And to think she had been so confident about the physical training. She mocked herself for it now. She would collapse on the first lap. She would collapse walking to the training grounds.
Perhaps, she thought, she should simply ask Seline for lessons. A proper teacher would speed everything up. She could have a core in a month.
She went to find her, and stopped in the corridor outside the drawing room, because Seline was already there and so was the Duke, and they were talking about her.
"She's far too young," Seline was saying. "The body has to be ready. She should wait."
"I agree entirely," the Duke said. "Her priority for now is getting a little chubby."
"Chubby!" Seline said, enthusiastically. "Yes! Round! Round like a bun!"
"Chubby," they chanted at each other, delighted with themselves. "Chubby, chubby."
Rosette stood in the corridor and understood, with a sinking feeling, that these two adults were going to keep her away from every form of training they could think of, and that her entire assignment for the foreseeable future was to gain weight.
She squared her shoulders. She would ask again tomorrow.
In another room, a blond boy named Lucas slept the sleep of the utterly untroubled.
At dinner, Rosette watched Lucas eat what appeared to be his own body weight in meat after a day's training, and wondered whether she could do that. She thought perhaps she could try.
Knock, knock.
The sound at her ornate door startled her out of her calculations.
"Rosette? It's your dad. I'm coming in."
This late? She sat very still on the bed, wondering what the visit was for. Then she flinched, screwed her eyes shut, and braced for the worst.
She peeked out of one eye.
There was a teacup in front of her face.
"Trouble sleeping?" the Duke asked, taking her hand and closing it around the cup with a smile. "It's warm milk. I heard you moving about as I passed."
Heard me? Through that door? She marveled at it. A swordmaster's hearing was not a joke.
He glanced around the room. The papers, the crayons, the blankets kicked into a heap, the pillow on the floor.
How would I even begin to explain that I've been trying to build a mana core in here, Rosette thought, going cold.
"Too excited to sleep, are you," he said. "Lucas was exactly the same at your age. He didn't sleep for two nights."
Thank you, Lucas, Rosette thought fervently. Thank you.
"I'm very excited about the swordsmanship training," she said, playing along.
"I know. You start with Daniel tomorrow." He shook his head. "Though there was some discussion about how to begin. Daniel suggested jogging."
She could picture it: Daniel proposing a light jog, and a younger blond boy calling him an idiot and insisting that they would be walking, thank you.
"They were all worried about you," the Duke said. "All three of them, at once, in my study."
Do I really look that weak? Rosette wondered.
"Everyone will take care of you," he assured her, smiling warmly. "But don't overdo it."
"Yes," she said meekly, holding the cup in both hands.
"Only do as much as you enjoy. That's all I want from you."
He straightened suddenly. "Ah. That's why I came."
Rosette looked up mid-sip with wide, questioning eyes — and then saw the paper in his hand, and understood what it was, and her expression fell open.
He held it out to her.
The adoption papers. And then, immediately, in rising panic: Please don't ask me to read it. Please don't ask me to read it.
"I can't—" she said, holding the page at arm's length and frowning at it with enormous effort. "It's very hard."
"Of course it is," the Duke agreed, smiling. "It's a dreadful document. Grown men can't read it."
And then he presented it to her formally, in both hands, the way one presents a thing that matters.
I knew it, she thought, weak with relief.
"With this," he said, "the adoption is complete. Officially. In every register in the Empire."
They sat together on the edge of her bed in the quiet, the girl and the man, at the beginning of something neither of them had planned.
Rosette looked into the middle distance and turned it over. Rosette Adrien.
Not what she had intended. Not remotely what she had intended. But in a somber corner of her mind she acknowledged the other half of it: she had escaped Rosette Dallas. That name was gone. It could not follow her into this house.
She shook her head hard. She was getting sentimental again.
"Thank you," she said. "I'll do better. I'll be good, I promise—"
"You don't need to do better," he said. "You're perfect as you are."
She stared at him.
"In fact, I'd like you to be worse," he went on. "Throw a tantrum when you want something. Fight with your brothers. Fight with Belle — she'd enjoy it more than you'd think."
Her eyes welled up as she took it in. So this is what a family is like.
"I've never acted like a child," she admitted quietly. "Not even before—" She stopped. "Not ever."
"That's exactly why I'm telling you these things." He nodded, as though something had been settled. "We're a real family now."
"Yes," she said.
"I heard," he added, "that the children at the orphanage called you Rose. May I use it?"
Rosette blinked at him, surprised. "You — yes. Yes, you can."
He beamed. He looked so genuinely, uncomplicatedly happy about it that she did not know where to look. "Thank you. Thank you for that."
"Then," he said, "perhaps you should call me something more familiar as well."
She sat up. "More familiar? You're the Duke—"
"Yes, and 'Your Grace' at the family table is absurd. It makes my own children sound like petitioners."
Rosette thought about it. She had spent nine years addressing a man as Marquis. She had never had any other word for a guardian in her life, and now that one was on offer she had no idea what to do with it.
Sitting across from Duke Adrien in the lamplight, she tried it silently first. Father.
The blond man turned to her with a gentle smile. "Or would you prefer something else?"
Flustered, she thought of Isabelle and Lucas and Daniel, who all said Father, and it seemed like something that already belonged to them.
"Is there another word?" she asked. "Besides father. One that means the same thing?"
She searched for it, looking up at him with wide, innocent eyes while he waited kindly.
Then, shyly, she offered it up.
"Dad."
"Yes, Rose," he said softly, and reached over and gave her nose a gentle poke.
She covered her mouth with both hands. I think I'd like that, she thought, and then, immediately behind it, I don't think I'm allowed to like that.
He took the empty cup out of her hands. "Get to sleep."
He was so close. She noticed that, oddly — how close he was, and how it did not frighten her.
He turned to go, and the small girl looked up at his back.
"Good night," she said hesitantly. "Dad."
The smile he gave her over his shoulder was warm and deeply gratified. "Good night, Rose."
The door clicked shut.
Alone in the grand room, Rosette let out an exhausted sigh and flopped backward onto the bed.
She lay on her back and reminded herself, slowly and carefully, what her purpose in this family was. She was here to protect them. That was all. That was the entire list.
And she admitted, to the canopy, that it already felt like she had become part of a real one.
She sat bolt upright with a jolt.
She lay back down and said it again, properly this time: she was here to repay a debt. This happiness was not hers to keep. It belonged to a girl who had never held a knife.
She looked out through the ornate window at the dark grounds and steeled her resolve. Keep your head straight.
Then she got up, stood tall in the middle of the enormous room, and gave herself a brisk pep talk.
"Good morning!" Daniel announced at dawn, cheerful, a wooden sword over one shoulder. "Starting today, I'll be helping with your morning training."
Rosette, in a training uniform tailored so small it looked like a doll's, stood at attention. "I'm ready."
"We'll start with a light jog."
"Yes."
Off to the side, an older woman and a man remarked to each other how thrilled Lucas looked to be teaching Rosette anything at all.
Two knights along the wall put their heads together. "That's the young lady? The little one?"
"That's her. She's to learn swordsmanship."