In revenge for murdering one of their rat family members, one of them had babies in my laundry. The mother took all but two, leaving me with extra rodent mouths to feed, as I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of them or let them starve.
According to a vet, who charged me a ridiculous amount of money to look at my infant rodents and teach me how to care for them, I had two females, they’d need a rather large habitat, and I was out of my right mind for wanting to keep the damned rats.
Snookums and Flamingo would enjoy a long life as spoiled rotten rats who ate better than I did. To my relief, feeding the pair of furry gluttons wouldn’t tax my bank account too much, although they would need bedding and toys and things they could chew on.
It took a few weeks, but I figured out the hot water and shower issue without asking for help. I found warming my own water as it came out of the shower by trying to light it on fire did a great job of burning off magic so it didn’t build up and become a threat to myself and everyone around me.
Coming up with a way to use my magic in subtle ways would test me. Trying to light water on fire accomplished little but took a lot of power and would serve as my primary offense against my family’s potent talent.
It scared me I might one day have a stronger talent than my parents. To keep them off my back, I’d restrained myself—and my talent—to acceptable levels. I modeled my magic off of Ian’s, as he’d dodged our parents’ interest with his demonstrations. He could do a lot of damage with his talent in a short period of time. While a frightening enough ability, he couldn’t do it quite as fast as they could.
I bet he could if he needed to. I bet I could, too.
We were the smart ones. The rest of our brothers and sisters thought competing for who had the strongest talent would earn them the throne and please our parents.
New York was screwed, and I’d use my microwave to make popcorn and watch the news while my home kingdom imploded.
I’d have a great time.
Until then, I’d work at the public library, find out if I could survive in California without having to draw on the money Terry had recovered for me, and try living life for a while.
It would be an adventure.
Five
My brother reigned as the king asshole over all other assholes.
Several years later.
California wanted to test my limits, push my every last button, and put me through hell before granting me citizenship. The notice in my email informed me I would be moved, yet again, to a place of their choosing. As was their way with involuntary moves, the government would provide me with an apartment for two months while I found somewhere else to live or I opted to pay their ridiculous rent for staying in their precious units, which defined ratty minus any actual rats—except Snookums and Flamingo. I usually paid their ridiculous amount of rent because of my pets. I’d waged war with the immigration people over my pair of rats, right along with their prejudiced landlords.
The vet had helped with my campaign, providing paperwork ‘proving’ they were domesticated rats rather than the sewer rats they were. Their smaller size, likely a consequence of staying in a cage most of the time while I went to work, helped trick officials into believing they were really pets instead of pests.
Fortunately for my sanity, most of the apartments foisted on me didn’t have a rat problem, and I tried to play nice with my unwanted roommates in the places that had a rodent infestation. I’d even tolerated the showers, the lack of substantial bathtubs, and having to find a half-decent laundry mat since they tracked my water usage and would ask questions if I tried to wash my clothes in the kitchen sink.
Some days, I considered caving and giving Terry a call, wondering if the RPS agent still kept tabs on me while doing whatever it was Montana RPS agents did when living in California attempting to keep an eye on someone who had formerly belonged to a royal family.
At least I made a decent principal; I stayed out of trouble, I stayed home most of the time, and when I did go out, I kept to myself. My extra money went to my rats or to tests, a waste to most people. Every damned time I’d won an interview, the government swept in with an involuntary move and job change on me, barring me from accepting the opportunities employers offered.
The tactic annoyed me, as it was something New York would do to control immigrants.
Every now and then, when I missed home, I checked the news to see who would one day rule New York. Ian ran a high risk of being crowned king; he’d already gotten the nod to function as the heir—a job he didn’t want and claimed he would refuse the minute a better candidate showed up.
As the rest of my family was accounted for, he meant me.
My brother reigned as the king asshole over all other assholes.
And, to add insult to injury, some unofficial reports claimed Ian searched for me so he wouldn’t have to deal with our home kingdom. In an act of rebellion, my brother had even told the world of our sister’s suicide. For one whole day, her death had rippled through the Royal States, and the last man on Earth I’d expected to say anything at all had spoken about Sylvia.
His Royal Majesty of Montana kept surprising me, and the only surprises I wanted in my life were when I got unexpected overtime and had enough extra money to take a new test. I suspected my damned habit of taking tests for fun had resulted in my higher-than-usual rate of moving across California, skipping from library to library. Most of the libraries were public, but I’d done a stint at a university, my favorite of the lot.
According to the email, I would be working at the California Royal Archive, my job title hadn’t been mentioned, and I would work three days a week, which meant I’d have to find a second job to get by without needing to use my card from Montana.
