I grasped at the edge of the sheets to pull them off me, but my entire body felt weak and unsteady, and I struggled to coordinate myself to the edge of the bed.

  The moment I tried to put weight on my legs to stand, they crumpled underneath me, and I fell to the floor with a thump.

  "Sophie?!"

  I heard Erika jolt awake, her footsteps racing from the other side of the bed. She threw herself to the ground next to me to support me with a deep, sobbing hug.

  "Sophie, you didn't wake up for days. You've never done that before, I... I thought you wouldn't ever wake up."

  She attempted to explain further, but her words became too scattered and mixed up to understand any single, coherent idea. I tried to brush my fingers through her hair, but found it difficult to do so.

  "Erika. Erika, slow down. What do you mean I didn't wake up for days? How long has it been?"

  She took sharp, quick breaths in rapid succession, repeatedly trying and failing to start a sentence. It took her a few good minutes to stop shaking; long enough to slowly lift me back into bed.

  "About... three days. You... at the ball. The bangle, the Queen announced that it had converted all your stored mana into pure force. Had you... had you been at full capacity, even a lesser mage would have had enough mana to kill everyone on the debut platform."

  Her hand trembled a bit as she reached out to hold me.

  "Even you would have... probably not made it. Adrian got the worst of it, but he made it out with only a few broken ribs."

  Hiccup.

  "But... William... Father gave me that bangle."

  Erika shook her head.

  "The official story is that Baroness Verger has confessed to having sabotaged the bangle. Her execution was... rather immediate."

  "Wh... What? That... but she... why would she..."

  I hadn't much liked the Baroness, but I had never wanted her to die.

  Erika covered her eyes with her hand to hide her returning tears.

  "I told you, Sophie. That's what it means to serve."

  I grabbed her hand, as hard as I could, yanking it suddenly to force her to meet my gaze.

  Her blue eyes. My eyes. Our eyes.

  "Erika. I never, ever want you to do anything like that for me."

  Erika went to cover her face again, but I held on as firmly as I was able.

  "Erika. I need you to swear. I need you to swear that you will never. Would never. Won't ever."

  But she shook her head, and pulled back her arm to her chest.

  I grew angry, and tried to sit up, but found myself still too weak to manage.

  "I'll go get you something to eat, Sophie. Something light."

  And with that, she fled, and as she opened the door I saw that the outside of it had a beautiful red bird fashioned out of rubies on the front.

  I put the back of my arm over my eyes to block the light, taking in deep breaths to calm myself.

  "The Ruby Room, then."

  ---

  "Diana," I thought to myself, as I slowly sipped the thin broth Erika had brought.

  She was still refusing to speak to me, but she was watching me carefully from the corner of the room as she pretended to be fixing up the buttons on one of my dresses.

  Looking down at the silver spoon I was holding, I stared into the warped image of my own reflection.

  A flash of anger came over me and I tossed everything against the wall, startling Erika.

  "Sophie?!"

  "The fuck do you mean, the world would be a better place without you!?"

  I slammed my fist against the headboard behind me, hearing a sickening crunch as one of my fingers broke.

  "Sophie!"

  Erika ran over to see what was wrong, but I sat there, refusing to say anything. I took deep, sharp breaths to force my magic to begin healing the damage, and a crackling noise rang out as my finger set itself back into place.

  I needed to tell Diana.

  I needed to find her again. I needed to tell her that she mattered. That I would have died without her. That the world was better with her. "That I..."

  I screamed wordlessly, smashing my fist against the headboard again just to feel something.

  Erika panicked, and ran out of the room.

  I wouldn't lose her like I lost Char. I needed to act. I refused to sit here and wait for her to do something stupid.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  "But she wasn't in the ballroom. I would have remembered, since I was using my magic. Is she back at the Hiems' estate?"

  Erika came back in, a kindly looking older woman at her side.

  The woman came to my side, and pressed down upon me with her hands. My magic flared up, but Erika's frightened face caused me to relent, and allow whatever this was.

  I suddenly grew sleepy as a calming scent washed over me. "Oh... I suppose that must have been... quite alarming..."

  ---

  It took a few days before I was back to full strength. My healing magic didn't seem to aid me in whatever weakness had fallen upon me, but I was thankful that it had allowed me to survive the event at all.

  Erika and I slowly returned to our normal state of affairs. She was my sister, and it was impossible for me to stay mad at her for the crime of caring about me, as much as I hated how she expressed it.

  It was, as she had said, her choice to make.

  Once I was well enough again to stand and walk, Adrian had visited, bringing me a rather nice bouquet of flowers. Erika later told me that the flower arrangement had been incredibly over-romantic, but flowers were just flowers to me.

