Fledgling E-Book

Molly Harper

• Herausgeber: NYLA
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 399

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

"Molly Harper's Changeling is masterful fantasy—a spunky Cinderella story with a heroine who's equal parts compassion, determination, and pure magical delight." —Rachel Vincent, author of the Soul Screamers series and The Stars Never Rise, on Changeling Days away from completing her first year at Miss Castwell's Institute for the Magical Instruction of Young Ladies, Changeling-born Sarah Smith might just get away with posing as an upper-class Guardian girl named Cassandra Reed. But strange visions of a Lightbourne destroyed by Miss Morton's revenant army keep Sarah from enjoying her achievement. Plus, the Mother Book, Sarah's one secret advantage and the ultimate entrée in Guardian society, suddenly stops revealing itself to her…putting her in a precarious position with the Guild. On top of all that, her former lady's maid left Miss Castwell's, and the new hire is, well, taking some getting used to. If it weren't for her two best friends, Alicia McCray and Ivy Cowel, who will do anything to protect her secret, Sarah doesn't know if she'll make it another year. When the three girls take summer holiday with Alicia's family (chaperoned by an exacting and very disapproving Mrs. McCray), a relaxing vacation in Scotland is the last thing they'll find. Mrs. Winter is thrilled that Sarah is spending time with the influential McCray family, but Sarah can't help but feel that her real purpose is to find other Changeling children like her, and free them to realize their own magic. Can she find genuine satisfaction in her accomplishments when she knows there are others like her out there who need her help? Will the three girls uncover the deeply-held secrets they're looking for in the mysterious mountains of Scotland? Will the Mother Book finally start talking to her again? And will Sarah come to understand the importance of her connection with Ivy and Alicia, and the true nature of her own power…before it's too late? "Witty and classic, Changeling had everything I wanted from a coming of age story: friendship, scandal, and a heroine learning to flex her magical muscles. If you liked Harry Potter, you will love CHANGELING!" —Kristen Simmons, critically acclaimed author of the Article 5 series, on Changeling

Leseprobe

FLEDGLING

MOLLY HARPER

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Discussion Questions

Acknowledgments

Sneak Peek at Calling, Book 3

Also by Molly Harper

About the Author

This ebook is licensed to you for your personal enjoyment only.

This ebook may not be sold, shared, or given away.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the writer’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Fledgling

Copyright © 2019 by Molly Harper

Ebook ISBN: 9781641971010

Print ISBN: 9781076160881

Interior illustrations by Polina Hrytskova @PollyKul

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

No part of this work may be used, reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

NYLA Publishing

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http://www.nyliterary.com

1

DANCING WITH ILL-TEMPERED UNICORNS

I once believed that the hardest thing I would ever face would be a mountain of dirty laundry or polishing every piece of silver in my employer’s house, and then I was sent to finishing school.

“Ladies! Ladies! Why these glum expressions in the face of such delightful work?” my dancing instructor, Madame Rousseau, called as I sagged at the waist and braced myself against my knees just to catch my breath.

The spring sun beat warm upon my back as I struggled to force air into my lungs. The grass of Miss Castwell’s expansive south lawn was silky and warm beneath my bare feet. The breath I drew in was scented with the waxy sweetness of white and purple hyacinth blooming on the edge of the knot garden. Behind us, Miss Castwell’s Institute for the Magical Instruction of Young Ladies loomed like a cursed fairy tale castle, the late afternoon light lending the green-gray stone an eerie, ethereal light.

Madame Rousseau, a reed-thin woman with sepia skin, clucked her tongue disdainfully at the class full of sweaty, winded students. Miss Rousseau never got tired. She never got winded. Her thick black hair never slipped from its neat chignon. And she never ceased to be disappointed by our insistence that we needed to breathe and feel the blood circulating through our limbs. I was in very real danger of flopping forward and meeting the earth face-first. Even Callista Cavill, an awful girl who prided herself on being the unshakeable model for all that was elegant in our class, was beet-faced and shaking.

