A pit of cold dread sank in Tori's stomach as she reached the top of her family's driveway and discovered several unfamiliar cars parked on either side of the circular turnaround. The vehicles were identically painted pearlescent white and gilded well beyond the line of ostentatious. Tori rolled her eyes at how well they complimented the white marble fountain and gilded front steps of her family's mansion.

In the same moment Tori saw the cars, the staff waiting for Tori spotted her. The service door to the left of the massive front steps swung open. Her family's porter Hopkins waved frantically and called to her.

"Mistress Tori, you're very late! Your poor mother and father are frantic with concern!"

Tori huffed and adjusted her backpack, then trotted the rest of the way to the open door.

"She's not my mother, Hopkins."

He ignored Tori's remark and started fussing over her as she entered.

"Miss Tori, you're covered in dust!" Hopkins lifted her backpack off her shoulders when she passed in front of him, then held it higher and grimaced at it. "This won't do. We have guests and they are here to see you."

Tori froze mid-step.

The cars.

Suitors.

Marriage negotiations and hopeful suitors had been a regular part of growing up for Tori. When she was a little girl, the experience was charming in a fairy tale kind of way. Boys and men would visit the house in huge displays, showering her with gifts and compliments.

Her father turned most away, especially the older men, but her stepmother was always ready with new options. It was a confusing experience for Tori, who enjoyed the attention but was slowly becoming aware of a more sinister plot taking shape. Slowly... until one suitor made the expectations for her glaringly obvious all at once. Marriage was an inter-family transaction and she was the chattel up for trade. There would be no flowers and compliments once negotiations were complete - not enough to make up for the freedom she'd lose. The wide world outside her doors that Tori was just beginning to sense would remain unexplored, forever taunting her from beyond the bars of the highest bidder's cage.

Misreading Tori's distress, Hopkins continued, "They are three handsome young men, Mistress Tori, well-groomed and well-mannered." A critical eyebrow went up. "We should bring you up to standard, young miss."

"No…"

"Miss Tori?"

"No, Hopkins. I'll see them now." Tori pulled herself out of her marriage-doom reverie and forced a pleasant face for the porter. "After all, I am very late!"

Best to get this over with and send them home, Tori thought.

She steeled herself against the unique blow to the ego that followed every time her step-mother arranged a ridiculous match. Tori wondered if the woman really saw a future for her with, for example, the 60 year old shipping admiral who smelled so strongly of peppermint brandy it made Tori sneeze... or the man who brought a suitcase full of different shoes that he wanted Tori to try on.

Turning the corner into the parlor, Tori assessed the situation as quickly as she could. Guests and parents sat, talking quietly, her younger brother James mercifully absent. Cups clinked: tea, not liquor she hoped.

"There you are, my darling!" Tori's father sounded genuinely happy to see her, and she warmed briefly.

"Oh dear, you look dreadful!" Her stepmother was on her feet and moving towards Tori, trying to block her from the guests' view, she suspected.

"Are you dizzy?" she asked in a furious whisper. Then, closing the distance, she leaned to hiss into Tori's ear, "You are unpresentable."

Tori juked around her advancing step-mother and walked to her father. He stood and opened his arms to receive her in a fatherly hug, then placed his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face the guests. He seemed a little perplexed by her general filthiness, but only missed a moment before making introductions.

"My darling daughter, Victoria." her father sing-songed, "These young gentlemen here are the nephews of my old friend Joseph, and all three of them are interested in making your acquaintance."

He gestured to three young men who stood up from the opposite couch. They straightened their clothes and puffed out their chests. Tori felt the presence of her step-mother loom behind her.

This was the part Tori hated: being the bad guy. Many a man had been lured to this parlor with the promise of her as a prize, and the same number had left empty-handed. Today, she was hoping her filth would be enough to deter them.

Tori looked up at the young men. The tallest stood on the left, directly across from her. He was bulky with muscle and wore the uniform of someone in the military.

The middle brother wore a fashionable jacket and shirt and an expression that suggested he could smell her.

On the right, she recognized a boy from another class at her school, two years below her. His eyes flashed with mutual recognition and he fought a grin. How annoying. She was his senior, but she felt his respect for her retracting. And why would he respect her when he expected her to submit to him?

