There was an expected panic. No one had seen me topple into the water, but plenty of people heard me scream and saw me thrashing about. The Workbook had chosen the location, a white-painted dock where the high and mighty rented fancy paddleboats to impress their dates when going a-’courting. Within moments, I was hauled out by several folks from high society, all of whom were determined to show their potential partners how good they were with wayward children.

For my part, I spent the next few days in a state of feigned shock, telling those who asked that I couldn’t remember anything before I was dragged from the water. This became my salvation: I would sit at a table, a wide spread of flatware and finery before me, and say with all truthfulness that I knew I should be doing something but I wasn’t sure what! Then the nearest well-meaning person would show me which fork to use, or how to drink from the tea cup without slurping, or so forth. As I was a furiously intelligent child who had discovered that I quite enjoyed warm beds and easy access to food, I had the manners of a queen within a week.

The adults assumed I belonged to someone, of course, and were making serious efforts to find my parents. I had been found while dressed in expensive clothing and carrying four books appropriate for an educated child (the Workbook concealed itself quite well as a mathematics primer). The lords and ladies of Old BlueHouse never dreamt I was a stray, and none would offend the family of a presumably blue-blooded child by throwing her out in the street. Better yet, I was a mystery! A safe mystery, without the sharpness of blood or known scandal. One day, they assumed, I would be returned to where I belonged, my aristocratic parents properly grateful to my rescuers.

First through images and then through my rapidly advancing reading skills, the Workbook made it clear that we only had one shot at this con and I couldn’t blow it. No temper tantrums, no spoiled or selfish requests. I could present nothing but the image of a clean and studious girl of excellent breeding who was doing her best to not be a burden while she recovered her memory.

Fine. Sure. Whatever the Workbook said. This was the easiest job I’d ever had, to do nothing dangerous and yet still go to bed with a full stomach, to stay quiet and observe. I passed through multiple households between the ages of six and eight (or eight and ten), each of them fostering me for as many months as they could before passing me on to the next eager household.

It must be noted that during this time I had no reason to escape. Based on what I’ve seen, this says more about the upper crust’s fear of getting caught than anything inherently moral about them.

Eventually they gave up on finding my parents, and I was no longer an item of gossip. Instead, I became a cautionary tale told to keep misbehaving children in line—Behave, or we’ll throw you in the pond and you’ll forget your whole life, like the poor little Lake Lass!

I became a ward of the GlassClaws, a noble house with connections to the royal family. I liked them, and I believe they liked me—unlike their other children, I made no problems for them. After I had stayed in their care for a small number of years, I asked if I could leave for school.

“Why?” asked Madam GlassClaw, a pleasant woman with auburn hair and eyes going white before their time. She was starting to have problems getting around, and the Workbook had encouraged me to find her an assistant before she could fit me into that role.

“I have no dowry, and it is unfair for me to expect you to provide one when I come of age,” I said, my gaze downcast. “I would rather go into service as a scholar.”

Lord GlassClaw chuckled. “Yes,” he said, “You are rather bookish.”

Madam GlassClaw gave her husband a savage glare. “Now there, Bernadette,” she said to me, using one of the many names those aristocratic households had stamped upon me as I had been handed from one to another. (None of them fit.) “It is our honor and duty to place you in a good household.”

“Let’s hear the girl out first,” spoke Lord GlassClaw.

They were a bickering pair with five children of their own, all older than myself and much nearer to marrying. The Workbook and I already knew how this would go, so I made my pitch: Mousseline Academy, in the mountains thirty kilometers to the north of the city, renowned for its teaching staff and libraries. I envisioned a possible career path as a professor, I told them, responsible for passing on the lessons I had been so grateful to learn to the next generation. And then I gave them a proper curtsy and saw myself off to bed so they could shout at each other in peace.

In the morning, Lord GlassClaw announced to the household that after my eleventh birthday next month, I would be sent to study at Mousseline Academy.