Everything had to be perfect. For Aideen, sleepovers had been relegated to the media she watched, TV and movies and manga, as much a fantasy as the magical girls themselves that she adored. The way it was depicted around her, it was an essential part of girlhood that she'd missed out on. 

But no longer—Aideen had friends that she could invite over to spend the night. 

She glanced up at where she wanted the string of fairy lights to go around where the ceiling met the wall. But she wasn't sure she could reach there, even if she stood on her desk. She was considered somewhat tall for a girl—although not so much as Kira—but it seemed she came up short when it came to this. 

An idea sparked into her brain. She knew dragons tended to float—even in human form. That was how she'd started her seventeenth birthday after all, the silent announcement of coming into her powers. Every morning since then, she'd awakened to floating three inches off of her mattress, her blankets still wrapped around her. 

Could she float now, if she tried?

She climbed onto the top of her desk. Hopefully three inches would get her what she needed. 

She tried to think of flying, to channel the feeling, the way she'd learned to channel the feeling of being a dragon to shapeshift. Only for her to fall off the desk and land with a thud.

"Ow." Aideen examined her knees for bruises. None yet—she was sure they would bloom eventually. 

In a flash, Lady Anagharad was there, standing in the doorway. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine, Lady Grandmother." Aideen scrambled to her feet and dusted herself off. Heat rose in her cheeks. "I was trying to hang these lights and—"

"You fell," Lady Anagharad finished, unamused. "You could have come to me, you know." 

"I'm sorry." Aideen shifted uncomfortably. "It's just that I know that you're older, and I don't want you to hurt yourself—"

Lady Anagharad's eyes blazed. She snatched the lights from Aideen. ""I am far from old, and even farther from the day that I can no longer hang up lights in my own house!"

With a flick of her fingers and a shimmer of pale turquoise sparks, the lights leapt from her hands and were secured perfectly into place. 

"Don't worry," she said, the corners of her mouth twitching up in a good-humored smile.. "I'll teach you how to do that soon enough. A simple levitation spell like that will be among the first when we begin to study the Tomes of Fire and Rain."

Aideen pressed her lips together, determined to maintain her placid expression. Her mouth still tasted bitter, though, or maybe it was her that was bitter. 

It was a reminder that for all her attempts to try and befriend the other princesses, there was a resentment that wouldn't entirely go away. What she'd always envisioned as something special between her and her grandmother, the woman who had raised her, now had to be shared. Furthermore, with it dissipated any of Aideen's hopes of getting closer to Lady Anagharad.

Throughout her entire childhood, there had always been an invisible curtain between herself and Lady Anagharad. Aideen's grandmother might regard her with pride and affection, but she knew that there was something irreconcilable about her. A reminder that Aideen was different than her. 

Her mother may have been all dragon, as the Lady Anagharad's daughter. But Aideen's father wasn't. He was more human than dragon, even though the bit of dragon that he was made him invaluable to the dragons of Agartha. As such, he had grown up a part of the human world. Lady Anagharad had chosen to raise Aideen in her father's world instead of the Jade Palace. But Lady Anagharad and Aideen herself were never truly a part of it. That same curtain existed between her and her peers. 

Aideen had always dreamed that when she'd finally come of age, transformed and inherited her powers, that it would draw her and Lady Anagharad closer together. She envisioned how when they studied magic together or the secrets of flight that Lady Anagharad would view her as a true dragon.

But now that every lesson was locked behind the promises of ethics and doing right by the kingdom rather than just one princess, Aideen was beginning to wonder if she would ever be able to pull the curtain from between her and her grandmother.

Beyond that was an even deeper well of envy. Kira and Lila had gotten to grow up without the weight of the crown, the shadow of the curse lingering over them. They got to be real girls, with real friends. Especially Lila. 

All her life, they'd been in the same schools together, and Aideen had seen how Lila interacted with others. She had close friends like Sabrina Hollestelle, and many others through the theatre department of Luddington High School. 

