As far as Lavinia Wex is concerned, the secret to success is to commit to the bit. 

Lavinia is one of the brighter children in Cheliax, and she succeeds in wizard school by really, really caring about wizardry, wanting mastery of this or that spell more than she wants sleep or enough food or to not be beaten. 

She is second-circle when they assign her to the Worldwound, 

She achieves third circle within a reasonable timeframe, and then--stops. 

When they mind-read her, her head is too full of topology and spellforms and paper and ink to contain any thought of heresy, of disloyalty; when the current mindreader is recalled and replaced by someone a little less complacent, a little more inclined to dig, a little too likely to ask whether she has ever tried to hang a fourth-circle spell, she succeeds again; she wants him, very much, and that is why he falls into bed with her, too charmed and too certain of his dominance in their relationship to look too closely at other areas of her life. 

She wants very badly, too, to beat back the demons, to prevent them from claiming even an inch more of soil than they already have. Throws herself into it with a genuine fervor and disregard for her own well-being. Lets that and magic fill her minds, whenever anyone does look. 

When she is less than a month from the end of her tour at the Worldwound, she tries for the first time to hang a fourth-circle spell. And a fifth.

They both hang. 

A round after she finishes preparing her spells, she collapses from relief on the cobblestones of Almas. 

Lucette is born on the second day of Calistril, 4696, in Kenabres, and relocated to Nerosyan shortly thereafter. Kenabres in the throes of the Fourth Crusade is no place for a child to grow up, especially the child of Khorramzadeh's most prominent enemy among the crusaders. 

Lucette is a loud baby, shrieking her distress and delight both, running down the halls of the manor as soon as she can walk. Her volume is the exasperation of her nursemaids and the endeared pride of her Mama. 

Her parents can't be around all the time--the Fourth Crusade cannot spare them just because there is a child who would dearly love to see more of them--but they visit as often as they can, her Mama more often than her Mummy. Mama counsels her not to think it is because her Mummy loves her less--Terendelev is simply even more indispensable than Lavinia Wex has quite been able to make herself. 

Lucette is born on the second day of Calistril, 4696, in Kenabres, and relocated to Nerosyan shortly thereafter. Kenabres in the throes of the Fourth Crusade is no place for a child to grow up, especially the child of Khorramzadeh's most prominent enemy among the crusaders. 

Lucette is a loud baby, shrieking her distress and delight both, running down the halls of the manor as soon as she can walk. Her volume is the exasperation of her nursemaids and the endeared pride of her Mama. 

Her parents can't be around all the time--the Fourth Crusade cannot spare them just because there is a child who would dearly love to see more of them--but they visit as often as they can, her Mama more often than her Mummy. Mama counsels her not to think it is because her Mummy loves her less--Terendelev is simply even more indispensable than Lavinia Wex has quite been able to make herself. 

Lucette spends her time between her parents' visits running around the halls of the manor, inventing elaborate games and ambushing servants into playing them with her instead of whatever it is they were supposed to be doing, socializing with other noble* children, and attending to her studies. 

It might be expected, given her general level of energy and how terrifyingly gregarious she is, that Lucette would be the type of child to shirk her lessons. She is not. She attends to them with a ferocious concentration that, on more than one occasion, a new maidservant who took note of it was bewildered by, until one or both of Lucette's parents paid her a visit, and she trotted out her academic achievements as if, if her parents were only proud enough of her, they would finally come home for good. 

*Lucette is not technically a noble. Nobody in her family has a formal noble title. But while "dragon" isn't actually a title of nobility, it might as well be, especially when the dragon in question is freakin' Terendelev.