So Anya became, gradually, a perfect princess. She walked so that it looked like she was gliding. She danced waltzes, and spent an hour a day sitting at her backboard to perfect her posture, her feet pointed and crossed at the ankle. She was drilled in charm by a professor from Lithia. She learned the twenty-one official smiles and the five approved laughs: delighted, amused, polite, warning, and repressive. She was taught sentences to repeat—How kind of you to come. Have you traveled far? Isn’t it beautiful weather? The king was pleased—but he did not let her return to the forest. “She’s an
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