Her Uncle Albert; an unmarried rouge who was her Mother's underworld informant. Not the kind of man who had openly illicit love affairs, so Emberlee stayed hidden and tried to figure out what her Mother's younger brother was doing. He was standing as if watching the birds on the lovely pond, while a heavily bejewelled Lady fanned herself on a shaded bench not too far away. It looked proper from the outside, and the Lady at least hid all trace of her emotions. But Uncle Albert had a wicked grin on his face. 
"You wanted my help Duchess, what better time than now to figure this out," so that's what Mother meant when she said Uncle Albert was good at irritating women. 
"In a public place, where anyone could be hiding in the bushes listening in?" The Lady scanned around but Emberlee had already positioned herself to be hidden. 
"Then I shall slip in your bedroom window late at night, clandestine and ridiculous," Uncle Albert never lost the charming smile on his face, but the Lady didn't seem impressed. 
"I wish to arrange a meeting with one of the Vapours," as soon as Emberlee heard it, she carefully retreated. 
In the Kingdom of Xutia, the Royal family were descendants of the Gods. They could grant Blessings and all noble children are presented to the King or Queen for their Godly Benediction. But some children are instead taken as Vapours; the whispers in the dark, the bumps in the night. And it seemed her Uncle Albert knew how to get into contact with one at least. 
It wasn't the kind of news her Mother would have wanted her to collect, but Emberlee would report it nonetheless. No knowledge, or experience, was ever wasted so somehow Emberlee knew this too could have value. She quietly returned to the other children for the party to naturally move on to silly summer games. Thankfully her Mother wasn't the kind to linger once she'd achieved her social goals, so Emberlee quickly found herself collected and loaded into the carriage. 
"What did you encounter?" Mother's voice was expectant, and Emberlee gave as detailed a recall of Uncle Albert's garden rendezvous as possible. "So you recognized your Uncle's voice but not the Lady, but did you know her face?" she delved for more information. 
"At first it sounded like an affair, but then I realized it was Uncle Albert. I tried to see who she was but I'd never seen her before. And then she mentioned waiting to see a Vapour so I left." It wasn't just superstitiously bad luck to deliberately involve the Vapours; they were the magical counterbalance to all the Godly Blessings bestowed. Emberlee's Blessing of Beauty was akin to the average garden rose; many were charmed by her loveliness, only to forget the danger of her thorns. A Vapour, however, had far more active magics available to it. The most powerful Vapour was Putredo; the last Viscounty that had encountered it was still recovering from a wheat mould. They couldn't be killed, and they couldn't be contained; it was always best to leave them be and get out of their way if possible. To deliberately seek one out could only mean the Lady was beyond desperate; willing to risk calamity for the sake of a Vapour's magic. 
"How does uncle know how to contact the Vapours?" Emberlee dared press for answers, knowing her mother carefully censured things to be 'age appropriate'. 
"Because it's part of his job to know things, little Ember," her Mother's answer deliberately clarified nothing. 
In the Ortaga family tree, Emberlee's mother Sapphira was first born and had inherited the March, making her the Marchioness, but Uncle Albert was an Earl whom she'd thought was a Bureaucrat. But if he had connections to the Vapours, that could only mean he was far less upstanding than she'd originally thought. Not many honourable gentlemen know how to get into contact with living nightmares, but uncle Albert had always seemed to be a dashing rogue at the very worse. Not a man who you'd turn to because you needed to make a deal with the devil. 
Emberlee was given no more information on the Vapours than she'd already gleaned from fairy tales and ghost stories, but her Mother quizzed her on the various social trends that were on display and confirmed which families were still banding together. She dutifully answered her Mother but kept wondering over what was not said. So that night after she'd bathed and been put to bed, Emberlee carefully snuck out of her room to try and find answers in the Library.
 It was nowhere near as extensive as the Grand Library, though given its location on the kingdom's borders it meant that the section on Religions had more than just the Kingdom's Pantheon included. 
But on her first night of research, Emberlee focused on looking for Vapour trails. If every Noble child was presented for a Blessing, then it only made sense to assume there would also be a list of those children taken as Vapours instead. And such important lists would not be copied here, but locked up in the Royal Archive. 
It was repeatedly summarized in books as Vapours are the terrible cost of Divine Attention, be grateful for the Blessings. But that didn't explain anything either. Reading through the different tomes for all the Gods gave her a long list of Gods, Blessings, the accomplishments of those given the blessings, and how various tributes had been made in the past to garner specific favour. 
Everything deliberately excluded the Vapours, as if acting like they didn't exist would diminish their strange powers. She had to retreat from the Library back to her room and fell into the embrace of a truly strange dream where she was chased by teacups around a garden full of flowers that nestled uncle Albert's face in the middle. 
Her Mother never remarked on Emberlee's night adventures, so Emberlee continued to go night after night. And despite the seriousness of her search, Emberlee felt almost like it was a game of seek and avoid as she tried to keep the night guard and servants from catching her at it. After a fortnight, Emberlee had gone through all the books on her Kingdom's Religion and had finally ventured into the strange witchcraft used by their closest neighbours, the Adaba. 
They had no mention of Vapours or Blessings; no Gods at all but they had a folklore full of Wish Granting fairies. These beings would often look human, but could only be seen on reflective surfaces, and could be lured with various bribes and tributes. But nothing that would fulfill her ardent search, so she only scanned these texts. Unlike her Kingdom's texts, where each God was compiled in their tome, the Adaba superstitions were listed in a confusing hi온라인카지노게임 of oldest to youngest, and then within each era, all was catalogued alphabetically. 
No Gods, but interestingly enough, Emberlee found a small entry under Godmother/Godfather, Fairy. It was a bond formed when a fairy chooses a human to be its child, granting the human a portion of their Magic for a limited time. But it didn't explain how or why a Fairy would go about it. So she continued her hunt for information, even after her Mother had added new tasks for Emberlee to master. 
Their Kingdom had known prosperity for a long time, and as such the current King Andrion felt it time for their borders to grow; the first of several expansions towards being an Empire. This meant father was called away to train the Royal Army, and Mother took over Emberlee's sword skill training. Her afternoons remained filled with either attending social events at her Mother's side or being attended to by tutors. And her nights proved a futile hunt for what the Vapours could do, or why there was so little recorded about them 
And why Uncle Albert was involved with them. Finally, a week before Emberlee's ninth birthday, she finished searching all the books in the Library and realized it wasn't enough. She'd talked to every servant, merchant, or adult she could but despite hearing many wonderful ghost stories, Emberlee learned nothing new. 
So she determined that if Mother wouldn't explain it to her, maybe she should ask Uncle Albert directly. He might just surprise her by telling her the truth. But she didn't want to admit to her Mother that she still hadn't discovered the truth of the Vapours yet, she needed to find a way to spend time with Uncle Albert naturally, and make it seem like someone else's idea. Mother always said it was easier to dance with a partner that believes they're leading, which Emberlee took to heart; she'd ask Uncle Albert to explain while they danced at her birthday celebration. Even her father would be home for it, so she would use her parents' infatuation with each other to her advantage. 
Plan set Emberlee regained her right to sleep fully, and threw herself into her studies with renewed vigour. It didn't occur to her that her Mother was aware of her nightly expeditions to the Library, or that all of this was as her Mother intended.