The doorbell pulled Aideen from her thoughts. 

"I believe your guests have arrived." Lady Anagharad smiled indulgently. "We should greet them, no?"

Aideen managed a smile and nodded. "Indeed, we should."

Kira and Lila had come in together. Lila was dropped at Kira's place, mostly to prevent her mother from worrying. Then they went to the mansion where Aideen and Lady Anagharad lived. Dr. Gershwin was away on an academic conference for the weekend, so Kira knew that she didn't have to worry about her grandmother blowing their cover.

This time, the gates opened for them, so all they had to do was ring the doorbell of the forebodingly opulent mansion. 

They were greeted by a grinning Aideen. She flung her arms around the other girls, causing Kira to drop her duffle in surprise. "You made it!"

"Of course we did." Lila gently pushed away. "Thanks for inviting us."

Aideen grinned, and she stepped back into the foyer with all the excitement of a little kid. "Come on in! I'm ready to do all the grand sleepover stuff. You know, popcorn, Truth or Dare—"

"Hello, girls."

Kira's attention was drawn up to the top of the staircase, where Lady Anagharad loomed overhead. 

Lady Anagharad was clad in jewels and silks once more, every inch the draconic noblewoman she was. Her gold-ringed turquoise eyes narrowed, as if she were analyzing all three girls. "Please do come in. We have everything set up perfectly so you don't have to even leave the room."

A small pinprick of dread kerneled in Kira's stomach. This was still a fairly strange place to her, with different rules and expectations. Something about the way Lady Anagharad spoke put Kira on edge. 

Kira turned to Aideen. "We are allowed to use the bathroom, right?"

Aideen nodded. 

Aideen's room was a little girl's dream come true. With pink everything, everywhere, a mountain of plushies and all the trinkets a girl could want, it was at odds with how Kira had previously thought of Aideen. Of course there had been the pink and the frills, but Kira had supposed Aideen more mature, not so messy or childish.

It made her seem more human, less like the stereotype of a popular girl, Kira supposed.

Kira set down her duffle bag on the floor and unrolled her sleeping bag. It was a heavy-duty camping kind that the grandfather she'd never met had used for fishing trips and similar. It was a sharp contrast to the rest of room, masculine in the dark colors and the worn plaid wood lining. 

Lila's pretty Sanrio sleeping bag and blankets were delicate and pristine, much like Lila herself and her outfits. Aideen had dragged her mattress with the mountain of pillows, plushies, and bright-colored blankets onto the floor. It left the golden frame of the bed like a bare skeleton. 

In comparison, Kira's hand-me-downs scattered from moves across the country were masculine, out of place. Not nearly so fun. 

It was a visual representation of how she felt among Lila and Aideen. She was the dark crow in their perfect pink worlds. 

She tried to push the thoughts out of her mind, to put it where all the sharp thoughts went. 

"So, I've got all the snacks up here," Aideen explained as she showed off the glorified snack table that had been made out of her desk. "Lady Grandmother ordered a pizza—that'll be coming soon—I didn't know what toppings you liked, so I ordered a plain cheese."

"Thanks," Kira said as Aideen plopped between her and Lila. Kira glanced at the clock on Aideen's wall. 

"I was wondering, if you might want to hear a story." Aideen looked down at the folded hands in her laps, her expression strangely vulnerable. "It's just that I was thinking—it's Mythos, in Agartha. It's one of our major festivals, when we remember the past and tell our stories. We have masquerades and operas and we celebrate where we came from, who we are."

She looked up. "I realized that you two don't know much about who we are."

Something about the phrasing bristled Kira. There was so much about herself that she'd never know. Her own origins were a mystery to her. How could she ever truly say that she knew who she was in the world?

"Would you like to hear it?"

"Yes." Kira spoke before Lila could. She wanted to know something about herself, to have something to hold onto. 

Aideen just smiled and adjusted her seat so she could begin.