delegate these tasks as we see fit.”

“Ah,” I said. We paused as she struggled with a large, ornate key. “I did not always look like this, you know.”

“Weeks of travel are hard on a body,” said Faith, and did not ask more of me. She opened the door: six rooms in all, and well-furnished.

“Here you will stay,” she said. “Here you must stay until the king calls you trustworthy; until he fears no gentlemen, who are not always so gentle, in your company. These rooms are yours, and yours only. A step beyond that door, though, and you shall be treasonous: and no beast can save you then.”

“Inside?” I asked. “Only inside?”

“Yes,” Faith said.

“Is there nowhere I can––I can at least sit, or walk, and breathe in the summer’s air or bask in summer’s sun?”

“There is,” said Faith, “or at least there used to be, once upon a time, deep within the center of the royal gardens. But how should you get there, without resorting to common illegality?”

And the disappointment welled deep, behind my eyes and in my fingers; no escape, of any kind.

“I am sorry,” said Faith gently. “I am so sorry.”

“Do not worry for my sake,” I said, Jair’s magicked ornament warm in my hands; there was nowhere else to go, but at least there was no evil here. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

She said, “I will call the rest, to meet you; but we will begin the lessoning now.”

“How?” I asked.

She grinned, wicked as any evil old witch: “We will start with a gown.”

And so we did: gown upon gown upon gown, all of them shimmering and lovely and new, oh, so new, and a better fit than even the best festival dress I had ever owned; though Faith clucked in her throat and told me, “We’ll have a fitting.” She plucked at the waist, at the shoulders: “Here, see? Too loose here, and too tight, here.”

I did not see. They felt like the height of luxury to me, after the hard weeks of the road had left my hands and my feet and my clothes rough with callus and dust, like burlap. But who was I to refuse greater service?

Beauty, which I had hidden from for so long, returned slowly: Faith called for another servant, a thin, colorless woman. She gently removed Jair’s gift and placed it with all the grace it deserved on a nearby table, and then began to wash my hair; and she did not stop until all the grit and dust and tangles were gone. She combed it, after, long and wet though it was.

“Thank you,” I said, as she finished and began to braid it in some lovely, intricate design of her own.

“You are most welcome,” said the woman, smiling and unexpectedly pretty for her kindness. She finished, drawing my hair back as she pinned it with Jair’s ornament and said, with a knowing wink, “It is not jeweled or gilded, not as bright as it may be; but more beautiful for the love that made it,” she said, and I blushed.

“Mary,” said Faith, reprovingly; but her eyes were bright and merry, and the skin about them crinkled in a smile.

Mary left again, and Faith left the door open behind her, calling for her sisters: “Mercy,” she said, loudly, “and Charity! Come quickly before the young maiden pines away from loneliness.”

No one appeared, but I heard feet running down the corridor. “A squire,” Faith explained when I asked her. “Some young fool who’s taken it into his head to be a knight; they run errands when they are not bashing each other about the brains.”

All of a sudden, the life of a knight seemed less triumphantly noble.

Two women came to the door, then; their resemblance to Faith was made all the more obvious by their similarly plain dresses. “Charity and Mercy,” said Faith, nodding to the two respectively. “My charming sisters.”

“We are very,” said Charity.

“Charming, she means,” said Mercy.

“Right. And we shall be your handmaidens; but worry not, for our mother taught us to be loyal above all else.”

“Loyal?” I asked.

“Yes; and so shall your guards be,” said Charity.

“Guards?” I said.

“Yes,” Mercy answered, “guards; though the unicorn’s choice makes you virtuous––in our eyes, though not our suspicious king’s, or his odious servant’s––that does not speak for anyone else; and while we can watch for danger, we lack the training to fully protect you from it.”

“For that we must call on our cousins and our friends,” said Charity; “but you need not worry; they, too, became true adults under the watchful eyes of our mother and her sisters, and they, too, are loyal above all else.”

“Enough of that,” said Faith. “You’ve things to learn, my duck; off we go.”

o

“You are not impolite,” said Madame Oppel, “just crude.”

“Excuse me?” I said.

“No,” she said. “And you are clearly not a boor: you just lack the necessary etiquette for, oh, a state function.”

“What?” I said.

“Did no one tell you? Once they have ascertained your ability to spurn the advances of your unwanted suitors––and suitors there will be––they will want to show you off to the kings of far and distant lands. Or at least they did when I was a child; a poor pale girl, curled in a corner, smiling vaguely during the king’s diplomatic meetings.”

