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Grandmother used to.
    I once listened to the rasp of her voice as I washed the dishes. Her ancient rocker creaked forward, splintered back. Creaked forward, splintered back. I scrubbed a plate, the faint sound of soap bubbles popping in the silence.
    She cooked. I cleaned up afterward while she told stories. Outside, the wind battled against the glass, as if angry it could not witness Grandmother’s story, too.
    “When the world needed structure, the magicians of Relina brought it,” Grandmother said. “With their power, they put order to the chaos. They made life simple again with their spell-songs.”
    Grandmother paused. I finished my chore and unstopped the sink. Wiping in a pattern, I washed the counter and then the table. As I hung the towel from the rack near the icebox, Grandmother began again.
    “They removed the distractions from our lives. The unpredictabilities. I remember my mother telling stories about the way magicians used to be revered. Her mother spoke of golden-haired women who could sing comfort to an entire village, and men who chanted seven years’ worth of crops into storage, and those who searched for the broken-hearted and healed them.”
    A smile formed on Grandmother’s weathered face. “Such stories my grandmother used to weave.”
    “Could you weave one for me?” I settled on the hardwood floor next to her creaking-splintering chair.
    “No, dear Echo, I cannot.”
    The wind moaned with me. “Why not?”
    The wrinkles around Grandmother’s eyes seemed to grin with her. “Oh, all right. I may be able to remember one or two tales.”
    Now, here without her, a sob shuddered through my chest. Greta paused in the application of my makeup. “Are you all right, child?”
    “Yes,” I murmured, trying desperately to box up the memories of Grandmother.
    “No crying now,” she scolded. “You will ruin your perfect eyes.” She smiled at me, meaning it as a playful jest, and a swell of gratitude warmed me.
    “Tell me what His Majesty is like,” I said.
    Greta tapped the applicator brush against the lip of the blush container. “He is very handsome,” she started. “And tall, and his holdings increase by the day.”
    None of this interested me, as handsomeness was subjective and I didn’t need a large palace to be comfortable. “What of his favorite food?”
    “I do not know, my lady.”
    “Does he like animals?”
    “I do not know, my lady.”
    “How does he take his coffee in the morning?”
    At this, Greta stalled completely. “I do not know, my lady.”
    I allowed her to finish my makeup without another question. Lucia and Helena had disappeared into the bedroom, and Greta escorted me through the doorway. A canopied bed sat in the center of the room, with a rug peeking out each side. The carpets blended nicely with the deep eggplant color of the walls and the dark mahogany of the hardwood floor. A small contingency of plants guarded a wide glass door, beyond which I saw only darkness.
    The navy blue draperies had been pulled back, and I imagined the effect they would have when released. They would block all light, turning the purple on the walls into shadows, and the browns in the rugs into blacks, and the creams of the linens on my bed into kohls.
    “The tornado has passed?” I peered through the glass door.
    “No, dear,” Helena said. “Beyond that door lies a protected courtyard. The winds will not reach down here unless the tornado travels directly over this house.” She moved to the window and released the drapes so I could no longer see outside. As predicted, the room felt closed off from life outside, devoid of color, existing in only gray and ecru.
    “What is to say the tornado will not pass directly over this house?”
    “His Majesty has his sorcerers casting protection spells.” Helena smiled in a way I thought she meant to be comforting. It only increased the pressure in my stomach. “The tornado won’t bother us here.”
    I wondered whom the tornado