In my one sole concession, the email confirmed the government would be providing transportation for Snookums and Flamingo, and I smirked at the thought of the government employee forced to get an airline to allow me to stow a pair of rats in the cabin of their airplane, as I absolutely refused to check my pets into cargo.
The move would test me, as would my new work—and the loss of hours. I liked a challenge, but could the challenge screw less with my budget?
Snookums and Flamingo would enjoy their usual standard of living, and I’d figure out the rest from there. I foresaw a great deal of macaroni and cheese in my future. As a royal, macaroni and cheese had been a favorite treat, but there was only so often I could eat my new staple without going crazy.
I was one box of mac and cheese away from a meltdown, as I had been a week upon my arrival in California, when I’d realized it was the most efficient way to feed myself on my budget.
Living on my own hadn’t improved my cooking skills, leaving me capable of making very few actual dishes. Pasta ruled my life, and the rare time I bought meat, I cheated and used my magic, as stoves existed to vex me.
If I ever returned to a life involving royalty, I doubted I’d be able to stomach the extravagant costs.
Everything had a price, and I’d grown aware of the value of the little things.
Silver linings kept me almost sane. My new apartment wasn’t far from the ocean, and I wouldn’t have to fight with my shower to bleed off my magic. I could walk for a few blocks and wage war with the ocean instead. Through the end of summer and into fall, I could stretch my legs, head to where the latest wildfire had broken out, and do something useful.
While Los Angeles got its share of wildfires, I hadn’t been able to help much; my work schedule hadn’t allowed it. To my dismay and frustration, I’d learned I had limits on how much I could tackle in a single day.
To make sure I did what they wanted, the government handled the details of my move, and they even offered me the choice of a plane or a bus ticket. As always, I requested the plane ticket to force them to spend even more money keeping me under their thumb.
Three days after my notification, carrying my old, worn bag of clothes and the figurine Terry had made for me, I flew to San Francisco, m
et the government employee determined to make certain I arrived at my new apartment without incident, and made the unpleasant discovery that my home resembled a closet with a bathroom and kitchen tossed inside, with barely enough space for a bed to fit.
Tomorrow, dressed in my usual blazer, blouse, and skirt, I would find out what grunt work waited for me at the California Royal Archive. I expected either book repair or filing; the government had a tendency to punish my ambition with tedious manual labor—or they were testing my tolerance levels.
In a few ways, the transfer to San Francisco counted as a move up in the world; it was my first time in the kingdom’s seat of power.
Maybe I’d hold a single job for longer than six months for a change.
I had my doubts.
The next morning, after I gave my rats their owed affection and breakfast, I learned the hard way someone truly hated me; it took forty minutes for me to walk to work. Only my tendency to arrive early on my first day to check out the area spared me from being late. Annoyed at myself for not doing a better job of planning, I approached the front desk and introduced myself, presenting my work permit and employment letter from the government.
Sometimes, the government neglected to inform my new employer of my assignment. Well, half the time. I bet the tactic was to make me want to quit so I’d leave the kingdom, although I didn’t understand why.
I understood little about California and its practices.
“Take the elevator to the eighth floor and show the receptionist your letter and identification. He’ll take care of you.” The woman returned to her work without sparing me a second glance, which I took as my cue to get out of her hair.
As directed, I went to the eighth floor, expecting my day would continue to nosedive into obscurity.
The scent of old books enveloped me the instant the elevator doors swished open. The receptionist sat behind a monster of a dark desk, the kind I expected in a gaudy palace.
It wouldn’t fit in my apartment even if I tried.
I found it difficult to look for silver linings when the receptionist’s desk outclassed my entire apartment.
Wielding my employment letter and identification card, I marched to the desk and presented them without a word. Speaking wouldn’t help matters. It never did. The letter contained everything the receptionist needed to know; my identification card proved who I was, and the rest would either fall into place or wouldn’t.
The man, old enough to be my father but armed with a friendly enough smile, reviewed my documents. “Ah, yes. We’ve been expecting you, Miss Modesto. The head librarian is waiting for you. Just go all the way to the back of the archive, hang a right, and keep going until you reach a pair of double doors. That’s the head librarian’s office. Thank you for coming on such short notice. We’ve had a critical project assigned to us, and your generalized knowledge is ideal for our needs.” He held my papers out to me.
My what was ideal for what? Having grown accustomed to people assuming I lacked skills because of my status as a refugee annoyed me almost as much as going into the California Royal Archive ignorant about my new job. I’d learned to keep my mouth shut unless questioned, something that grated on my nerves almost as much as being underestimated all the damned time.
Then, because life wasn’t fair and I occupied one of the lowest rungs of society, I had to be polite about it. I took my documents and returned them to my pocket. “Thank you.”
