My mother fussed about the kitchen, muttering over her supplies. “Go upstairs and move Mara’s things to your room. We can use her room for Leif and this…Ulrick, is it? Cesca’s son?” Mother shot me a questioning glance.

I nodded.

“Why doesn’t he stay with his family?”

“They had a disagreement over his decision to come to the Citadel,” I said.

“And he’s been working with you at the Magician’s Keep?” Her eyebrows hovered at midforehead.

I sighed at the unspoken question. “Yes. He’s a colleague. We’re building a glass shop for the Keep.”

“He’s a nice-looking boy from a reputable family.” She scanned my rumpled travel clothes. “Perhaps Mara could lend you one of her pretty dresses for dinner tonight.”

Ignoring the implication, I climbed the steps to arrange the rooms and stopped in shock at the threshold. Tula’s grief flag was gone. The shelf above her bed was empty. Her glass animals and various treasures gone. I held on to the doorjamb, feeling light-headed. Footsteps sounded behind me, and I swallowed the emotional rock lodged in my throat.

“I forgot to tell you,” my mother said. “We decided it was time. I saved Tula’s fox for you. I know how much you liked it.” She pointed to my bed stand.

I picked it up—all that was left of my sister. “It’s been almost five years. Why now?”

“Both you and Mara are older now. You will be graduating this year. I’m hoping Leif will become a member of our family and perhaps you—”

“Mother,” I warned.

“Well, I can hope, can’t I? Besides every time you visit you have a friend with you, so we needed a guest room.” She sighed. “It was time to stop clutching the old days and embrace the new. And I’m hoping one day this house will be filled with grandchildren.” She held up a hand. “Don’t ‘mother’ me. I’ll say what I want when I want. Now get moving, I’m sure the boys will want to get washed up before dinner.”

I replaced the fox on my table. My mother had a point about Tula’s flag and, while we may embrace the new, we won’t ever forget.

“…Opal decided to try to use a bellows to pump air into the molten glass. She made a huge bubble. It was so thin it cooled too fast and burst. Looked like snow,” Mother said.

The dinner table erupted with laughter and I wished to disappear. Why couldn’t they pick on Mara or my brother, Ahir? Because their mistakes weren’t as funny and they didn’t try everything they could imagine to put a bubble into glass and produce disastrous results. They just had to blow air into the pipe. Jealous? Who me?

Ulrick was enjoying himself so I tried to keep my sense of humor. At least my family paid attention to me. It would be worse to sit here while everyone ignored me. I suffered through the stories and didn’t die of embarrassment. When dinner was over, I helped clean up and then escaped outside, needing a moment alone.

I sucked in the crisp night air. A half-moon hovered in the sky, casting a mist of light. I scanned the grounds around my home. A cat stalked a field mouse behind the glass factory, but otherwise all was quiet.

I hadn’t told my parents about Sir and Tricky’s abduction. But since the night of the wild dog attack, no other incidents had happened on the road. I felt safe here. The kitchen door opened. Leif and Mara headed toward the factory, hand in hand. I checked on the horses, and pulled a few things I would need from my saddlebags.

“There you are,” my father said. “Let’s go to my lab and go over your supply list. I told Ulrick to meet us there.”

He waited while I dug the small orb and a few glass spiders from my bag. I wanted to show them to him.

“Nice young man, your Ulrick,” Father said as we headed toward his lab.

“He’s not mine. We’re colleagues.” I tried to keep the exasperation from my voice.

“Don’t get all huffy at me.” He aimed a stern stare.

I regressed into a ten-year-old being scolded. “Sorry, Father.”

“As I was saying, Ulrick is quick and intelligent. I like him.”

It was the same description Ulrick had used for Moonlight. I suppressed a giggle, thinking about other descriptors like strong and loyal, which could be applied to both men and horses.

“He comes from a good family,” Father said.

A purebred, I thought.

“He has a very different style with the glass.”

Unique markings.

“It’s a shame Cesca didn’t encourage his experiments.”

Rejected by his mother.

“But I’ve told him he could use our factory anytime.”

Joined a new herd.

When we entered my father’s lab and Ulrick greeted me with genuine affection, I felt bad about my comparisons. Deep down I knew why I did it and why I kept telling my family Ulrick and I were colleagues. Because I didn’t want to hope. Didn’t want to imagine there was more between us than building a glass shop for the Keep. Avoiding the pain of rejection, I tried to rationalize. Or was my distancing due to a certain Stormdancer? Talk about slim hope. Kade had probably distanced himself from our connection. I should do the same. He would soon forget about me.

My father sat behind his desk and the three of us reviewed the supply list for the kiln. Beside each item, he wrote the name of a supplier Ulrick and I should visit in the morning. We discussed the specifications of the kiln and who to order the white coal from.