“This vernal circle is an intermediate dance at best, ladies, though its purpose is the truest and purest in intents. Summoning a unicorn is a blessing for Miss Castwell’s. It definitely seals our magical boundaries for the year. It’s your duty to these glorious halls and all they have granted to you to throw yourselves whole-heartedly in this exercise!” Madame Rousseau scolded us. “How shameful that this class has so little love for our venerated school!”

“Does she think we do not know that none of the other classes have been able to summon a unicorn this spring?” Alicia McCray hiss-whispered in my left ear, propping herself on the ground with her palms to prevent face-planting. “Because it’s tricky work at best! And unicorns might prefer the presence of magical maidens, but sudden movements can make any animal nervous! So doing the dance in triple time is what some people might consider counterintuitive!”

My other best friend, Ivy Cowell, was bent in a similar L-shape to my right, sweat giving her chestnut skin an almost iridescent sheen. Ivy made several attempts to raise her hand before I shoved my shoulder under hers and helped hold her arm aloft. “Perhaps, Madame Rousseau, if you didn’t ask us to do the dance at such a quick tempo, our performance might be adequate.”

Ivy had a gift for both understatement and diplomacy.

“Ridiculous,” Madame Rousseau sniffed. “I have written several papers on this very subject. Summoning rituals are even more effective at an increased speed. I’ve tested this on spirits, nymphs, and merfolk. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to summon a merman when he doesn’t want to be called?”

Madeline Sato, one of those most dedicated dancers in the school, groaned under her breath. “I think she is trying to murder us.”

Alicia wheezed in agreement, her tiny, pale shoulders heaving. “It’s the only reasonable explanation.”

“That will teach you to tell your mother that you’re ready for the ‘full educational experience’ offered by Castwell’s,” I huffed, laughing until I realized how much it made my stomach muscles hurt.

“I just wanted to be able to take my classes with you two,” Alicia hissed. “I’ve felt very well over the past few months, but I’m nowhere near my full strength. I thought I would be taking an easy potions course or even belomancy, which you both know I hate because flinging an arrow at a target is not a reliable way to predict the future. But I was willing to put up with it for the pleasure of your company. I did not expect to have to run around a lawn at triple time, sweating through my clothes. I am not amused.”

I snickered, my shoulders shaking into Ivy’s. The truth was that it was very easy to sweat through our Castwell green physical activity gowns, thin, light muslin dresses with short puffed sleeves and shin-length skirts. Because we were so scandalously dressed (and unicorns historically shunned masculine company), all the male staff had been directed to the other side of the campus so they wouldn’t manage to — gasp — glimpse our exposed ankles. Male visitors had been banned for the next two hours. We might be learning to do magic with enormous knives while conducting social terrorism, but Miss Castwell’s took the reputation of its students very seriously.

Ivy, bless her, continued to try to reason with Madame Rousseau. She placed her hands upon my back, and I tried not to grunt too loudly as Ivy used me to push up to a standing position. “But has the theory been proven with unicorns, Ma’am? They’re notoriously skittish creatures.”

Madame Rousseau narrowed her eyes at Ivy’s flushed face and considered for a moment. “Fine! Ladies! Assemble, we will perform the dance at double time.”

The class groaned quietly in unison and straightened, stumbling back into formation.

“You tried,” I said to Ivy. “It’s more than I was able to do. I was too busy stubbornly clinging to consciousness.”

Ivy chuckled as several older girls keyed up violins and a guitar. Poor Theodora Brandywine had the bad luck to be extremely proficient at the most unglamorous instrument of all ladies’ musical options — the snare drum — and was expected to keep time. Sighing, the petite girl tapped a double-time tempo against the skin of the drum and the other girls joined in a lively spring tune.

