Sometimes her highness sent for me, usually without the other children, but sometimes with one or more of them.

  She taught me needlework, along with my mother and one of my maids. While we worked, and my maid closely monitored my progress, Aunt Glory would casually interrogate me about her younger sister and brothers.

  Yup. My mother was only sixteen when I was born, so about the time I figured out the children were her half siblings not her children or her niece and nephews, they were both nineteen.

  The emperor had fourteen children by twelve women. Their titles were assigned by age. My playmates were the fifth princess and the eighth and ninth prince respectively.

  I did not get the impression that Aunt Glory saw either of her parents often. They were the Emperor and Empress of a huge empire, and often traveled. This was a summer palace, even though we all lived here year round.

  I had been completely oblivious to the imperial court descending on our home last summer.

  The imperial couple did not often reside at the same place, nor did they travel together. The empress had borne three girls, and after the first, her husband had started taking princess consorts. Her rule seemed to be one child per mother.

  Once I began to understand the dynamic of the court I began to spy more deliberately for my mother and her patroness.

  You see, our position relied on her position. The princess paid my mother in goods and services for me.

  In return, I listened closely to the gossip and read every news broadsheet and magazine I could find to try to comprehend my place in the world.

  My father was a Viktel, a non hereditary title that came with a hereditary title of Lord and Lady to his children. In essence, Viktel meant government official. In particular he was in charge of the imperial treasury at this location. It should be noted that my father was four years older than my mother and their romance happed within weeks of his posting to the palace. It was a secret, rushed romance that might have come to nothing if I had not resulted.

  One day, not long before I turned four, I happened upon someone’s lost or discarded reed hook in a basket of threads waiting to be wound onto cards or bobbins for embroidery or lace work. They were thrums, that is to say, threads that had been cut off a loom when the cloth was finished.

  Most of the fine threads were shades of pink, with a blue or purple strand at measured intervals.

  I was in the basket because I was sorting the colors for other people’s embroidery. If I kept busy with something like that, I could get out of bleeding on a poor piece of cloth while pretending to care about my stitches.

  I almost immediately began turning the thrums into crochet flowers.

  The reed hook was quite small, meant for these fine, lace thin threads, so my stitches were tiny, fit for my tiny hands.

  I worked my threads in as I went and used the blue thread to chain them together. I was just having fun. It wasn’t even a very impressive pattern. I started with a triangle and was leaning towards making it a shaw with a flower border. I was just trying to determine how many double crochet chain one stitches I could get out of one thread when I was cruelly interrupted.

  “Is that my reed hook!?” Her highness’s snootiest lady in waiting, Viscountess Sonia d’Luft demanded. I had concluded from conjecture she was placed into Princess Gloriana’s court by an opposing faction of the court.

  I looked from the skirt she was hemming to the thrum colors. “I imagine so.” I said mildly.

  “It has been missing for two weeks! Have you had it this whole time?” She was pissed.

  I snorted. “I found it today. You left it in the basket when you piled these threads in. There’s a thimble and a pin cushion in here too. I was just busying my hands.”

  “Sonia.” Aunt Glory said sharply. “Miranda, it’s finders keepers when someone discards supplies in one of the baskets. What is something you want in trade for the hook?”

  I considered the fine mithril wire and inlaid gems. I looked up at Sonia who was quietly seething.

  “Do you have more of this blue, Lady Viscountess?” I asked thoughtfully.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  She suddenly turned all smiles and fake friendliness. I knew the thread was little to no cost to Her Highness’s ladies. The palace had a whole workshop where system blessed crafters used magic to spin the linen, silk, wool and other fibers into threads suitable for the imperial court.

  The Fourth Princess had a weekly allotment of threads from the workshop and could give them to any of her ladies.

  “I do, Lady d’Yarin.” I was aware that omitting my mother’s name was a deliberate slight. “In fact, if you wish you may have all my partial cones and rolls.” All of her discards, since she would not use them. “Olivia, go run and fetch the baskets from under the sideboard in my rooms.”

  Her attendant curtsied to the room and rushed away.

  “And find her a hook the same size with a nice plain handle from the bin on the top shelf.” Aunt Glory said slightly dismissively. That was a slight too. The princess was treating the spy as if she were a systemless mortal servant, ordering her around. “I believe that satisfies the spirit of the finders keepers law.”

