ELLIE
When I agreed to accept glassblowing lessons from my father (to relearn the skills I bargained away to save Evander’s life during the third Trial), I expected him to want to go back to basics.
I just didn’t expect we’d be returning to these basics.
We stand in my father’s workshop, smoke from the furnace filling my nostrils. The overwhelming scent incites my gagging reflex, which is strange. You would think I’d be used to it by now.
I make a mental note to ask him if he’s burning a different type of coal than usual.
Of course, that could just be my way of not admitting why I’m feeling ill.
I’ve never considered myself an anxious person, but with Blaise’s disappearance and Evander’s extended absence, I recently find that just about anything can turn my stomach.
Even coating cast-iron pans with enameled glass, the task my father has currently assigned me.
We’ve been standing here for hours. In that time frame, an enormous pile of heavy cast-iron cookware has piled up beside me. It’s the new trend in Othian—enameled cookware—and my father has been all too keen to jump on it.
“Don’t you get tired of this?” I ask him, wiping sweat from my brow as we work. “It’s not exactly as refined as glassblowing, is it? I’m pretty sure you taught me to do this before I learned to walk.”
My father shoots me a knowing look, seeing through my not-so-innocent question. “I understand that being a princess has afforded you certain luxuries, Elynore, but I wouldn’t have expected the basics of the trade to be beneath you.”
I level him an equally challenging glare. “It’s not that it’s beneath me, Papa. I’m just not sure how it’s supposed to help me relearn how to glass blow.”
The process of enameling cast iron is a far cry from the intricacy it takes to form a pair of glass slippers.
“Glassblowing isn’t simply about skill with the hands and the torch and the furnace, Elynore. Glassblowing is about patience.”
“Yes, well, I don’t think my bargain took away my patience.”
“It couldn’t have,” says my father. The grin tugging on the edge of his lip should have been foretelling when he finishes with, “given that you never possessed that particular quality to begin with.”
I let out a groan, but it’s the playful sort, and the low rumbles of my father’s laughter warm my heart better than any furnace could.
As much as coating these pots bores me out of my mind, I’ve enjoyed the time it allows me to spend with my father. I’m adjusting to my life at the palace, and when Evander is home, it’s downright lovely, but I’ve still missed my parents. I’d gone from living with them to not seeing them for weeks after the debacle with the glass slipper, and I’m more than happy for an excuse to come visit them daily.
Besides. It’s an excuse not to attend King Marken’s meetings with his officials.
My father-in-law and I maintain a complicated relationship. On the one hand, I’m glad he respects me enough to invite me to meetings. That he cares about my opinion.
On the other hand, the king and several of his officials hold no such respect for Evander, and they certainly don’t hold back their opinions regarding my husband on my account.
It leaves me in a strange position, and though I always try to redirect the conversation away from what the king often refers to as “my offspring’s numerous insufficiencies,” I never seem to succeed.
Except for last week, when I told the king that if he wanted Evander to be prepared for the throne, he perhaps should have shown some forethought and trained Evander for the position from a young age.
Needless to say, I’ve been avoiding the meetings when I can.
“Now,” says my father, wiping his sweating palms on his apron. “Why do we coat cast iron with glass?”
“You ask me this question every day.”
“And?”
“And I get it right every day. One would think you’d trust that I know the answer.”
“Perhaps you remember the answer because I ask you every day.”
I laugh, then say, “Glass is resistant to chemicals in a way iron is not.”
“Much more resistant,” says my father, as if proud of the glass itself.
Indeed, he goes on with his daily ode to glass. “People underestimate glass, because they perceive it as easy to shatter. They assume iron is stronger, because iron does not break so easily. But glass is deceptively resilient, Elynore. The same chemicals which erode the iron, the glass finds to have little effect.”
“You should teach philosophy at the Academy, Papa,” I say, smiling up from my forty-thousandth pan this afternoon.
My father pokes out his lip and nods his head, as if he’s never considered this before, but thinks it’s a grand idea indeed.
“Life is like that,” he continues, apparently spurred on by my encouragement. “It is often the things that appear the most delicate that, when tested, we find to be the strongest.”
My father reaches out, squeezing my shoulder affectionately, and I can’t help the tears that burn at my eyes.
I don’t feel strong. Not anymore, at least. I haven’t for a while, not since losing my ability to form art with my glass. It’s not even about feeling strong, I suppose, but about feeling useful. Ever since Blaise disappeared and Asha and Kiran opened our eyes to the dangers brewing in Alondria, I’ve felt a sort of innate uselessness.
I’m not fae. I don’t have an immortal lifespan or unworldly strength. Asha is human like me, but she has her own powers. Her Gift of the Old Magic makes her useful. She saved Kiran’s and Fin’s lives through an illusion she’d crafted from nothing, didn’t she?
Not that I haven’t tried to be of use. Asha’s quick to remind me any time I feel useless that I’m the only one in our group who holds sway over the King of Dwellen, and that this is helpful in its own right. She thinks I’m the only one who can convince him of anything. Which was probably correct, up until my comment last week.
Still.