We skipped in tight concentric circles until the music sped up even further, and we darted in and out of each other’s formations, making floral patterns that could be seen from above. Now that we were moving at a more reasonable speed, I wasn’t worried about hitting the right spot on the ground or not tripping or holding my arms straight and my shoulders back. There was simply movement and breathing and the rare joy of being able to run — a rarity for any proper young lady of Guild Guardian society.

The song repeated on and on in a dizzying cycle, and suddenly there was a collective gasp behind me, and I turned to see a pale graceful shape moving out of the woods surrounding the school. We continued dancing, as instructed, but at a slower pace, welcoming the unicorn into our midst. As my side of the circle moved toward the trees, I could see the unicorn more clearly — long elegant legs with delicate ankles, a shining coat of creamy gold, and an ivory horn as nearly as long as my arm.

It was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen in my young life, and yet, my stomach churned at the gleam of its mane and the clip-clop of its shimmering hooves. The dragonfly on my hands, a living metal tattoo that marked me as the Translator of the Mother Book, vibrated with an emotion I’d never felt from it — dread. The mark was trembling with anxiety, and there was no rational explanation. Unicorns were loving beings who only wanted the best for the maidens who called them. We should be thrilled to have called one so easily.

The Hollowhorn

That fear overrode any glow of peace and hope we were told to expect in the presence of a unicorn. All I felt were revulsion and dread and a prickle of cold sweat under my arms. I hadn’t felt this out of sorts since last term, when the late Miss Morton had nearly drained my magic and life away in a misguided attempt at world domination.

“I don’t feel well,” I whispered hoarsely to Ivy, who was staring dreamily at the unicorn as she moved. The wind picked up and a softer, wistful melody piped over the musicians’ efforts. Eventually, the players gave up and simply stood there, staring as the unicorn moved closer.

No, we were moving closer to the great beast, our formations becoming misshapen and sloppy. Yet, Madame Rousseau said nothing.

Something was wrong.

The slow lilting song grew louder, and my legs felt like one of Mum’s aspic jellies underneath me. I fell forward, dropping to my knees on the lawn and the other girls simply stepped around me, moving closer and closer to the unicorn. I swallowed thickly around the nausea that was making my stomach roll. Now that I was finally still, I could get a long, steady look at the unicorn, and I could see tiny perforations in the unicorn’s horn, spiraling up to the tip in a pipe formation. I realized the haunting melody was coming from the unicorn itself, from its horn.

Oh, sweet Circe’s rounded cheeks. We hadn’t summoned a unicorn.

“Stop!” I yelled, stumbling to my feet. One of Callista’s cronies, Millicent DeCater, broke from the dancing circles and drifted toward the creature with her arm outstretched. “Millicent, stop!”

“It’s so beautiful,” she mumbled, her voice dazed and her blue eyes glassy.

In my remedial magical zoology reading, I’d learned that hollowhorns were a malicious, bloodthirsty cousin to the unicorn. The holes in their horns caught the wind to make music, attracting poor dumb woodland creatures that were too mesmerized to object as the hollowhorn fed on them.

Which explained why Millicent was the first among us to come forward.

“Madame Rousseau! It’s a hollowhorn! We must stop the music and get away, quickly!” I cried, tugging at Madame’s long green sleeve. But she ignored me and shrugged me off as she glided gracefully across the lawn.

I surged towards Ivy, who ignored me completely as I shook her. “Ivy! Wake up!”

But Ivy’s usually luminous brown eyes were too dulled by adoration for the poisonous music in her ears. She strained away from me, testing what little upper body strength I had as I caught Alicia around the waist. I dragged both of them away from the creature. “Alicia! Please! Would both of you just snap out of this, for pity’s sake?”

But they did not snap out of it. If anything, my creating distance between them and the monstrous horse seemed to make them more determined to reach it!

“HELP!” I yelled, turning to the building, while I struggled against my friends’ pulling. “Somebody please! Help!”

Why wasn’t I affected by the music like the others? Why was I alone in this? This felt like a child’s bad dream, fear and panic and helplessness all rolled together. The oily grip of fear sliding along my mark didn’t exactly help me focus. I wrung my hands out, as if I could force more magic into the tips of my fingers.

