Emón had always believed he had no gift.

He was the youngest of his brothers, the only one who had been born in the World of Men. He'd been a babe in his mother's belly when they escaped; he had never seen Faelán skies and had never met his father. He had not even been born until Eldran's Wood had burned to the ground.

The rest of the boys had been granted a gift upon their birth, but these had not been normal gifts—not an embroidered tunic or a silver rattle. No; King Han Taín had granted his sons gifts from his own power.

Diarmán, the eldest, had the gift of music. He could turn heads, turn hearts with his songs, yes, but he could also work glamour with his music, making one thing seem to be another.

Leán's powers were of the physical sort. He was the strongest, the fastest, and the most dextrous of all of his brothers.

Then came Padréc. He did not have power over animals in the sense that he could bend them to his will. Rather, he could understand them and be understood—and he could become like them, too, shifting his human body into that of a wolf or an eagle or a fish.

Declaen was a craftsman, though such a word was not sufficient to describe his capabilities. He could raise a castle as easily as he could craft a fine silver locket dainty enough for a child's neck. No task, no material was beyond his skills.

Ruaraín could make anything grow, even from a moldering seed, even in the sharpest cold season. He had never tried to restore the forest their grandfather had burnt to the ground, but Emón knew, as all of them did, that he could, had he dared.

Then there was Gaerte, closest in age to Emón himself. Gaerte had the gift of speech, of words. Just as Diarmán could spin music so sweet that hardened soldiers might cry, Gaerte could speak truths so powerful that he could convince others to see his perspective. He could tell stories so compelling that the household would sit awake into the wee hours just to hear the ending that never came.

And last of all was Emón. They called him Little Emón, because he was the youngest and because he had been given his grandfather's name. But Emón was now a man who'd seen thirteen summers, no longer little—and he no longer believed he had no gift.

Emón could open doors.

He had not told anyone what he suspected. Indeed, it had been only recently, within the last year, perhaps, that he had begun to realize he had a knack no one else seemed to have.

The pieces had come together slowly.

There was a cabinet in the parlor where their family kept the household's games: an ancient board for cross-the-sea, playing cards, and the like. When Emón's brothers wished to play something, the cabinet door always seemed to stick. Yet Emón could open it with no trouble at all. They'd teased him, telling him that it was because he had a dainty child's nimble hands, but how did that make sense? That all of Emón's elder brothers, including Leán, struggled to pull open a squeaking old door that opened easily for the youngest and smallest of them all?

And then there were numerous memories of Emón as a smaller child, slipping into his brothers' or his mother's rooms on a whim. How many times had Gaerte or Declaen chased him out? More than once, a brother had demanded Emón return a key he had never stolen.

Then, recently at supper, Ruaraín had complained that Brenta, their cook, had locked the honey cakes in the pantry to save them for their mother's name-day feast. This was strange news to Emón, who'd eaten two of the cakes not an hour before. He'd had no trouble opening the pantry door.

That was perhaps the moment that things came into focus for Little Emón.

Then it had been necessary, of course, to test this power of his. It was simple enough: he locked his bedchamber door and then tried to open it, and to his astonishment, the knob turned easily underneath his fingers. It had been locked securely—he'd turned the key himself—but then, it simply wasn't.

Other tests were more interesting. The game cupboard, the honey-cakes, his own bedchamber, those were small things, simple things, but once he was aware of his abilities, he could begin sneaking into other places.

Once all of the Eldran brothers had grown old enough to understand and mostly respect one another's privacy, they had, for the most part, stopped locking their bedchamber doors; however, the sweets Leán kept locked in his stationery box were no longer off limits to Emón.

He spent an entire afternoon looking through his mother's precious jewelry, all those shining necklaces, bracelets, and rings. He didn't take anything; he just liked looking at all of those fine things, things he had never been permitted to play with when he was younger, and he tried to decide what he might want to gift his future wife, if he ever had one.

Then there were all of the secrets Old Lord Emón kept locked away in his study: small caches of coins; documents that talked about the lands their family owned, their tenants, and their connections to other noble families in Narr; scores of ledgers filled top to bottom with sums and figures that made little sense to the younger Emón, who, like his brothers, had never been taught the smallest of things about running a house and lands; documents about people being born, getting married, and dying. Emón perused all of these things with more interest in the secret act and the curious variety than in any specific secret revealed.

Emón thought a lot about what he could do with his talent. He knew he should tell his family what he could do, but he didn't want to. At least, not yet. They had all spent Emón's whole life thinking he didn't have a gift, being the furthest of them all from his father's realm. Part of him didn't want to break that illusion.

Besides, his brothers could do things so much more interesting than him, he felt. Leán could bring down a tree with his own strength. Diarmán could play any instrument he set his hand to. Padréc could actually turn himself into a snake.

What could Emón do? Save himself the trouble of using a key?

What real use was his gift, after all?