“What?” I said again, for I was shocked; I had nearly forgotten there had been any virgin before me, and no one had warned me of the girl’s weak constitution.

“Oh, do not worry,” Madame Oppel said reassuringly, although I was not reassured in the least. “She was retiring when she arrived, very quiet and shy and kind. You are kind, too; but it is a sharper sort of kind than an all-accepting acknowledgement of people’s innate goodness.”

“Oh,” I said.

“And, to be completely honest, she really was not much brighter than your average fir tree, which I hope to find untrue of you, Miss Katsamina.”

“Katsy,” I said. “Please.”

She looked at me speculatively. “Miss Katsy it is,” she said. “Regardless, we must teach you how to use which glass, and when, and what to do with each course, and how to use each of the six forks––”

“Six!”

“And you will start,” she said, with a gleam in her eye, “by learning why it is a bad idea to interrupt full-grown adults when they are speaking to you.”

Later, fully chastened by the singular Madame Oppel, I met Monsieur Canard, who was to teach me literature and history and mathematics, which I had never had need of.

“Honestly,” he said, “I doubt in your capacity as an emblem of this country’s purity and prowess, you will especially need to know the finer points of algebra or the construction of a sentence; but it is an exercise of the mind and, locked away as you unfortunately are, I feel you will come to appreciate the challenge.”

“Algebra?” I said faintly.

“Or calculus,” he offered, “or geometry; new fields are opening every day; some mathemagicians are experimenting with the information presented by their yearly censuses, it’s really a fascinating new study––”

He continued for some time, lauding his peers’ brilliance and occasionally referencing books I had never heard of, studies I had never seen or even had the opportunity to see. At the end of his tangential rant he pointed at me, hand steady and slim.

“What?” I said, having been unable to follow the last half of his speech; I had let it wash over me in a complete lack of comprehension.

He, like everyone else I had met, smiled. “I think you might, should we coach you well enough, actually understand it all.”

“All right,” I said, unnerved; “I will try as well I can.”

“Just think,” he said. “Just think. You have learned to be many wondrous things, I can tell, and I have heard; but should you begin to think you will be as well-rounded as anyone can be.”

“Thank you,” I said, inching away. “I’ll just be going now.”

“Farewell,” he said happily. “I will see you on the morrow, then, and the real work will begin.”

“Of course,” I replied, and made my escape as fast as I could, back to the more familiar confusion accompanying everything that had happened since I first found my unicorn.

“Ah, sweet William,” Faith said fondly when I told her of my lesson, though it had happened just one room over. “He is utterly ridiculous, you understand, and lost in his own mind; but he is such a darling that one ceases to notice.”

“Faith,” explained Mercy, “has loved Monsieur Canard since they met at the age of eight; and if only she would believe us that he loves her as well, a happy ending would not be implausible.”

“Mercy, you will shut your mouth,” Faith said, and then turned to me. “Your lessons will continue, of course, once you are allowed outside––and I do think you will be, for you seem strong enough to refuse unwanted advances; the last virgin, I think, had to be locked away for her own safety and to save her from her foolishness, but I trust we can expect better of you.”

“All right,” I said.

“Good,” Faith said. “I think now is the time for you to meet your guards; for they will be around tonight and each night after, and most likely during the following days as well.”

“All right,” I said again; and an hour later, the six of them filed in.

“Prudence,” said the tallest one; and then down on the line they introduced themselves: Carolina, dark and almost as tall; Meredith-called-Merry, who was equally thin and colorless and kind as her sister Mary (though I did wonder at her choice of a nickname); Lidia, blonde and stocky; Yve, pale and more beautiful than I would have expected any guard to be; Rowena, who looked as if she spent her life in the sun. All of them were wearing boots and trousers, to my surprise. I had never seen a woman without a skirt before; I admit, though not without shame, that I stared.

“Pleased to meet you,” each said in turn, bowing a little, and I mumbled something polite to all of them at once.

They talked briefly with the three sisters, leaning on each other and finishing each other’s sentences; I followed the conversation but I could not intrude, for they knew each other so well there were no spaces in which I could speak, even if I had had a mind to. Soon enough Rowena––or so I thought; with so many and such a fast introduction, it was hard to remember which was which––waved at me and said, “We’ll show ourselves out, so as not to scare the little one.”

“Hey!” I said, but they were mostly out.

The beautiful one turned around; she said, “The teasing just shows how much we already love you,” and popped out, closing the door behind her.

“They’re a laugh and a half, but don’t let them fool you,” said Charity once they had gone.

