I am ten and a half years old, and somewhat upset with my mother.

When she told me a friend was coming over and I should dress up nicely, I thought she meant Violet, which I think is very reasonable of me. Only a handful of other children my age have come over before and only Violet has come more than a couple of times, so I didn’t think it could be anyone other than her.

It is not Violet.

Standing in front of me is a boy whom I have never met. However, we have just been introduced. His name is Cyril Canterbury. He is my second cousin, his father a baron (of the area around Canterbury, the city itself a Crown City these days), and he was one the guys that Eleanor, well, you know. The author must have a second cousin she quite likes, because the book made extra sure to say that second cousins could marry and that it often happened and that their children were completely normal.

That reminds me, the book is called Snowdrop and the Seven Princes, but they’re not actually princes (except for one). They’re just called princes by the girls at the school because of how hot they are. Also, the name is kind of obviously a reference to Snow White; though the story itself is nothing alike, the seven princes loosely follow the seven dwarves.

Cyril is (was) “grumpy dwarf”. In the story, he kept to himself, full of angst, always brooding, he secretly wrote poetry to cope with the untimely death of his beloved mother, his father was always distant—and you get the picture.

Right now, he’s just a pouty kid. Going through the dates, his mother passed away five years ago and he’ll go to a boarding school when the next academic year starts in September. I’d forgotten until now that, in the book, Eleanor knew him before the prep school. It didn’t say how, so I didn’t think it would be this.

Oh, by this, I mean dancing lessons.

“Master Cyril, if you would hold miss Nora as I showed you.”

As if she arranged this whole thing for her own amusement, my mother is the instructor. She told us she will bring in a real teacher when we have shown our dedication.

That probably won’t ever happen.

Cyril doesn’t even want to face me, looking to the side and only glancing at me out the corner of his eye. I don’t particularly want to be here either, but it annoys me how much he doesn’t, especially since he doesn’t understand that this only feeds into my mother’s amusement.

“Oh just come here.” I step forward and grab his hand, putting it on my shoulder. Though he tries to resist, one of us spent their childhood climbing trees and muddying dresses and it wasn’t him (I hope). Once his hand is there, he gives up and it sticks in place.

When I look at my mother for the next instruction, she has a satisfied smile.

This gruelling practice continues for the worse part of an hour. He shuffles his feet, and never looks at me, and slouches. At one point, I wonder if he secretly is trying to be boring as well, doing his best to make sure I don’t fall for him. If he is doing that, he’s a lot better than me. I think about standing on his toes or slipping over or something like, but I really doubt he could think any less of me already. Besides, my mother would make a comment, and I don’t want that, not one bit.

By the time we finish, I’m quite exhausted and thirsty and I feel like something sweet. Without thinking, I go to hold his hand, because he’s obviously feeling the same so we should go to the kitchen together and have something to eat and drink.

Before I actually touch his hand, I realise what I’m doing.

That habit has really been ingrained into me. I mean, the maids would always hold my hand, and my mother would, and children are supposed to hold hands so they don’t get lost. But we’re not really children any more.

It’s a little lonely.

That all passing in a second, I turn to mother and ask her we may have some refreshments, and she sends Rosie off to the kitchen. Cyril didn’t say anything about me asking on his behalf, maybe he didn’t notice. It might be that he also doesn’t listen to me. If he wants to do that, I don’t mind.

Rosie soon comes back with biscuits and tea. Because of my sweet tooth, most of our snacks include jam or (less commonly) honey, these shortbread biscuits somewhat like scones. Despite ignoring me, he’s more than happy to sit down and eat. He doesn’t look any happier for it, but no one eats so quickly when just being polite.

When we finish, he stays around a while longer. My mother is still with us as chaperone—we’re too old to be left alone together. Nothing happens anyway. Neither of us wants to even talk, so an awkward silence drags out until Craig comes in to announce Cyril’s father has arrived.

The cheeky brat doesn’t return my goodbye.

I’m still with my mother in the ball room. I can’t tell what she’s thinking, but she isn’t smiling, so something’s wrong.

“I was hoping you two may get on,” she softly says.

Well, I’m definitely surprised by that, not expecting her to play matchmaker for me for, like, eight more years. “I don’t want a boyfriend,” I mumble.

She shakes her head. “I didn’t mean it like that,” she says, idly tucking some loose hair behind her ear. “He is… going through a rough patch at the moment. It would be nice for him to have a friend.”

My thoughts stumble backwards. Though she didn’t say, I already remembered what his childhood was like earlier. And I feel for him, I do. But it’s, like, difficult to put to words. I don’t want my mother to think poorly of me, so I try anyway.

“That is, you know, boys and girls can’t really be friends. And anyway, he wouldn’t even look at me. He clearly doesn’t want to get on with me, so I’m not going to force myself to try and get on with him either,” I say, not as clearly as I wanted to.

