Inside Worthington House, Atalanta Worthington paced the long hallway upstairs. Back and forth, from one end of the worn runner to the other, very slowly. The figured paper on the walls was faded in odd places and there was a patch halfway down that she clearly remembered peeling away, although her brothers insisted she could not remember something she'd done when she was two years old.

If she took normal steps it was seventy-two paces. When she was smaller, it had been hundreds of paces but that was because she'd been climbing around and over and through, a brave adventurer beating her path through a dangerous forest, weaving her way through great teetering towers of books. Thousands of books that had only been a small portion salvaged from the fire that had consumed the once great library at Worthington Manor. If she closed her eyes, Attie could still smell the tinge of smoke that had lingered within the pages and filtered through the air until she had believed that all books smelled like a house afire.

There were no books in the hallway anymore. Attie's sister-in-law Miranda had gently forced the family to clear the stacks away and sort them. At Miranda's tender but steely request, the Worthington brothers Daedalus, Castor and even Lysander, had built bookcases in every room from the floor to the ceiling to contain them all, since the London house had no real library of its own.

It made sense, Attie supposed grudgingly. After all, she'd been trapped beneath book avalanches a few times, and Philpot had taken a fall, at which point the stout housekeeper had declared herself retired from all upper-story chores.

The maze of random and often unsuitable knowledge had been a strange and wonderful playground but Attie reminded herself that she didn't need a playground any longer. She wasn't a child. And being fourteen years of age, she had responsibilities.

Furthermore, the long empty hallway was now a marvelous place in which to practice sequential high-velocity cartwheels.

She reached the end of the hallway and, spinning slowly but precisely, she began to smoothly walk back. She was so good at it now that she could probably balance a book on her head. This was something that Miranda had told her she'd been required to do as a girl. What a silly use for a book! Although Attie supposed if it was a stupid book, like a volume on etiquette, or hairdressing, or the history of puffed sleeves.

The bundle in her arms whimpered and Attie realized that she had stopped still for a moment as she contemplated the many stupid books in the world. Back to carrying! Six-month-old Aurora was so often passed hand-to-hand in the Worthington family that Attie doubted if Aurora's little pink feet would ever touch the floor.