#Chapter 135: Clara's Question

Ember Clara comes back from the palace gardens carrying an armful of dandelions and a question I'm not ready for. She spent the morning with Sophie and the other royal children—a noisy group that gathers most days in the courtyard, trading snacks and inventing games. The sound has become a background comfort I didn't know I needed, proof that Clara has what I never did: friends, belonging, a childhood that doesn't require armor. She drops the dandelions on my desk, climbs into the chair across from me, and tucks her legs underneath her the way she always does when she's about to say something she's been rehearsing. "Mom, Sophie has two brothers and a baby sister. And Marcus has a brother, and Lina has three sisters." She pauses, arranging a dandelion on the edge of my tactical report with careful precision. "How come I don't have any?" The question lands heavier than she knows, and I set down my pen because Clara reads avoidance the way I read terrain—instinctively and withou