Heather and I sat propped upon the pillows of our parents’ enormous bed. Like Theo and Lucian, my sister and I had been assigned colors. Heather’s special dress of midnight black edged with lace the color of flames proved identical save for mine being piercing azure. Black for her hair, and blue for my eyes. Mother laid before us, cheeks in her palms, donning nothing more than her undergarments and a white silk slip.

“Ohh, you two are adorable!” she gushed— exuberant, gleeful, and pink-cheeked from delight. She hoisted herself forward like a mermaid on shore to wrap us in her arms, bury her face against us, and kick her legs in a blur. “I’m so happy! I love you two!”

“Is love going to get you dressed?” The voice was not Father’s, but Uncle Cedric’s. He leaned at the door separating the bedroom from the sitting room wearing a tilted grin.

“Cedric, how improper,” Mother rebuked, yet only in jest. She made no effort to reach for any covering.

“That’s on you. Eagan pressed to you dress and warned he’d send someone else to check if you did not arrive in ten minutes.”

“What is ten minutes to the vastness of all time itself?”

“Quite a lot on this highly important last day of the summer festival where the royal family is front and center at the picnic. We are due to leave in ten minutes.”

“I don’t truly wish to go. I’d rather stay here with my baby girls, not share them with the world.”

Uncle Cedric cleared the room in four strides to snatch Heather and me.

“Hey!”

“No. I’m stealing them as motivation,” Uncle Cedric boasted. “Get dressed.”

Unable to postpone longer, Mother called a maid to assist her as Uncle Cedric brought us to the front of the palace where the rest of the family waited. Grandfather Attwell, Grandmother Alice, and Aunt Dianira were back again. The wait proved remarkably short. Mother trailed behind three minutes later entirely decked out in a multi-layered dress reaching her calves, a chiffon scarf upon her arms, a necklace and pair of earrings glimmering as stars, and a wide-brimmed sun hat completing the adornment. Her cheeks sparkled with the faintest brushing of glitter while a quick and heavy application of helenium perfume filled the air.

“There,” Mother huffed. “Return them.”

“Gladly.” Uncle Cedric handed us over.

We filed into coaches that took us to Cyra park. Named after a Great-Great-Great-Great and so on ancestor, the oasis of nature nestled in the upper portion of Sulien’s southern district rivaled Central Park in size. The last day of the summer festival, which lasted a week and worked on a scale in Iteus akin to Christmas, filled the park to bursting hosting a potluck. I fussed all last night at the unforgivingly alluring scents enveloping the entire palace from the kitchens that was the royal family’s offering. I just wanted real food, damn it.

A parade of carts had taken that food off earlier this morning where servants from the palace and volunteers from the city tended the endless expanse of laden tables. A section separated by velvet rope sat in the center guarded by a stretch of guards. Upon a temporary platform a long, shined table of dark wood with crimson cloth and high-backed chairs awaited our family. Mother held her head high now with none of the giddy girl she’d been before in sight. She walked regally with the rest dipping her head in respectful greeting to the massive crowd parting our way.

Local and visiting nobles scurried to stand at their chairs, the citizens closest to the VIP area doing the same. Grandfather Leomer, already having given a speech that morning, merely raised his glass upon our reaching of our spot, took a dignified sip, and sat down. A resonating shuffle surely woke the gods at a third of the park mimicking. From off in the distance a bell rang to alert those too far away to see that the feast had begun.

And what a feast it was...for everyone else.

My siblings and I already having received our lunch of breastmilk, we sat at our parents’ feet entertained with a varied collection of toys. I found more interest in pushing up to my hands and knees, rocking back and forth to build up muscle. While it was true I didn’t wish to be the genius child, I also didn’t want to be the last to do everything either.

Time passed like that. I curled underneath the draping tablecloth cuddling a plush and babbling to myself when exercising grew tiring. After forty-five minutes of listening to others enjoy everything I couldn’t have, the world finally took pity on me. Mother gathered me in her lap to present me with a tiny spoonful of shiny, soft lemon pudding.

“Want to try a bite?” she offered.

I chomped down on the spoon so hard I stole it right out of her hand.