The Sharpe family made its name through trade and its fortune through a string of lucky investments in young entrepreneurs. The sudden rise to prominence put the family on the verge of aristocracy, where it has lingered ever since, its influence waning with each passing year. Newer investments never quite lived up to the first few, and though the family could have easily coaxed on its wealth in modest conditions for generations to come, the urge to rise above nestled deep within the family line.

Finn and Camilla Sharpe felt the urge to rise as deeply as any other Sharpe. Finn had been born to the name, born to the want, and married Camilla from another wealthy middle-class family in the hopes of combing their fortune and fate. Their children would be the first to crack the racks and soar higher than before.

Their firstborn, Virgil, had the misfortune of being a deviant, just as his mother had been. Despite the near certainty of a short life, the boy was raised to take over the family, urged to find companionship with the aristocracy. His charm and looks seemed poised to lead the family to greatness, enough that the next child was able to slip by the family’s attention.

Enara Sharpe never felt the call to rise higher than her station. Her brother held that weight, shined bright enough for her to live in his shadow. Life was simple, despite also being an unfortunate deviant. Enara enjoyed her studies over lessons on manners, spending many a night awake far past bedtime engrossed in whatever her newest obsession happened to be.

And in the morning, she’d ramble off facts and tidbits to her brother while they prepared for the day and drank their treatment together. No one understood her like Virgil, no one else looked at her as anything more than an overeager child with her head in the clouds. Even their younger brother, Felix, the sole purely human sibling, never quite cared to put up with her ramblings the same way Virgil did.

Even after catching the eye of a young noblewoman, Virgil encouraged Enara to continue her education, to put her passion to use. He helped quiz her during her studies as an apprentice of medicine. He brought food and water and a reminder to get fresh air when she cooped herself up in her room for hours on end studying. And when their mother died young, the fate of all deviants, he mourned with her while encouraging her to finish the last year of her apprenticeship.

Outside of her family, Enara earned a reputation for her passion for knowledge and seeming inability to keep track of anything else. Often late to appointments, parties, and family meals, but never to class. Most her friends were other such academics, those who could hold a conversation on world history or the application of thaumaturgy in daily life for hours without the need for small talk.

Her favorite matter to speak on with friends was medicine. After a lifetime of survival thanks to the treatment, she couldn’t help but feel grateful to the advancements in the medical field. And what better way to show her appreciation than to join the medical field herself? Her initial pleas to her father yielded nothing, yet one pleading look from Virgil turned into an apprenticeship. Her father justified the apprenticeship by saying it would be good for Virgil and his future noble family to have a trusted doctor on hand.

Though Enara promised to aid her brother if asked, she longed to help those in the Outer Embarthis or the farmlands. Those were the people truly in need of more skilled doctors.

After her apprenticeship ended, Enara stayed near the family to gather the courage and resources to make her dreams come true. Virgil was on the cusp of marriage, Felix had made the choice to join the Keepers, and she was a newly minted doctor. The stars had finally aligned once more for the Sharpe family.

Then Virgil died.

With that the light Enara had tethered herself to was snuffed out. How could this happen? How had the treatment failed? It had taken four decades to claim her mother, yet only two and half to claim her brother. Hadn’t he been promised another decade at the least? How could the Loom in all its wisdom and guidance start to fail the deviants among them?

What good was she without her brother? The one who’d practically raised her, guided her through life, loved her unconditionally. All Enara could do was crumble and grieve. People visited to give their goodbyes, to help her family recover. Even Virgil’s sweetheart made an appearance, though she barely noticed. How could she find her place in a world devoid of light and love?

And yet her family pushed on. Even as Enara braided her brother’s soul thread into her hair, they began to prod her to move, to socialize, to stop mopping about. Without her brother’s marriage it was up to her and Finn to raise the family’s status. It was what Virgil would’ve wanted. But the thought of being his replacement made Enara sick.

But what could she do? Even as a healer she’d been unable to save him and the others dying around her. What was failing in the treatment? Was it the ingredients, or the Loom itself? And how could she get to the bottom of this?

These days Enara still braids Virgil’s soul thread in her hair, still listens to her father droning about who to marry, but her heart and mind are set on figuring out what caused the treatment to fail before she falls prey to it herself.