“You must remember this: they work for each other, not the king,” Faith said. “Well, of course they follow the king’s orders, but they are––they are a team in and of themselves, and viciously protective of their own.”

“Once you work so closely with them, you become one of them,” said Mercy, “which is no bad thing: our eldest sister Prudence is so. But should you––not you, Katsy, but anyone––should anyone ever betray one of them, that person will have brought all six on his head.”

“They were chosen for a reason,” said Faith.

“A good one,” said Charity.

“They will protect you until their dying day if you prove yourself worthy,” said Mercy.

“Which I do not doubt you will do,” said Faith. “After that, if anyone crosses you and you wish it, they will not hesitate to extract vengeance.”

“But really they’re lovely girls otherwise,” said Charity brightly.

o

That night, as I was combing my hair, a knock came at the door; polite but quite loud.

“That will be Prudence,” said Faith, who had not yet gone back to her own living quarters as her sisters had. She opened the door. “We thought it would be best if you started with familiar territory.”

“Do not believe a word she says,” said Prudence as she entered the room, ducking her head: she was very tall indeed. “I am much better than my sisters.”

“At what?” I said. “I did not think their competence surpassable.”

“Oh, just about everything,” she said, and grinned: and whatever she said, it was the very same grin, as generously given as Faith’s and Mercy’s and Charity’s. “They begin to look inefficient and dull and, might I add, terribly unattractive as soon as I walk into the room.”

“She used to be so quiet,” Faith said sadly. “And then they put a weapon in her hands, and a ring on her finger, and now there is no stopping her.”

“She’s simply jealous,” Prudence said. “I’ve my Nikolas, but her ‘poor sweet William’––”

“My God, do you three never stop,” Faith said; but she was blushing hotly, each cheek a startling pink. “Good night, Katsy, and feel free to hit at her should she become too intolerable; I will see you in the morning.” She left quickly, throwing a vaguely rude hand gesture to her sister on her way out.

“I would advise you not to hit at me,” said Prudence, “because I am trained to hit back; but I think yelling should suffice.”

“Ah,” I said. “I am not usually one for yelling, so I believe you are safe from remonstration; at least, you will not get it from me.”

“You learn quickly,” Prudence said. “I am always at the mercy of my sisters’ smart tempers.”

We sat there for a while, as I continued combing the tangles from my hair. Prudence shook her head, chin-length hair whirling out: “One of the reasons I keep it short,” she said, but nothing else followed.

“So,” I said, to break the silence, “you are married?”

“Oh, yes,” she said happily. “We met four years ago and we have been married three.”

“I wouldn’t have thought,” I said.

“What?” asked Prudence, raising her eyebrows. “That not all your guards would be as––what shall I call it––as pure as you are?”

“That’s not,” I said. “I mean, I would not have thought the king to allow it.”

Prudence shrugged. “It was all of us or none, and he knows it; and perhaps we are unorthodox, but we are the best he has; we are his youngest and so closest to you; and at least we are discreet in our love affairs, if indeed we have them at all. I am the only one married, and Rowena is engaged; the rest are untaken or uninterested.”

“Oh.”

“And what of you?” Prudence asked. “Have you any sweethearts at home, pining for you in vain?”

“Well,” I began, “there is a boy named Jair, who was, is, kinder than anyone I have ever known; he was the woodcarver’s second eldest, and to him I was betrothed.”

“Oooh,” said Prudence, leering. “What happened?”

“We made––we made a dowry, my mother and my sisters and I, of china and lace and love; but all that is left you see there,” and I pointed at the bed, where my blanket had miraculously appeared after a quiet but urgent talk with the ever-capable Faith.

“Were you very much in love?” Prudence asked, in a far gentler voice.

“No,” I said, “but I could––I could have been happy, with him, which is more than I hoped for in a village as small as mine.”

“Katsy,” said Prudence, “oh, Katsy; I am sorry to have teased you. Look, you are crying––”

“I’m not,” I said, although of course I was. And as I was wiping my eyes and my face with the backs of my hands, the perfect, round scar came into view.

“Is this . . . ?” Prudence asked, reaching toward it with one long hand.

“Don’t,” I said, pulling back without thinking first; “I am sorry,” I said when her face froze. “It is from the unicorn, yes, and it is why I am here, but it has nothing to do with you; the second son of a witch gifted me with its ability to sense evil.”

“That is a terribly powerful present,” said Prudence, her eyes widening.

