Eleven-year-old Princess Cecilia, or Celie, lives in the kingdom of Sleyne in a castle that has a mind of its own. “Whenever Castle Glower became bored, it would grow a new room or two. It usually happened on Tuesdays” (1). Celie seems to understand the castle better than the rest of the royal family: her father, King Glower the Seventy-ninth, her mother Queen Celina, her two older brothers Bran and Rolf, and her older sister Lilah.

The castle decides who will become its monarch, and it has chosen Rolf to succeed his father rather than the elder Bran, who is sent to the College of Wizardry instead. Castle Glower has also shown a preference for Celie. “Everybody loved Celie, the fourth and most delightful of the royal children” (3).

Celie is upset because her parents are going to Bran’s graduation at the School of Wizardry, but the rest of the family must stay behind. As she wanders through the castle, she sees a tower room that wasn’t at the top of the stairs before. Celie climbs to investigate because she is trying to create an atlas of the entire castle to keep people from getting lost: “So far she had three hundred pages of maps, and could get to most of the major rooms (winter and summer dining halls, chapel, library, throne room) in record time as long as the Castle wasn’t bored and looking to stretch” (7).