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slowly as milk in a pail from an old cow. We were working on a scene of knights at a tournament, and my meager needlework skills had been exiled to the clouds in the sky. Simprianna, for all her mental deficiencies, was surprisingly brilliant at knowing where to stitch to make an expression look jubilant or defeated, so she was doing faces. I stopped for a second and watched her needle flying in and out, creating a sense of fervor on every visage.
    Jed had looked just as fervent declaring his hopes for the refugee camps. I remembered thinking years ago, about the time my father married Lucille, that everyone must have something that matters to them more than anything else, that blinds them to everything else. How else to explain my father and Lucille? He waslearned and honorable and true; she was base and lazy and greedy and mendacious. She was probably intelligent enough, but she did not care about knowledge, only gossip and fashion and getting her own way.
    For a while I feared that what people whispered was true, that my father was lovesick, blinded to her faults by his desire to touch her skin, caress her body, join his to hers. (She was not bad-looking, if you didn’t know her.) I don’t think most twelve-year-olds want to think about their parents having intimate relations; how much worse that my father’s relations were with Lucille. But then, by listening at doors and watching them together, I hit upon what I was sure was the truth.
    Somehow she’d figured out that his books mattered most to him, and she’d been crafty enough to pretend to love them too. I believe she’d even promised to catalogue them for him—a task he’d been vowing to undertake for as long as I could remember but despaired of ever accomplishing. Of course, after they were married, her true views came out. I never saw anyone look as hurt as he did the day she shoved away a particularly rare book he was showing her and snarled, “Get that vile, dusty thing away from me.”
    I’m ashamed to say I tried to deepen the hurt, reporting to him every inane, vicious, and ignorant comment she had ever made about him or his books. Childishly, I thought he could just undo his mistake, unmarry her. I didn’t understand honor and promises—or didn’t want to. He began traveling a lot more, to search for ever-rarer books,but also to avoid Lucille. And that was what he was doing when he died.
    So that was my father’s passion and where it led him. And now I knew Jed’s. Wanting to help those hurt by the war was a noble cause, to be sure. Why did that bother me? Was it because I didn’t have a cause of my own? Was I supposed to?
    I brought my needle in and out dozens of times, pondering that question. I am engaged, I reminded myself. Prince Charming is supposed to be your passion. No—he is your passion. You love him.
    Somehow, though, it seemed like I needed more. Maybe it was because I’d won him too easily. I’d known girls in my village who’d set their hearts on a particular boy, then plotted their days so they’d be coming out of the baker’s just in time to bump into their beloved as he was leaving the miller’s. They’d save and scrimp for weeks to have enough sugar to bake a pie for their intended, only to say, giggling, “Oh, it was just some extra we had—thought you might want it,” when the pie was delivered, as if any sign of wanting him would scare him off (which it sometimes did).
    I had hardly plotted to ensnare the prince. I’d never even dreamed it was possible. I’d just gone to the ball as a lark, partly out of curiosity, partly to spite Lucille. (Would I have cared about going if she hadn’t forbidden me?)
    I felt a surge of triumph—oh, how I had spited her. Then I was instantly ashamed. Perhaps, truly, what mattered most to me was beating Lucille. It didn’t seem like a veryworthy cause. As much as she’d