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useless, she had thought at the time, but her other gift was suddenly not—if only she knew how to use it. She had left home, determined to find a way.
    Kitty recalled those days with displeasure. She had done nothing but waste precious time in the end and she, of all people, should have known better. Youth, it is true, is wasted on the young.
    When the rest of the family moved to America without her, Kitty had returned to their home. The answers she had been seeking had been there all along.
    At first she had wandered aimlessly through the rooms and hallways as her feet traced the pattern in the carpets, recalling the route they’d once followed beside another pair of larger, surer feet. Louis’ feet. When she could no longer bear the reminders of her brother in every dusty corner, she had turned the coach house into a place where memory would be close, but not so stifling.
    It was during the process of closing down the great house that she had found again the hidden stair and recalled the words the hag had spoken on the night of the king’s visit.
    Break the spell —Kitty had known then with a sudden, piercing pain, what the old woman had meant.
    Once realized, it seemed so obvious that Kitty had raged for days at her own stupidity. Her brother would never have loved the king of his own accord; Ludwig must have enchanted him. The hag had been telling her to break his spell. It had been another shock to imagine the hag was herself, in the distant future, warning herself about Ludwig. Was it a future in which Louis lived or died? She could not know for certain, but there was one thing of which she’d been sure.
    An enchantment was the answer. In Bayern the land itself is magic, and no king ever loved his land as much as Ludwig II. He was a dreamer and in dreams magic is made. Her family had been loyal and all loved their monarch deeply, in the way that subjects will. But Louis’ love—she was certain—had been born of magic. It was unnatural, and it had caused him to do unnatural things.
    Yes, Thekla and the others could hate her all they liked. It hardly mattered now. Only she knew Ludwig’s secret and saw how it fit into the rest of her brother’s tale. There was no need for her sisters to learn the truth. Kitty smiled, her foul mood passed.
    All Kitty needed was time, and she had plenty of it.

Chapter 8
    Time has a strange way of passing—blink and a day becomes years. Before the sisters knew it, Helena was walking and talking and had grown taller than their knees. Ink marked the moments to be recalled and diaries were filled with elaborate descriptions of Helena’s many achievements. The aunts adored her, for in her they saw all that was good in themselves and if they spoiled her just a little, it was only done out of love.
    Helena’s gifts quickly revealed themselves. She was a supple girl, sleek of skin and hair, whose eyelids hung low and dark lashes turned up and when she smiled a dimple appeared in the corner of her cheek. Intelligent and charming, it was difficult for her aunts to resist the gifts they themselves had given her. Her doctor, who called monthly, gave up on his charts as Helena surpassed all the statistics he knew. Her tutors, some of the best the continent could offer, were astonished to find she could often outsmart them. The aunts shared triumphant smiles, knowing themselves entirely responsible for Helena’s apparent perfection.
    She grew like an impossible, beautiful weed. Yet as her aunts’ generous gifts flourished, they seemed to drain Helena of other, perhaps more necessary, nutrients—essential elements such as empathy or concern. Helena was a product of her gifts; as much a homunculus as any lump of animated dirt and like such, she seemed to lack a soul or any part that could be considered of it.
    Her aunts would see no wrong in her. If she shouted or threw the butter-knife, why, that was just a tantrum or a mood. The doctor called them growing pains. He knew better than to