Seven days. It's been seven days since my father passed. The reality of his absence feels more and more real. Life will forever carry on without him.

Yesterday, Uncle Rothbart, Uncle Vonomir, Sigvard, Clemaina, and I ate dinner together for the first time since the festival. It was wrong to have a family dinner without my father at the table's head, just like the table felt off-balanced when my mother died. I know I'll adjust to it eventually, stop expecting to hear his voice or see him walking through the palace. But I know that takes time. No matter how many loved ones pass on, it never gets easier. Each has a stockpile of grief stored inside me, and they release one by one, unless I'm unlucky enough for multiple to pass on at the same time.

Somehow, despite the emotional whirlwind inside me, I manage to sleep a decent hour. I wake with the sunrise, get dressed as the birds sing me a symphony, and head to The Salon of the West Wing for breakfast. Clemaina already sits at the table, her back straight and head high, while Wolfgang stands by the wall. He's so stoic that he almost blends in with the Grandfather clock next to him. I slide into the chair beside my sister, folding my hands on my lap.

"Good morning, Aylo," Clemaina says.

"Good morning."

Silent minutes dissipate. I open my mouth to ask where the food is, but the answer comes to me. We're back to family breakfasts, which means we have to wait for Sigvard. Hurry up! I silently plead him.

Sigvard strolls in as the clock strikes eight in the morning. I glare at him as he plops into the seat across from me.

"I would've preferred to burn the last ten minutes sitting on my bed," I mumble.

The baggy gray tunic Sigvard wears exaggerates his shrug. "I didn't realize you had to wait for me."

Wolfgang clears his throat. "I understand this is a trying time for the three of you, but it's been a week. The only way to fully adjust to the new status quo is to return to your normal schedule. Starting today, your lessons and daily routines will continue."

Sigvard and I lock eyes. We both know what this means—less time to look into our father's death and Odeia's mysterious contact.

Wolfgang claps his hands together, and three servants march into the room. Each sets a platter with fruit, yogurt, and toast before us, though Sigvard receives sausage and eggs, too. I dig into the semi-liquid cream, then follow up with several blueberries and bread to cut the acidic taste. The last of our food disappears around the same time, despite our varying portions. Wolfgang gives a nod of approval at the empty plates.

The two lesson rooms are around the corner. They form a huge square that's divided in half. Both sides look the same, three desks along the side walls and a three-section couch in the center. If I walked past the Lesson Rooms, I'd reach the Training Room, where Sigvard now spends most of his lesson time. There's a side room within it for his text-based studies.

I walk through the connecting door to the second lesson room, sliding it shut behind me. The only difference between this room and my sister's lesson area is that the wall on the far side of the room is a giant window. The sunlight is blinding even though mesh drapes cover it.

My tutor stands from her seat on the couch when I enter. She wears a slender dress that comes to her knees. Sunlight catches on gold sequins that swirl across the fabric, the same warm color as her skin. Her soft features are on full display as her black hair is swept up in a bun.

"Hello, Princess Aylo," she says. Her lips upturn, but pain glitters in her brown eyes.

"Good morning, Lady Nyoko."

"I plan to ease you back into the material today. I hope the lesson won't be too much."

I join her on the couch, tucking my olive green skirt beneath me. She begins with a review of the previous three "micro-history" lessons. Now that I'm advanced in my studies, I'm learning more specific details of our kingdom's history, such as lesser known wars and economic trends. She assigns two chapters in my textbook, then moves on to my literature assignment for the day—reading the first five chapters of The Bones of the Leviathan, a classic novel in Saursi culture. I'm only half-paying attention as I skim the yellowed pages.

The sun rises in the glass windows, a constant reminder of how much time the book is wasting. I finish around lunch, and Lady Nyoko and I discuss the nuances of the text while eating miniature sandwiches. She doesn't press me as hard as normal for in depth answers, takes more lead in furthering the conversation with her own interpretations. Finally, she puts the book away after an hour, and I cross my fingers hoping that I'm done for the day.

"Due to the circumstances, Duke Rothbart decided you should take a more active role in the royal court. As such, we'll go over some rooms in the castle more in depthly than we have in the past."

I groan internally. I thought my lesson was supposed to be quick today.

Lady Nyoko unfurls a map of the palace and lays it on the coffee table. "Today, we're reviewing the Archives room. The Archives contain all former documents within the castle that no longer need to be accessed. There are two areas where documents may be found. The first is in the bookshelves that line the walls of the room. The second is in filing cabinets in the center of the room. They are kept locked since they contain important documents. Now, Princess Aylo, can you name any examples of documents that may be found in this room?"

A thought pops into my head. "Records of all the servants who've served in the castle?"

"Very good."

"Letters?"

"Yes."

"Accounts written by the court?"

"Excellent. Now..."

Lady Nyoko continues, but I'm not paying attention. A smile tugs at the corners of my mouth. I discovered where to continue our search for Odeia's mysterious contact.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: .☀. :☆ﾟ｡･ ───

The archives room is larger than it appears. If bookshelves, desks, and cabinets didn't cover so much space, I guarantee it'd be larger than our lesson room. Books and papers bundled with twine cover every available space. I feel myself drawn to the nearest books lined up against the wall.

"Woah," I breathe. This is the first time I've entered the Archives. I always assumed it was a boring place, but who could get bored with so much to explore.

"You've got to be kidding me," Sigvard murmurs. He looks like he's going to be sick. "There's no way."

"Of course there is," I say. "We just need a little time and patience."

"We don't have time," Sigvard snaps. "This will take months to get through."

