Ivy decided to take her walk in the gallery.

It wasn't unusual. She used the gallery for her walks on days of rain or snow. Or when she heard a strange noise outside. Or the air felt unwholesome. Or there was talk of bandits roaming the land to attack women for their hair.

She felt a twinge in her stomach whenever she thought of it. At last year's festival, Ivy had purchased a strand of blonde hair and had it woven into her own, enjoying the shiny blend of gold with her orange. Now she wondered if that strand had been viciously stolen from an unfortunate girl somewhere.

That was last year. Before we heard about the bandits, Giles said. Giles always accompanied Ivy on her walks. And everywhere else. He was the perfect companion because her sisters couldn't see him.

It still might've been stolen, Ivy replied. He gave an understanding nod. He had brown eyes, Giles, and a good-humored face. Boyish rather than mannish. And hair just as red as her own—it was something they laughed at together.

But it's also just as likely someone honestly obtained it, Giles said. Don't worry about what you cannot know.

Ivy nodded. She hated the way her worries stuck to her like tree sap, never fully washing off. Sometimes Giles could talk them down with her, and sometimes Heidel. Heidel was actually better, but Ivy didn't like to bother her with her panic-of-the-hour. If it got really bad, she went to Heidel. For the rest, she had Giles.

The gallery was on the second floor, directly above the throne room and just as big. Ivy loved the sprawling tapestries, the paintings stuffed in gaudy frames. Battle scenes were not her favorite, but she enjoyed landscapes and florals, and especially depictions of life. People doing ordinary, everyday things—that's what Ivy herself liked to paint.

She stopped in front of a massive painting showing a queen holding an infant in her birthing bed. The figures weren't realistic, having elongated bodies and narrow limbs - a common artistic style. But Ivy knew the infant was her mother, Runa, whose own mother had suffered two stillbirths before welcoming a daughter. No other children followed. Runa spent her whole life being celebrated as her parents' precious miracle.

"It was before this very painting your father and I discussed having children," Runa had told her daughters. "We settled on nine girls, never thinking it would truly happen." She smiled with so much pride. "We are truly blessed."

Did she feel blessed to have a crippled daughter? Ivy had never found the courage to ask. She'd felt loved by her parents, no less than her sisters. But one conversation she'd had with her father forever left her in doubt.

Don't, Giles warned her. Don't let your mind go that way.

Ivy couldn't help it.

*********

"Tell me how you found me," Ivy said to her father. He insisted on carrying her up to bed every night, even in her tenth year. He never trusted the stairs. She never objected to his sturdy arms. It was better than being hugged.

Dellan chuckled. "Iviana...."

"I like hearing it!"

"They were selling babies at the market and I bought the cutest one."

"That's not it!"

"Then tell it back to me, since you know it so well."

Ivy grinned and adjusted her hands around his neck. "You were in the Kingdom of the Favored Gaze, where the fever was still raging. Somehow, the people had already heard about the travelling king who was adopting babies. You thought nothing of it. You stayed at an inn and went to sleep in your room. When you came out the next morning, no less than seventeen baby girls lay in baskets outside your door."

Dellan laughed as he turned up the next set of stairs. "I almost fainted."

"You looked at all those babies and didn't know what to do," Ivy said. "Because you could only take one girl from each kingdom."

"And I was already up to six," Dellan said.

"Right - you didn't have Jaedis or Ari yet. So you stood there looking at the babies, wondering what to do. And one of them smiled at you." Ivy snuggled closer to her father. "That was me."

She felt rather than saw Dellan's grin. "I'm a sucker for toothless smiles."

"You had your servants find good homes for the other girls," Ivy said. "It took a while."

"Yes. We suspected they were left by peasant men whose wives had died from Red Fever... or childbirth. Too poor and grief-stricken to know what to do with a baby. At least, that's what my advisors reasoned." He planted a kiss on Ivy's forehead and smiled. "I got the sweetest one."

"You liked my hair," Ivy said.

"Yes, and your pink kitten nose."

Ivy laughed. "And my cute foot?" He always called it her cute foot, the one that didn't point straight. When she was smaller, he would kiss it rapidly, tickling the sole with his short beard until she shrieked with laughter.

"Oh, I didn't know about your cute foot then. You were wrapped in a blanket," Dellan said. "Your mother noticed when I brought you back home."

