Chapter 19 Nicholette's Double Life

• Nicholette had played around her father's mahogany imponent table. She and her sisters left scratches and ink marks. They played hide and seek behind the heavy velvet curtains and made cozy cribs for their dolls in the drawers stacked with important papers. As she stepped in his thick carpets now a fully grown woman, she didn't know what to expect. Nor did the soldiers that accompanied her, both reverent to her status of Wolf Rider and paying close watch to her, afraid of being overpowered or tricked by an escape.
• The soldiers didn't enter her home. They stopped at the main door and Nicholette walked in her home, calculating if she should go change from the basic uniform or if her father was indeed in that much of a hurry to see her. She noted the soldier's politeness but inefficiency: she could walk out of her own home in a dozen different ways.
• Nicholette decided she shouldn't be afraid of her father. It was her father. She had ridden piggyback on him. He had reluctantly learned how to do her hair. He had watched a parade of dresses before each party and learned how to express opinions on colors, textures and accessories. He had been, so far, a really good father for his three daughters.