“Tell me.” When her mother didn’t respond, her father growled. “She is eight—and she has told me that her dearest friends are characters in books.” “She has Aedion.” “She has Aedion because he is the only child in this castle who isn’t petrified of her—who hasn’t been kept away because we have been lax with her training. She needs training, Ev—training, and friends. If she doesn’t have either, that’s when she’ll turn into what they’re afraid of.”
