The world, I decided, always looked a little different after you'd bet your heart. The orchard sky had been the same blue it was every morning, the palace the same combination of marble, banners, and voices but inside me, some fulcrum had shifted, letting in a slant of gold I hadn't noticed was absent. Maybe that's what it was to become an adult: the world didn't really change much, but you kept discovering new fissures of light.
Velka and I walked back to the palace slowly, both of us pretending not to notice my mothers waiting on the balcony. Every time I caught Velka glancing up with the tiniest hint of a smile, I tried to suppress my own smile and could not. We must have looked so odd two ten-year-old girls, one with a grass-stained uniform, one clutching a suspiciously empty pastry basket, both a little too quiet, a little too excited to be returning from "a long educational walk."