A chill settled over Ivy. This detail was new. "You didn't know about my foot?"

"Well, not at first. Later on." He gave her a playful bounce. "We didn't mind it! We talked about the ways we could help you."

"Were you sad about it?" Ivy asked quietly.

"A little—for your sake. We knew you'd have struggles."

They reached Ivy's chamber and Dellan placed her on the bed, leaving the nursemaid Azie to finish the routine. Azie had also come from Favored Gaze, since Dellan had had to hire a new nursemaid each time he found another daughter.

"Azie," Ivy asked. "Did you know about my foot when my father employed you?"

"'Course. Saw that the first day." Azie dropped the nightgown over Ivy's head.

Ivy pushed through quickly. "Did you tell my father?"

"'Course not. Was afraid he might switch you out."

She had spoken Ivy's fear with precision. "You think he might've sent me away?"

Azie shrugged. "Couldn't risk it. I wasn't married, my own baby didn't make it. And I had milk for you. You were the right age, and he paid good."

Ivy had lain awake that night, churning it all in her head. Would he still have taken me if he discovered my foot sooner? She knew she couldn't ask her father. He would just laugh and say, "I would NEVER have switched you!" Meaning it with all his heart. But since it hadn't happened that way, no one could really know. He might've looked at the babies. Saw the cute one that smiled. Lifted her out of the basket (which he did), but her blanket slipped off (which it didn't). Blinked in surprise at the twisted foot, unexpected and not-yet-cute to him. Foretelling a future of work and worry over having a crippled daughter. After a moment's hesitation, he gently returned the orange-haired baby to her basket, and picked up another... checking her feet.

*********

Giles shook his head. You've convinced yourself he would've done that.

It seems the most likely, Ivy said. I just wish he'd seen my foot and decided to keep me anyway.

None of that matters. He loved you, Giles said.

Ivy sighed. Let's go up. My knee hurts. So did her hip and her spine. Having a skewed foot caused various pains from her heel all the way to her neck. That's why she didn't like walking. But Heidel insisted Ivy needed it to keep her limbs and her lungs strong. Except her lungs weren't strong at all—yet another problem she had.

Ten more minutes. Giles rested his hand on her shoulder. Then you can rest.

I want to paint a little, first. She had a stretched canvas in her chamber, and the beginnings of a new painting. It portrayed her sister Briette, stretching to light a chandelier in the heavy shadows before dawn. Briette lit every candle in the castle, every day. She never stopped working or lagged for energy. Whereas Ivy felt tired no matter what she did. She liked work. Were it not for her wretched foot and other problems, she might've been just like Briette.

A strong woman.

Stop tormenting yourself, Giles said.

I just hate being weak. I'm going to paint for an hour after my walk and don't let me shorten it. You're going to sit with me, right?

Of course! I love watching you paint. And I've told you, you're not weak, Ivy. The battles you fight are invisible to others.

Rather like my friends, Ivy said, sharing a laugh with Giles and then quickly composing her face. Didn't need Maelyn to walk in and catch her foolishly grinning at nothing.

Ivy had always had such friends. They changed, from time to time, and until recently, had always been girls. Giles was the first boy, modelled on a certain lively young prince she had seen at the Early Spring ball. She'd only changed his name and hair color. By now, Giles had become something more than a friend, though he hadn't tried to kiss her yet. Ivy didn't know what that kind of kiss felt like. Hence it was hard to imagine.

After ten minutes, Ivy travelled back to her room. She avoided speaking to Giles on the way because sometimes her lips unconsciously moved, causing her sisters to ask questions. "Just thinking stuff," Ivy would say. But once, Briette had cornered her after hearing Ivy talk to Janeska, her invisible friend of last year. Painfully, Ivy had confessed she sometimes made up companions.

Briette had been kind but firm. "We must live in the world that is real, Ivy."

Why? Ivy wanted to say. What had the real world done for her that she should honor it with her presence? She was an orphan—twice over—and a cripple, who spent her days in pain. Incapable of accomplishing a day's work as others did. Her mind tortured her from dawn until dusk with thoughts she didn't want and fears she couldn't fight. She lived with people she loved, but who misunderstood her, and the outside world saw her as strange. If she had to invent people to love her the way she wanted, well then, so be it.

The real world didn't deserve her.