Percival stood with his hand on the windowsill, watching the rain running down the glass, blurring the reflection of his face. In the corridor outside the door, someone coughed-a guard, a servant, or a ghost of duty, it doesn't matter. He thought of her—not as his brother's mother, not as the darling of the crowd, not as the woman who rode the cursed serpent with the unborn in her womb. He thought about the girl who called him a nuisance, while he searched in her for the face of the one who once taught him to read. Stupidly. But he still remembered the teacher's voice, how she spoke.: "Look at the fire, Percy. He's not the enemy. He's a test." Only the one that remained of her did not extinguish this fire. She was him.