“Yes,” I said. “And I am frightened that it will lose its effect should I even so much as look at it too often. Stupid, perhaps, but . . . better to be safe than to later be sorry, like my mother says.”

“I understand,” she said, her face mobile once again, softer now. “I will tell the others so as not to confuse them. I mean,” she continued, “it means the less work for us. We will have something else to rely upon besides our own respective guts.”

“I suppose,” I said. “They say less is more; but I think here more is nothing more than more.”

“Precisely,” said Prudence. “I like the way you think.”

I tied my hair back; Mary’s masterpiece had been too beautiful to sleep upon. I was trying to think of a way to excuse myself when Prudence abruptly said, “Good night.”

I stared at her.

“What?” she said. “I recognize the desire to escape in anyone’s eyes, and I have kept you up with my prattling on; so go to bed.”

“I am not a child, to be sent off when it whines,” I said indignantly; but it was half-hearted, and the sting lost under a yawn.

“Sure,” said Prudence easily. “I can see you are as awake as the morning sun. I shall be here all night, watching for some dangerous nobleman come to steal you away; I would be useless if you were awake as well and unable to go about your business tomorrow.”

“I see,” I said. “What of your husband? Will he not miss you?”

“He works at night, too,” she said, “protecting the perimeter; that is why I am on a night shift in the first place. My sisters of blood and weapon are kind to us.”

“So you’re guards both?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Prudence, “and if it interests you especially I can elaborate in the morning. Go to sleep before you fall on your face and break your pretty nose.”

I squeaked and fled, and slept more peacefully than I had in weeks.

o

We were approaching friendship, the seven of us. The nervous energy left over from a lack of exercise I dedicated to my lessons, and they helped me when I asked––Yve with mathematics, Lidia, history, and Merry, languages; Prudence, surprisingly, for etiquette. The other two would usually shrug, unable or disinclined to help; but both had erratically deep pockets of odd, if useful, knowledge that they occasionally decided to share.

“Zanubia,” Rowena would say, glancing down at my blank paper, “that is the land of the giant lizards.” Carolina would squint at some perplexing problem and say, “Here; should you change the sign here and here, and maybe multiply here . . . ” and the entire thing would fall into place as though there had been no obstacle whatsoever.

The sheer amount of it all was astounding, frightening: at home, our priest taught us to read and write, and our parents to add well enough to barter; and this was far beyond that. Madame Oppel trained my hand to a perfect copperplate script, but Monsieur Canard gave me things for which I could use this new beautiful handwriting––reams and reams of information that I grew to crave, to cherish.

But even this was not enough to contain the sheer nervous energy left over from no sun, no real exercise; the fourth time Yve found me wandering distractedly from room to room, she said, “Katsy, come over here,” with more strength to her voice than was usual.

I went; and she said, “You know why the king has you locked up, yes?”

“Because I am untrustworthy, or perhaps the noblemen are; if I am––violated then so shall the country be.”

“Absolutely correct,” said Yve. “And he may never be able to trust the gentlemen of his court, but we shall ensure that he can trust you: to defy them, at any rate, and protect yourself.”

“What?” I said. “How?”

“Begin,” she said, “by removing your gown––”

My face went suddenly, mortifyingly hot.

“Not here!” Yve squeaked, her face equally red. “I did not mean here! In your room! Alone! I am not interested in seeing you divested of your clothing!”

“That is fine,” I said, hiding my face, “as I am not especially interested in seeing you in such a situation, either.”

Yve made a strangled noise, told me to stay where I was, and ran out of the suite; she returned, boots clacking against the stone, and thrust a dark bundle into my hands.

“Please,” she said, waving vaguely at my bedroom, “go. Change. Not here. I––”

She stopped without resuming, and so I went to dress myself in whatever she had placed into my arms.

“Trousers?” I called, once I had unfolded the clothes behind my safely closed doors. “Really?”

“Really,” said Yve, and I could tell she was exasperated. “Just put them on, Katsy, and get out here.”

I did, though they were strange and uncomfortable; the shirt, little more than a tunic with sleeves, was not much better. I walked out all the same, arms crossed over my chest: protection, absolution.

“You’re ridiculous,” Yve said fondly.

“I know,” I said. “But I hope it is one of my charms, for, otherwise, however will I find a husband?”

“Husband?” said Yve, her forehead furrowed. “As the virgin?”

“Oh,” I said. “Well, I suppose––I suppose not.”

“Anyway!” she said, her grin so wide as to be manic; but at least it was distracting. “In case someone appreciates your ridiculousness and you do not want them to, we are to begin your self-protection lessons.”