Biting my tongue and keeping from asking any questions tested me more than I liked, and I headed for the back of the archive as ordered where I found the pair of doors carved to resemble thousands of open books with their pages tumbling out. Each page even contained text, and I expected I’d lose many an hour to the door on my breaks, examining every inch of it to learn its many secrets.
Rather than indulge in my curiosity, I knocked.
“Enter.” The door muffled his voice. I checked the hinges to figure out which way it opened, turned the knob, and tested its weight. The door creaked, but I cracked it open enough to slip inside.
While my outfit met the basic requirements of professionalism, I recognized when someone wore clothing suitable for royalty. Between the cut, perfect fit, and the extras, including golden cuff links and a silk tie that likely cost more than everything I owned, he did a good job of representing his caste. Smiling took too much work, so I went with emotionless. Emotionless classified as professional, and professional kept me from getting yelled at.
“You must be Rachel Modesto.” The head librarian took his time looking me over.
“I am, sir.”
“Good. You’re right on time. You’re here because we have a general research project that needs to be completed. It’s a Royal request, and we were told we needed to bring in at least one qualified immigrant for the project. You’re the best we have available in the system, so here you are. Your job is simple.”
I wanted to roll my eyes and inform the man he was wasting me on simple jobs; I’d been doing simple for years. Simple had advantages, including somewhat lower stress while working at the price of incessant boredom.
I thought I’d come a long way since leaving New York. As a princess, I would’ve complained over the insult to my delicate royal sensibilities.
Complaining changed nothing and usually worsened my situation. That lesson had taken me longer to learn than the others.
Becoming irritated over the wait wouldn’t do any good. I packed my emotions into a box, chucked it into the corner, and decided to view my determination to keep my mouth shut as an act of defiance.
“We need you to research global social structures, how magic influenced society, and create a report comparing those social structures with and without magic, how the current method of governance would evolve due to changes to magic levels, and the consequences of removing high-ranked talents from general leadership.”
I raised a brow at the request, unable to believe a royal from any family would want information on what would happen to society with the removal of royalty. From the instant magic had flooded the world, people had fought for the right to rule. We’d matured from violence as the medium for feuding, but the feuding remained.
We used politics instead—although I did have to acknowledge violence often played a role in the way the world worked.
No one had successfully challenged the system before. “Do you want a comparative report of society before the introduction of magic alongside speculations of what would happen with the removal of magic from society?”
“If you feel it would provide required background for the study, yes.”
“What is the timeline for completion?”
“You have three months.”
Three months wasn’t a lot of time for a thorough report, especially if I was only working at the California Royal Archive three days a week. “According to my schedule notes, I’m only working part time on this project. If the scale of the research is as it appears at first glance, this isn’t sufficient to do what you need.”
“Your hours can be adjusted.”
“I’m going to need project specifications on the report’s length, subject material to be covered, and the applicable purposes for the report so it best serves.” My requests toed lines; people in my shoes were supposed to sit down, shut up, and do as told without question.
I couldn’t do as told without asking questions, which was a recipe for disaster—and another job transfer. Within a week, I’d probably be on my way somewhere else.
“I can provide that for you. How many days a week do you think you’ll need to complete this report within the three-month window?”
Impatience plagued most of society, and I expected the same from the head librarian, but I needed time to think about it. If I did the report as though I were a royal making a decision on how to adjust the current caste system to mitigate the role of magic in governance, it would take at least four months to get the proper information from reputable sources, assuming I worked fiv
e days a week.
The document would have to be built to withstand idiots, too, which would take even more time.
“Six days a week, possibly seven. This is an extensive research project that requires history, economics, political sciences, and other branches of study to complete. If it is being used by the government to evaluate the consequences of reduced magic on society, it’s social theory work involving diplomacy as well. The document itself will be extensive, as it would have to define all terms, provide history lessons beyond standard education, and otherwise venture into uncharted waters.” I hesitated, but then I figured making requests wouldn’t hurt. What was the worst he could do? Fire me for asking?
I still had my bank card to fall back on, and if it didn’t work, I could call Terry.
While those options didn’t appeal, they existed.
I lifted my chin. “I’ll need a dedicated laptop for the project and possibly a tablet with digital pen to simplify research. Digital records might help, but a lot of the records before the second civil war are in print only—if they still exist. Many libraries were torched during the war.”
“The California Royal Archive is an original library with pre-war material. You’ll have access to the entire collection, including our digital records. A laptop can be provided if you don’t own one.”
“I don’t own one. I don’t have a phone, either.”
“You don’t have a phone?”
Who was I supposed to call? After a life of being put on display, often as a faceless name with a powerful magic as a tool of fear, I hadn’t seen the point in forging connections with people, not that many wanted to make friends with the latest refugee to come to California and ‘take the jobs of hard-working Californians.’ I found the complaint to be absurd; nobody wanted the jobs I did.
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