  Olivia came back with two large baskets of yarn. Three of me could have fit in each one with leftover room for the books we were reading.

  Lady Sonia brought over six hooks with the same size wire and I tried them all until I found the one that felt best in my hand.

  I moved the thrums out of the basket and handed the whole thing to her with all her lost supplies. She gasped and moved the folded paper at the bottom into her dress quickly.

  I tried hard not to roll my eyes. She could have hidden it better if she hadn’t moved it.

  “Amelia.” Mother said quietly, motioning. My bodyguard took the baskets and brought them to me.

  I took the nearly full cone of blue thread off the top and nodded to my knight. “To my room, if you don’t mind.” I ordered. I had another peacekeeping idea.

  I spent the next four hours crocheting a filet lace shawl large enough for an adult. I blocked it. Then I spent another two days in my room crafting and placing three dimensional flowers and slip stitching a mass of flat flowers and vines. Despite the simple ground and the easy stitches, it was gorgeous.

  I carried it to Aunt Glory’s solar the next time I was invited. I even quietly asked to see our patroness in private. I laid the shawl out on a large table.

  “Do you think you could use this to turn her into a double agent?”

  “A what now? Who? I mean did you do this all by yourself?”

  I looked it over. “With the reed hook and a needle in a few places, yes.”

  “This is gorgeous.”

  “The lady, of course. I don’t have enough information to know who placed her here, but even I can tell she’s sending messages about you to someone.”

  Her highness pursed her lips in annoyance. “My brother, the first prince, no doubt. Or rather his mother Princess Consort d’Jania. I’m sure she has spies in every corner of the family.”

  I knew that name. The first seven princess consorts were all high noblewomen from important families. That meant the first six princes each had the backing of a region or at least a coalition of noble families.

  I had studied the peerage book in the library enough times to know that Sonia was the oldest daughter of an Earl with ties to the d’Jania family.

  “Can you make me one of these?”

  “Give me the thread, at least two weeks and some extra large sheets of the paper everyone uses for pattern making.”

  “How is the hook?”

  I shrugged. “Could be worse, could be a lot better.”

  “Do you think you could design a better one?”

  I nodded slowly. At least I could copy the ones I used to use.

  Aunt Glory took a brooch off her skirt and melted it using magic. “Hated that one anyway.” She let the cooled lump fall into her hand. “Draw me what you want.”

  I nodded and pulled out my ubiquitous notebook. I drew the basic shape. I drew the little grooves beside the hook. I explained everything about the shape as I drew. Then I held up the hook I had been using to display how small it should be.

  She nodded and casually reproduced the exact shape and size I wanted, including the raised pattern on the flattened center which actually helps with grip and control even though it looks decorative.

  “How is that?”

  Except for the color and the hatching instead of the Boyle, it looked just like a size seven or eight steel hook. “Perfect.”

  “Looks like I have enough for three more. Bigger or smaller?”

  “Smaller.” I said quickly. “Handle about the same but hook as small as you think you can get it. Then one halfway between the two and the last one bigger, two or three times bigger than the first one for yarn.”

  The princess smiled and nodded. Ten minutes later I had four brand new high quality crochet hooks.

  “I will get you the thread for my mantilla. Give her the shawl after I have worn mine in public.”

  I smiled conspiratorially and bowed slightly like a crafter.

  The thread Her Highness sent to my room was white silk spin with three very thin gold wires along the whole length. The flowers were pastel pink and violet. The green was barely greener than the white.

  It would be a veil worthy of an imperial princess.

  I had spent the two days before the thread arrived sketching and ideating. I landed on a no cut floral motif. Something I used to do for the few blankets I had made. Really, I was digging back to high school for this. I didn’t touch a crochet hook after I started college.

  It was a veil, so I went with an airy spiderweb motif that was mostly chains, leaving large spaces in the fabric. I started with tiny pink and purple flowers on a green ‘vine’ so I could fold and roll the edge into a little bouquet of flowers. Not my original idea. I saw it on a video and it almost made me want to crochet again. Almost.

  Then I made the main body of the veil, the web part, connecting it to the border as I worked. Right at the end I embellished the surface with vines and large, lush flowers. It was nearly three times the size once I blocked it.