The Warlock's Gambit by David Alastair Hayden, Pepper Thorn

unless Derek lets me join him, which is almost never.”
    “The Manse must have sensed an unconscious desire for the entertainments you were denied,” Vassalus commented as he walked over to the crates lining the wall nearby.
    Arthur had no idea what to say to that. Instead, he changed the subject. “Let’s have lunch.” His stomach rumbled as if on cue.
    “Yeah … okay. But I don’t want to walk down to the Dining Hall. And I just want something small.”
    “Too bad we can't just have some sandwiches here; that’d be perfect.”
    Valet stepped forward from out of nowhere, bowed, and left.
    “Oh,” Arthur said. It was going to take a long time to get used to having someone do things like that for him.
    While they waited for the food, Arthur picked up a stylus and drew a happy face on the blank screen, next to Morgan’s test scribbles.
    “I bet there’s a file system for storing your images,” Morgan said. “It should link to an individual computer for you and also be accessible from the main computer through some sort of cloud network storage. Except we don’t have individual computers.” She said the last bit with a sigh.
    Lexi leapt on top of one of the crates. “Oh, this is your father’s stuff, dear.”
    Arthur joined her. One crate was labeled: PERSONAL EFFECTS OF ARTHUR QUINTUS PALADIN, and the other was labeled: PERSONAL EFFECTS OF AMELIA NELSON PALADIN.
    “Quintus …” Morgan muttered. “Arthur, what’s your middle name again?”
    “Primus.”
    “Seriously? Your family numbers the children?”
    “We … we do what?”
    “The Romans used to do that sometimes — they would number each child. So if you’d had a brother, he’d be named Arthur Secundus.”
    Arthur cringed. “Guess I got lucky.”
    “Better than Tertius or Sextus.”
    “How’d you know that?”
    “My old school taught us Latin.”
    “So what number was my dad?”
    “Seriously?” Morgan said.
    “What? I don’t know Latin.”
    “I’m not telling.”
    “Five, dear,” Lexi said.
    “Alexis, you should have let him figure it out on his own,” Vassalus said. “It is not good for us to do everything for him.”
    Arthur reached down and scratched Lexi behind the ears. She let a short purr slip, looked embarrassed, then leapt down and began surveying the room again.
    “I suspect the servitors, once they are able, will be moving these out,” Vassalus said, nodding toward the crates. “Though I am not sure where to.”
    “You should probably open them up and take a look,” Morgan said. “There might be something useful in there.”
    Arthur gave the crates an anxious glance. The idea of going through his dead parents’ stuff made him feel … strange. And he definitely wasn't going to do it with Morgan peering over his shoulder. She wouldn't even let him see her room. “Maybe later.”
    Just then, Valet arrived with their lunch, saving Arthur from having to explain himself further.
    Morgan chose a sandwich off the tray and wandered back over to the shelves. “You’ve got some weird old novels in here.”
    “Hey! Those are my favorite books.”
    “Seriously?”
    “They were my Grandpa Nelson’s. I only ever got to buy a couple of new books, and a handful of comics here and there. And Grandma hated driving across town to the public library.”
    “It’s only a few miles.”
    “Tell her that.”
    “Well, your tastes in manga are … poor.”
    Arthur ran his fingertips along the spines of twenty books in a series he only had two volumes of at home. “The Manse gave me the full series of the only ones I’ve ever read.”
    “This is it? Three series? Three mediocre series?”
    Arthur shrugged and bit into his own sandwich. “I found them on sale. Books are expensive, and my allowance is laughably small, when I'm not grounded and actually get it.”
    “Well, if the Manse gave me what I would like in my room, it’ll be manga heaven on my shelves.”
    “For you, wouldn’t the Manse just put them all on a