The study smelled of old paper and older wood.
Sheila had spent hours in this room— as a student and an heir. A girl being shaped into a woman before she was ready.
The walls were lined with portraits. Generations of Karmis ancestors, their faces stern, their eyes following her as she moved. They wore clothes from different centuries—ruffs and corsets, tailcoats and cravats, the fashions shifting while the expressions remained the same. Watchful. Judging. Waiting.
One portrait was covered with a cloth.
Sheila had asked about it before. The answer was always the same: Not yet. But today, Karmis had called her to the study for a lesson, and the cloth was still there, and Sheila was tired of waiting.
"Why can't I see her?"
Karmis looked up from his desk. He had been reading—a leather-bound volume, the title in a language Sheila didn't recognize. His glasses were perched on his nose, the wire frames thin and old.
"Because you're not ready."
"I'm eleven." Sheila crossed her arms. "When will I be ready? Twelve? Thirteen? Thirty?"
Karmis removed his glasses. He set them on the desk, folded his hands, and looked at her. The silence stretched.
"Your mother was fifteen when she was presented to the King," he said. "She had four more years than you do. She still wasn't ready."
"Ready for what?"
Karmis didn't answer. He stood, walked to the covered portrait, and stopped. His hand hovered near the cloth, not touching.
"She was my only child. She was bright, stubborn, and too clever for her own good. When she was sixteen, the King asked for her hand."
Sheila felt something cold settle in her stomach. "The King? But he's..."
"Old enough to be her father. Yes." Karmis's voice was flat. "The alliance would have united House Karmis with the Crown. It would have ended decades of tension between the old nobility and the new monarchy. It would have been good for the kingdom."
"Did she love him?"
Karmis turned. His face was tired, older than the rest of him.
"The King does not love," he said. " Your mother was a strategic asset. A piece on a board. He would have married her, installed her in the palace, and visited her when it was politically convenient."
Sheila thought about this. The cold in her stomach was spreading.
"She ran away," she said. "With my father."
"Yes."
"Was he... did he have power? Was he an Avatar?"
Karmis shook his head. "Paul Cross was a commoner. A clerk in a shipping office. He had no power except kindness, and no wealth except his wages." A pause. "Your mother loved him for it."
Sheila looked at the covered portrait. She could see the shape beneath the cloth—the curve of a shoulder, the fall of hair. Her mother's hair. She remembered it, vaguely. pink, like hers.
"Did the King punish her?"
Karmis was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was softer.
"The King does not punish. He balances. Your mother's flight created a debt—a debt that House Karmis has been paying ever since. Higher taxes. Fewer favors. Constant surveillance." He touched the cloth. "We are noble in name only, child. The King has not forgotten. He will never forget."
Sheila felt the cold in her stomach turn to something else. Anger, maybe. Or the beginning of understanding.
"Is that what I am?" she asked. "A payment?"
Karmis looked at her. His eyes were wet.
"You are a Karmis," he said. "That means you are whatever you need to be to survive. Your mother chose to run. I chose to stay. You will have to choose, too. When the time comes."
He left the room.
Sheila stood alone with the portraits.
The ancestors watched her. Their painted eyes seemed to follow her as she moved to the covered portrait, as she reached up, as her fingers brushed the edge of the cloth.
She didn't pull it away.
Not yet, she thought. Not ready.
But she stood there for a long time, her hand on the cloth, her mother's shape beneath her fingers. And she wondered what Sarah had seen, in the days before she ran. What she had known. What she had feared.
Sheila pulled her hand back.
She left the study.
That night, she wrote in her journal.
Mother was supposed to marry the King. She ran away with Father instead. Now House Karmis is paying for it.
The King doesn't forget. The King doesn't forgive. The King balances.
I don't know what that means.
But I'm going to find out.
She closed the journal, blew out the candle, and lay in the dark.
The walls watched. The air listened.
Sheila closed her eyes and dreamed of her mother's face—a face she could barely remember, a face she had never truly seen