4075.104 · April 14, 1755 AD
Adventures, Princes, and Careful Omissions
Home should be sanctuary. The hearth crackles, beef stew steams in chipped bowls, and Violet's laughter rings through rooms too long shadowed by grief. Elspeth shares what she can of her first day—colour-shifting silks, a proprietress with storm-grey eyes—careful to omit the darker truths. But one careless name undoes her caution. The silence that follows tells Elspeth everything her mother's careful words confirm: some wolves wear silk, and they have already found their way to the supper table.
Violet nearly knocks Elspeth over before she's through the door—all bouncing curls and breathless questions, a bandaged cut on her arm from trying to help with the cooking. Effie looks up from her mending, golden hair catching the firelight. Katrina emerges with a book clutched to her chest like a talisman. And their mother Morag, worn thin by widowhood, ladles stew into bowls that have been in the family for generations.
Around the scarred kitchen table, Elspeth offers her sisters carefully curated tales of the Emporium's splendours. Silks that shimmer like captured jewels. Lace delicate as morning dew. A world as far from their modest circumstances as the fairy tales Violet loves. She does not mention hidden pockets, coded messages, or girls who asked too many questions.
Fairy tales have a habit of containing wolves, Katrina observes quietly.
Then Elspeth speaks Lady Aberfoyle's name, and the warmth drains from the room. Her mother's warning comes wrapped in caution: there are factions in the city, dreams that some would call treason. Keep your head down. Keep your ears closed.
That night, Violet asks for a bedtime story with a happy ending. Elspeth takes her small hand and realises: some stories, she will have to carry alone.