That is how it began: with Yve and my own inactivity. I thought it a joke at first; I played along, I did what she told me to, but I never practiced seriously––not until the other guards discovered what she was doing; but they did not seem interested in tutoring me as they had in other subjects.

Instead, Yve came more and more often; so she saw me in moods both gentle and fractious: when I was kind and strong and beautiful, and the days when I was vain and selfish and irritable; but she kept at me all the same.

“I cannot do it!” I would yell; but she was not afraid of yelling back.

“You can, you have, and you will,” she would insist, forcing my hands back to their places, running her own across my shoulders, my back, until they were straight (or curved); and she would hit at my ankles––gently, at first––until they were angled (or not).

And in this way we progressed, and progressed, hand to hand and staff to staff; I was comfortable, by then, in their masculine clothing, and quick. “But you will not often be wearing our style of clothes; and so,” she said, bowing and grinning and giving me my discarded gown, “we will start once again.”

“Not from the beginning, I hope,” I said; and I was right. The swirling skirts, however, were still an obstacle for all that Yve assured me they could be a weapon in their own right; and in two bouts out of seven I ended up half-collapsed in Yve’s arms, laughter or exhaustion failing my knees. I practiced, though; and it was not enough to contain all the frustration of forced enclosure, but it was close.

o

“It was the least we could do,” said Yve to me, one night, as I struggled with a mathematical hoop through which Monsieur Canard had asked me to jump. “A poor country girl, forced into a noble’s life, bumpkin that she was––”

“That is not fair,” I said. “I was not and am not a bumpkin. I was just––”

“More naïve than you are now, mostly, may I add, due to my wonderful and innovative teaching,” she offered.

“I hate you,” I said. “And I hate mathematics, and no matter what you or Monsieur Canard or anyone says, I will never be good at this, especially not with you talking to me.”

“I hate you, too,” Yve said; and: “Let me see,” she said, and she took both paper (a startling white, apparently from a useful but expensive spell of the court magician’s) and pencil from under my fingers.

“Fine, thank you; take it away,” I said, relieved, as she sat there staring at it. “It is not as though I was made to be a great scientist or architect or––”

“Then what were you made to be?” she asked, her voice hard.

I choked at her tone, but I tried: “I was to be married––”

“So a mother and nothing more?” Yve snapped, rubbing out parts of my work until the paper crinkled.

“Yes,” I said.

“You never wanted more than that?”

“That was enough!”

“Really?” she asked, her voice incredulous, and something in me broke loose.

“Yes! I was to be a wife, a midwife, a mother, everything that meant something to my village and now I’m stuck in here, with you, in a castle tower, separated from the sun and the trees and even that thrice-cursed beast, about as far from a fairy tale as anyone can get!”

Yve straightened up, her face a dead white. “I am sorry you feel that way,” she said stiffly, and balled her hands; but she could not hide their shaking. “I will––I will find someone else to take my shift if I so offend you.”

“No,” I said, “wait, I am sorry.” But she had already closed the door behind her, and I could hear her receding footsteps.

I looked down at the white paper, wrinkled but otherwise perfect, with one neat ring around one elegant solution; and I knew then what I had lost.

Rowena came instead, that night, looking at me like something she had not seen before: friend or foe, predator or prey.

“I’m so sorry,” I told her; “I’m so sorry, I did not mean it,” and though she patted the back of my neck, her betrothal ring was cold against my skin and her hand perfunctory, she said, “I am not the one you need to apologize to.”

“But please tell her that,” I said; “I cannot leave here, and so I cannot find her when she is not in these rooms; so please tell her that I am so, so sorry.”

“I will try,” said Rowena.

“Good night,” I told her.

“And to you as well,” she said, not entirely without a smile; but that was the last we spoke that night.

o

Everything changed.

The slight had been anything but.

o

I still talked with them and, yes, on occasion, I laughed; I had not been made into an enemy, and for that I was grateful. But our exchanges were no longer so genuine, and the bridging friendships had dissolved to cordiality even once I had finally been able to apologize.

“Do not worry,” said Yve, when I approached her, ashamed. “I have weathered far worse.”

She smiled, then; but it was a polite, small sort of smile, one I had never seen before.

“Thank you,” I said, at a loss.

“What, for forgiving you?”

“Yes.”

“No need,” she said, smiling strangely once again. “No need at all.”

o

And so, when the inimitable Princess Rasia asked me to tea and set me free from my stone prison, I went with a glad heart.