  I had feigned that I was too weak to accompany him to the garden.

  I did, however, have somewhere else to be that day. A different man to see.

  Erika supported me with her arm as we made our way to the palace dungeons.

  ---

  William looked gaunt.

  He was trembling in the cold, still wearing his formal attire, now dirty and grimy. Several days of food sat on the ground untouched.

  He glanced up at me as we approached, but cast his eyes back down to the ground until we were all the way to the bars of his cell.

  He said nothing, and just stared at my shoes, waiting for me to speak.

  "William."

  "Sophia."

  I paused for a moment, waiting for him to say something, but he remained as pensive and unreadable as ever, and he said nothing.

  I remembered the William that had trembled in fear before putting the bangle on me, but didn't see any sign of him in the face of the man in the cell.

  After a minute or two of this, I turned to leave.

  "Sophia, I..."

  I stopped in my tracks, turning back to look at him once more.

  "I won't ask you to forgive me. I knew. I've known for years."

  He took a deep breath, his voice shuddering as he tried to say his next words.

  "F-Father... h-had... always planned this. For you."

  My stomach twisted inside.

  "From the moment you were born."

  I felt like I wanted to vomit.

  "It's traditional for Sevenths to become heir, Sophia. It's not often talked about outside the family, but it's how Father became Duke. When his older brother refused to step aside, he killed him."

  This time, I reeled so badly I nearly did vomit, but there was nothing to come out and so I merely heaved.

  "He told me you would do the same to me."

  His face screwed up, and he grit his teeth.

  "I never hated you, Sophia. I knew what would happen to you. I didn't want to get close. Father told me you were a m-mistake. A dangerous mistake."

  "But I knew you were never dangerous, Sophia. I knew and I did it anyway."

  He brought his shackled hands to his face, and started crying. I wanted to feel pity for him, but couldn't bring myself to.

  "So don't forgive me. What I've done can't be undone. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Sophia."

  "If you want me to annul your engagement to Adrian, I can do that for you. Father made you my ward before he left, so I have that power. I know it means nothing, compared to what I've done, but I can do it for you. If you want."

  He curled up in a ball in his cell, and I remembered that William, too, was exactly what Father had made him to be.

  "I've taken responsibility for your outburst, as my ward. I'll be here for a long time, Sophia. Probably until I die. Father's abandoned me now that I'm no longer useful. It was foolish to ever think I could ever be more than a pawn to him. So you know where to find me."

  Erika tugged on my arm, and we left the dungeon together.

  I didn't forgive him. But I also knew that Father had driven him to do this.

  "That's just what Father does to people."

  ---

  The walk back from the dungeons was quiet, and I felt sick, but Erika was with me.

  As we closed the door behind us, in relative privacy of the Ruby Room, I sighed a breath of relief.

  The bed looked nice.

  Feeling slightly mischievous, and in the mood to ruin my dress again, I jumped onto the bed with a nice, big, and cloudy floof erupting from the feather mattress.

  Erika sighed, leaning over to tug off my shoes and playfully tickle at my feet until I agreed, laughing, to stand up and let her take off my dress.

  As I stood in front of the mirror, being changed into my nightgown, I felt oddly relieved.

  We had survived this. Father wasn't here. I could now make a real choice as to where we went next.

  "Adrian? Prince Caesar? Somewhere else entirely?"

  Erika was with me, this time. And Father couldn't hurt us, for now.

  As Erika brushed my hair, I put my hands to my temples, thinking hard, before finally opening up.

  "I think... It might be best for us to go with Adrian, still. What do you think, Erika?"

  Erika paused for a moment.

  "We'll go wherever you choose, Sophie. I'm here with you."

  I frowned. "Alright, but, I wish you'd at least tell me if you thought it was a stupid idea."

  She shook her head. "You need to make your own decisions. I already told you, I choose to be with you. Every day. Forever."

  She leaned over to kiss me on the forehead before getting up to snuff the lamp on the wall.

  "We're family, Sophie. I love you."

  I teared up.

  "I love you too, Erika."

  She left me alone in the room, then, to be with my thoughts.

  "Diana is probably at the Hiems' estate. It'll be a long, expensive journey. And cold. Without Father's support, and with his and William's assets likely being seized by the crown, we'll need a sponsor like Adrian to make it there."

  I rolled over to hug the pillow tight to my chest, curled up in a ball on the bed.

  "It isn't the worst plan, I think. Marrying will be awful, but Diana will be there. I can think of the rest when I meet her again."

  I remembered Lady Ayda's words. "It's not a race I can win in one day. Erika and I are in this together. We'll figure it out."

  And I finally fell asleep.