Trying to summon the discourse of high society courting, Tori addressed the suitors.

"I am so very, ah, appreciative of your interest and the efforts you have undertaken in calling upon me." She performed a graceless curtsy. "Now that you are known to me perhaps I may call upon you. Sometime."

Tori turned to leave and walked directly into her defensively-placed stepmother. The woman spun Tori back around towards the conversation, surreptitiously digging her fingernails into Tori's shoulders like spurs.

"Eager to study, dear child? Haha! Victoria is just about to graduate and we are so very proud." Her stepmother gave her shoulders an extra squeeze. "She's a regular bookworm, always sitting quietly for hours on end, not causing a fuss. But tell us more about you, gentlemen!" As she said this, she steered Tori in front of the couch across from the boys and squashed her down into a seat.

It was interesting to hear how Tori was pitched like a product. Quiet! Hassle-free! She felt cynical about it, but also a little sad. She glanced at her father for support, but saw him stuffing his pipe instead.

The young men across from Tori launched into rehearsed speeches about themselves, full of brags and bluster.

Paxton was on-call for the regional guardians, something he was really throwing himself into after choosing to step down from a vague-but-essential role at his father's office for undisclosed reasons.

Brooks was a visionary, a wizard at department store displays, and, in his opinion, a walking advertisement for anything he himself deigned to wear. He was destined for a life of travel and glamor and was eagerly awaiting for sponsors to agree.

Cole was a little shit, no matter what he had to say.

They all chimed in on each others' stories, laughing at the right moments and goading each other into increasingly embarrassing hyperbole. None of them had any questions for Tori. She had been relieved before to notice they were drinking tea, but now she was concerned the caffeine would keep them going. She was fighting a yawn and wanted to shower.

Finally, their self-aggrandizing conversation trailed off into blissful, awkward silence. Tori's stepmother had run out of inane questions to keep it going. Tori gave them nothing, just an empty smile and blinking eyes on a cocked head.

After a few moments of no one talking, Paxton scooted forward on the couch across from Tori. "I like you," he said, and reached for her hands. She pulled one away in time, but he clamped onto the other. He chuckled and wiggled her wrist. "Ah~ah!" She yanked that hand away and balled them together in her lap. "Haha! You must be very chaste to find me too forward, Miss Victoria! I should like to see you again, learn more about your... boundaries." His smile churned her stomach.

Paxton stood up and the other two followed suit. They bowed, again following Paxton's cue, and took turns thanking their hosts. Tori scowled at them, tipping her head forward so her bangs hid her face from the sides, from her parents, and focused the hate more precisely. If she were telepathic, she imagined, the effect would be devastating.

Her silent glare followed them as they slipped into coats and shoes held in place by the house staff. Her stepmother tugged her along like a hateful puppet from the parlor to the foyer to the front steps as she was forced to perform a satisfactory goodbye.

When the taillights of their cars finally disappeared down the driveway and the front door shut, her stepmother released her. Tori rubbed her shoulders where the woman's fingernails had dented her skin through the fabric of her uniform jacket. She looked around. Her father had already peeled away from the situation and slipped back to the parlor where his pipe was waiting.

"It'll be one of those three," her stepmother said.

Tori hung her head. Her stepmother wanted so badly to man the helm of Tori's life, and to steer it into some rocks to collect the insurance. It hadn't always been this way…. At first she had wanted young Tori to love her, to treat her like a replacement mother. Then she wanted Tori to obey her more strictly than the house's hired staff. Tori had tried, but the demands always increased, and Tori never did any of it right. Now, Tori was out of try. She could stand there for a while longer and tank it, she could run away from it for a bit on a field trip, but in the end, she would likely give in to it. Just to make the aggression cease.

"I like the big one as a match for you," her stepmother continued when Tori stayed silent. "They're family though. They all come with the same package," she snickered.

Tori flushed, her face hidden but her ears exposed and burning.

"I mean, of course, the boons of the alliance. Think like a lady, Victoria, not like trampled dirt clod you're dressed as. Perhaps a bath would cleanse body and mind."

That sounded like an invitation to leave to Tori. Frustrated and humiliated, she headed for her room without another word.