In most fairy tales, protagonists end up with The One because it fits the story: like they’re both royal, or because one has a heart of gold, or sometimes because of a fairy’s meddling. In a story where there’s one royal and one poor but kind-hearted person, of course they get together. This could also be the effect of growing up with Disney’s Golden Age. It’s sort of my same problem with shoujo manga: It’s never a mystery who will end up together.

The seed of this story came to me in a nightmare, actually. I dreamed I was in the suit and something had chewed right through my arm. Usually the inspirations that come with sleep aren’t worth much in the light of day, but I still wrote down every detail I could remember. I hadn’t been getting good sleep since the birth of my second child. Tossing and turning had stirred up some vivid imagery and I put it to use. The rest of the story was developed over several revisions.

I can remember reading, at age eleven or so, Patricia C. Wrede’s Dealing With Dragons, in which Kazul informs Cimorene: “Queen of the Dragons is a totally different job from King, and it’s not one I’m particularly interested in. Most people aren’t.” And that made a great deal of sense to my eleven-year-old self. Growing up on Tamora Pierce and Mercedes Lackey, I was more interested in swords, bows, and hawks than whatever princesses were said to do before they were married off in horse-trading deals.

Because our readers have the expectation of that element of “What if?”, it gives SF authors a bigger sandbox to play in. We’re not quite as confined by the rules of the everyday world, especially in terms of whatever science fictional concept we’re exploring. And I’m not saying that a novel needs to hit you over the head with a sociopolitical message, but there are plenty of works that subtly incorporate them. Even in terms of worldbuilding.

Since I began with the idea of using playing cards as spells, I studied cards and learned that the suits have symbolic associations originally based on the Tarot. Take a suit and a number and you could imagine an effect based around that combination. Since that effect wasn’t specific and could vary, I imagined that there was a kind of gambling element to the magic—that you had to choose very carefully the effect you were trying for. Try too much with a card, try to exceed the value, and it might fail to work.