*Maddy*

He doesn’t even know my name.

That’s all I can think about as I sit beside Ella and desperately try to pay attention to the workbooks in front of me on a long wooden table etched with little carvings of stick figures. I run a fingertip over several sets of carved letters, a testament to the past, and the little boys who were raised together in this very castle.

It’s hard to imagine King Isaac and Beta Cassian as children, especially naughty children who carved ...