Gadalik was seated in the chair across from his sister and their mother on the couch in the living room. On the coffee table between them were stacks of text- and notebooks, as well as a few pencils and a sharpener.

“You've been doing great with math so far. I know you can do this,” Glacia encouraged her daughter. “Seventeen, take-away eight.”

Adya tapped the paper with the eraser end of her pencil. “Eight is one more than seven. Seventeen minus seven is ten, minus one is nine. So, nine. Right?”

“You got it! Great job!”

She beamed. “I don't get why Dad says math is so hard. Numbers are just patterns!”

“Well, everyone is different. What's easy for you to learn might be difficult for others, and vice versa. I had to learn to deal with finances when I was really young, so even though I hated math, I became good at it.”

“Why did you have to learn about money so young?”

“Because your grandparents left a lot of it to me.”

“Dad never mentioned his parents having a lot of money,” Adya gasped, shocked by the revelation.

“No, no, not his parents. My parents.”

“Huh? You never mentioned your parents before…”

“Well, uh, they aren't here anymore.”

“Like Gadalik’s?”

Her adoptive-brother tensed. “Adya, maybe this is a sensitive topic. We don't want to make Mom sad.”

“No, it's okay,” Glacia assured her kids. “What happened to your brother's parents and mine are very, very different. Gadalik's mother and father were good people who died trying to make the world a better place.”

The siblings exchanged a glance, and Gadalik gave a nod to confirm it.

“What about yours?” Adya pressed her mother.

“It's…a very long story,” Glacia sighed. “Who knows where they are or if they're still alive. But frankly, I don't care enough to find out.”

“What?!”

“That’s enough math for tonight. Gadalik, can you help her with language?”

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“Oh, uh, sure,” the young man answered, moving to the couch as the woman left for the stairs.

“Mom, wait! I care about what happened to your parents!” Adya cried.

The purple-haired lady hesitated, but didn't turn around. Then she braced herself for a moment before continuing to her bedroom on the second floor.

“Maybe she'll tell you more when she's ready,” Gadalik reassured his sister.

“That's not fair!” the six-year-old pouted. “Has she told you about them?”

“Uh… Let’s just focus on your work for now.”

“Language is boring! I'd rather know about Grandma and Grandpa!”

“Language can be fun. I grew up with two different languages so I'm qualified to say that.”

Adya sat back on the couch, crossing her arms indignantly.

Gadalik gave up trying to convince her, and sat back as well. “Adya… Would you like to hear a story?”

Her magenta eyes narrowed skeptically at him. “...Okay.”

“Once upon a time, there was a kingdom in a land far away called Peakisa. In its castle, there was a king, a queen, and their daughter: a little princess about your age. The kingdom was full of people young and old. The royal family’s job was to make sure that everyone had enough food, clothing, and a home. But…”

She leaned forward intently. “But?”

“The king and the queen…didn't do their job. So in time, the people of Peakisa were unable to buy food, clothing, or keep their homes, because the king and queen made everything too expensive.”

“Why?”

“They only cared about getting money from the people in their kingdom.”

“Oh…”

“One day, a prince and his parents from a different kingdom arrived. The prince and the princess were supposed to be betrothed.”

“Betrothed?”

“Married, to bring both kingdoms together. But when the prince and his family saw the state of Peakisa, they were very worried for the people. So the two royal families began fighting over Peakisa. The prince’s family believed they could rule it better.”

“Was there a war?”

“N-No, not quite. The prince’s kingdom was very prosperous, so they had a lot of money, more than they ever needed. So since the princess’s family cared so much about money, the prince’s family offered a solution for everyone: they would buy Peakisa from the princess’s family.”

“They bought the whole kingdom?!”

“Yeah. And without a kingdom, the princess’s family weren't royal anymore. But they had money–especially from the prince’s family. And that's all they truly wanted, in the end.”

“So what happened to the princess’s family?”

“Well, since the people of Peakisa despised them for the cost of everything, they left the kingdom, traveling by boat until they reached our land of Arcritta. Here, they wanted to live a new life away from everyone, and to keep from being recognized, they hid their wealth from the public, and only used some of their money to make a modest house in the middle of a forest.”

“Kind of like our house,” she remarked. “What about the princess?”

“Well, the princess was just a child. She didn't know what her parents had been doing all that time. All she knew was that her parents were very ashamed of themselves for everything they've done, after they realized how much Peakisa hated them. So one day, after tucking their daughter into bed, her parents…left.”

“Left?”

“Right. They left the house and all of their belongings, and even all of their money. But worst of all, they left their daughter alone in the house. To this day, nobody knows where they went, or why.”

That's when it clicked. “The king and queen were Mom’s parents?!”