“Is that so?” my mother says.

I know I’ve not explained myself well, but I don’t think I can do any better. After a while, she starts talking again, about when father will be back and Sarah sent a letter to say she is well and it’s nearly time to prepare for Joshua’s birthday.

Though I get the feeling it’s more to distract her than me, I listen closely and nod along.

For the next three months, Cyril comes over every few weeks for another lesson. He doesn’t warm up to me at all, so I end up being rather bossy—I’m not going to awkwardly stand around while he huffs and shuffles his feet about.

I think my mother feels bad for this because she tells me one day that she’s invited someone to tutor me in magic. Finally!

Oh, I think I said before that there’s magic. I mean, it wasn’t a fantasy-adventure story, so it’s not, like, massive fireballs and deadly icicles. Technically, humans don’t use magic at all. We ask the faeries for help and, if they feel like it, they might make a fire a bit bigger.

Magic is also something that the upper-class doesn’t do. It’s really random how “talented” you are since it comes down to how much the faeries “like” you. They don’t talk or anything, and you can’t even see them, so there’s not really a better way to describe it. Because of this, rich people just pay people who do have the talent if they need it.

Besides, this magic isn’t actually that useful. Like I said, it can make a fire bigger, but it can’t just make a fire from nothing—it still needs logs.

Anyway, there’s seven types of magic: fire, earth, air, water, metal, light, spirit.

Fire magic, if you’re okay at it, you can warm up a cup or a teapot, so it’s a talent that commonfolk like to have. Also lighting candles.

Earth and metal magic, well, they’re just shortcuts and not many people have enough talent to make it worthwhile. Earth magic helps… I’m not really sure, but it’s to do with farming. Maybe it breaks down roots, or loosens the soil. That sounds useful. Metal magic helps remove impurities, but people have found out how to do that anyway. It doesn’t otherwise make the metal special or anything.

Water magic mostly just lets you move water. If buckets weren’t a thing, then it would be handy. The amount you can pick up obviously varies, but it’s between a cup and a sink.

Air is air. A small, weak wind in the area around you. Light is light, useful if it’s dark and that’s it.

Spirit is, um, weird? It’s not about ghosts or life force or anything like that. Really, it’s craft magic. At the low talent end, you can use it to thread a needle; at the high end, you can use it to sew or knit, but that much talent is super rare. The name comes from an old belief that little spirits were doing the work, but we now know the faeries are just using magic for us.

Anyway, children don’t usually learn magic and that’s because it’s really boring and, as I said, not all that useful. It’s memorising a chant in an ancient language and a lot of sitting around while you try to get the faeries to like you more.

Still, it’s like Ellie is excitedly whispering in my ear, being able to use any magic such a fantastical thing to someone who grew up in a world without it. Childish, maybe, but I can’t help it.

The tutor who comes is a young woman, around her early twenties I would say. Ms Oare. She’s not from the upper-class (because of how she addresses me as “Lady” rather than “miss”), yet she’s well-dressed and such. I think she’s probably something like a granddaughter of a baron, a branch of the family that lacks a title but still has money and connections.

She seems to be a pleasant person, and she is pleasantly surprised by how much I already know. A long afternoon lesson readies me for my first spell, which also tests my talent with fire magic. It’s called the spark spell and is used to start fires (and light candles).

And I can do it! At the least, I have a bit of talent with fire magic.

Since it’s far for her to travel, she spends a week at the manor and we have a lesson every day—including the weekend. Over these days, she tests my talent with all the types of magic.

If I rate my talent with each from zero to five, zero being no talent and five being super talented, then, well, I’m mostly ones. With fire magic, I’m maybe almost a two, and spirit magic is like two-point-five. Everything else, I can just manage the simplest spells.

That said, I mean, magic is useless. Ms Oare says, when she comes next, she’ll teach me how to warm cups, and that I may try my hand at sewing if my mother has no objections. I didn’t ever think about sewing before, but I’m a little excited now.

To keep me busy until she returns, she leaves behind some books. They mostly talk about enchantments—I was focused on spells before, so I forgot to mention them. While spells are weak, enchantments are, like, rituals where we give the faeries stuff they like so they make something do something. Nearly every house has a basin and toilet that uses an enchantment to produce water and then “recycles” it. (Clean water comes in, dirty water disappears. None of the books I have actually say what happens.) There’s also lamps. In richer houses, there’s baths and hot taps. The Royal family even have a few self-moving carriages—no horses needed. In Ms Oare’s books, it says that refrigerators and iceboxes are also enchantments which are becoming more commonplace. There’s a few niche things also mentioned, but they’re not interesting.

Basically, enchantments kind of are technology.

Though there’s a lot of things on my mind these days, I’m really looking forward to these lessons. Even the dancing lessons, they’re awkward and stuff, but it’s something different now and then.

I’m really trying to stay positive. I’m trying.