"Nonsense. The sooner we start, the sooner we'll finish." I start with the nearest books, shoving each one back into place when they're nothing of interest. Finances, citizen records, court orders, travel charters, the list goes on. Sigvard and Benno choose bookshelves at various points in the room to begin their search.

We work in swift silence. I quickly learn the designs of certain subject matters, such as all green-bound books refer to tax records and a certain style of brown leather contains palace finance logs. I stumble upon criminal records in a red book. As I continue to sort through the archives, I realize that it wouldn't hurt to look up Odeia's record. Perhaps there's valuable information inside.

When I finish the first bookshelf, I realize we've been going about this all wrong.

"We're wasting time," I say. "The archives are arranged by date. We should look for the bookshelf that contains the records from four years ago."

Sigvard turns around. He's only halfway through his shelf. "Now you tell us?"

"It's not like either of you thought of it sooner." I move to the neighboring shelves, working my way in a circle until I reach the archives from four years ago. "Here they are. Come take a look."

Benno and Sigvard peer over my shoulder as I go through each volume. A thick black manuscript is three shelves down from the top. When I open the front cover, it says "The Annual Employee Record of the Palace." I plop it into Sigvard's arms. He grunts and rocks forward, but doesn't complain.

"Take it over there." I nod to an empty table in the center of the room. I continue to go through the books with an eye for red. It takes several tries before I find the right date range.

"I think that's it for now," I say, sliding into the chair beside Sigvard.

Benno takes the seat beside me. "Which one first?"

"Let's go with the criminal record. Benno, you don't mind flipping through the servant record while we're in lessons, right?"

"Uh..." Benno's eyes widen slightly. "I guess I have nothing better to do."

"He can't keep sneaking in here," Sigvard says.

"He has a key," I say.

We both turn to Benno, who's gaze shifts from us to the books to the sides of the room.

"I'm sure it'll be fine..." he says at last. "Worst case scenario, I hide between the bookcases."

I glance at the narrow spaces between the ceiling-high bookcases. The idea that toned and trained Benno could squish inside is mildly comical.

I flip the red book open to a table of contents. Each entry is listed by date. I flip through the pages—January, February, March eighth, March nineteenth, March twentieth, April fifth, April tenth, April seventeenth. I stop and flip back several pages, scanning each name.

"She's not in here," I say.

"But that's the criminal record book," Sigvard says. "It has to be in there."

I continue through the pages. May second, May eighteenth, May twenty-first, June, July, August.

"It isn't in here," I say.

"Maybe it was ripped out," Benno suggests.

I flip back to the March entries. The thick, ink-covered pages look intact, no jagged edges from paper being ripped out.

"I don't know what to make of this," I say. "It has to be in here."

"If the Court had a special hearing for the evidence," Sigvard begins slowly. "Then maybe it's in a separate record location."

I cross the room going back to the bookshelf and rifle through the remaining documents. A huge stack of papers bound with twine stands upright on the second to last shelf. I pull it out to look at the title, which says it's an agricultural survey. But when I go to put it back, I notice a similar bundle behind it. The sides fold inward so it fits between the books on either side of it. When I slide it out, I nearly gasp. The front page says it's "The Official Transcript of the Royal Court's Investigation, Proceedings, and Trial of Odeia Sophfeu."

"Found it!" I exclaim. I push the other manuscript back and return to the table. My fingers tug at the brown yarn tied around the parceled information. It drops to the sides, and I turn the top sheet over like a book. I read the first page, really read, not just skim. Benno and Sigvard look over my shoulder.

Considering that I live in the royal palace, I know very little about Odeia's trial and conviction. We were told her motive—grief and a desire for vengeance drove Odeia to murder our mother, Queen Dianne, during The Festival of Fallen Queens. But I never knew what evidence was used to support their claims.

The trial began with an account of the day, written by one of the Court members. It began at tea time, when we were opening presents. Odeia's gift to my mother was a box of gourmet chocolates. I remember it well since Mother ate one right there, sitting around the fireplace. She promised to share the chocolates with us after dinner. But that never happened, and until now, I had forgotten about them.

After she died, the royal mediciner found poison in my mother's blood. She was poisoned with Attsed, a derivative from a certain flower. In small amounts, it serves as a painkiller. In large amounts, it is deadly. As the Court notes in their report, the amount of the substance that would kill her would taste terrible. Thus, the sweetness of the chocolates was used to mask the taste. Although no poison was found in the remaining chocolates, they found leftover poison under Odeia's mattress. They also found several entries on poisons in her journals, and poison books in her room.

Finally, they tracked down Saursi mediciners who sell medications such as Attsed. A mediciner couple said that they recently sold the painkiller to a customer in exchange for a jeweled comb. This comb was identified as the one that Queen Dianne gave to Odeia as a present a few years prior.

"This is stupid," Sigvard says, breaking the silence. "If it has a bad taste, why would it be concentrated in one chocolate? Moreover, what are the odds of Mother eating the one poisoned chocolate that afternoon?"

"At least we know their reasoning now," I say. "Though a few things don't line up."

"It's more serious than that," Sigvard says. "She was framed."

"You might be right."

"Might be?" Sigvard laughs. "I am right."

"Let's save arguments for later," Benno cuts in. "We're still in a room we're not supposed to be in. What else do we need to read before we leave?"

I cast a look around the room, from the cluttered shelves to the two books on the table. There's so much hidden inside here, so much to learn. But the longer we stay here, the higher the chance of getting caught. Reluctantly, I agree to put everything back where we found it.