Bulldozing through a successful evening with Velka Nightthorn is more difficult than, oh say, teaching a cat how to waltz or coaxing my mothers to choose curtain fabric with each other. But as I snuck through the half-restored palace at dawn, clutching a pilfered recipe scroll and my last three copper pieces, I was resolute. Velka had dragged me out of the darkness, put her neck out for my siblings, and nearly bled to death twice for my family. Surely, after all that, I could make her smile even laugh. Once. And not at my own expense.
Besides, hope required action. The sort of hope that stayed alive after a siege and a kidnapping and an entire city discovering that even a princess had limits. The sort that baked bread instead of breaking things. That was the hope I'd have to trust now.