I reached for my ritual blade, Wit, and cast the spell sigil for “silence,” a bright blue symbol staining the air. The lilting music continued. In fact, the hollowhorn seemed to send me a filthy look, as if it didn’t appreciate my attempts to interrupt his performance and mealtime.

Letting loose of Alicia, who then flopped face-first on the lawn with the force of her yanking away, I drew a sigil for alarm. To increase the degree of difficulty, I did this whilestomping on the hem to Alicia’s gown, slowing her progress as she crawled on the grass towards the hollowhorn. I flung my arm towards Headmistress Lockwood’s office window and the glowing red symbol flew like a hawk toward the glass. Vaguely, I heard a shattering sound as I darted around Ivy and planted my shoulder against her chest to keep her from shoving me along towards certain doom. I turned and saw that Millicent’s paper-pale fingertips were almost touching its evil velvety nose.

“Millicent, stop!”

Unfortunately, there were too many girls between me and Millicent.

“I’m almost sorry about this, Millicent,” I murmured, throwing something of a “hallway curse” — a livid pink spell that would never be taught in the classroom but whispered among the students far out of the hearing of the teachers. If a student wanted a rival to injure her ankle — not permanently, mind, just long enough to keep her from dancing with a particular boy from the Palmer School for Young Men — she would cast the Glass Ankle Curse. Said rival would immediately sprain their ankle so severely that she would think she’d attempted ballet on a buttered floor.

The pale pink sigil hit Millicent in the left leg, and she crumpled to the ground with a sickening pop. None of the girls seemed to notice. The pretense of dancing had stopped, and they were simply stumbling towards the hollowhorn. The monster’s eyes, the flat gray of a gravestone, glanced down at Millicent’s prone form with interest while she moaned over the state of her ankle.

Breathing deep, I cast the Stone Shield sigil to put a magical barrier between Millicent and the creature. My arms ached with the effort of it, but it simply bounced off of the awful thing and faded into the lawn. The hollowhorn’s haunting, sinister song played all the while.

Was the creature simply too malevolent to be affected by good magic? Or was it that I wasn’t strong enough to affect it? I was only a student, a powerful student of course, but a student all the same. I desperately wished for an adult — any adult — to see this bizarre scene out of a window and come to my aid. As grateful as I was to be free of the hollowhorn’s thrall, it seemed to be a great burden to put on the shoulders of someone who was in so many remedial classes.

I blinked fast, wiping sweat from my brow and trying to focus on priorities. Millicent was on the ground, immobile — thanks to my spell — and very vulnerable to attack. My friends were getting closer and closer by the step. Madame Rousseau was no help whatsoever, and there was no help forthcoming from any other quarter.

I nodded, licking my lips. “Right.”

Drawing a quick silver sigil on the air, I threw a Certain Sleep Charm at Alicia, who dropped onto the lawn in a heap. I tried the same on Millicent, and Jeanette, and even Ivy, but I was still mastering the charm, and Alicia was so much smaller than the others. She was easier to dose and curled onto the grass like a sleeping kitten.

“Think think think,” I whispered to myself, sweat dripping down the back of my neck as I reviewed every spell I’d learned from the Mother Book. But all I could think of was a potion to prevent toadstool warts, which didn’t strike me as particularly useful at the moment.

What was the most powerful spell I knew? The one that had saved us from Miss Morton last year. With all the will I had left beyond the haze of panic and exhaustion, I drew the most dangerous symbol in the Mother Book.

Unmake!

The dirty green light sputtered out of my blade and died before it could form the sigil. I tried it again.

Unmake!

Nothing. Not even the sad little emerald light this time. It seemed that I needed the support of the friends who helped me cast the spell last time, and they were currently trying to pet an evil unicorn.

The tip of the creature’s spiraled horn dug into Millicent’s shoulder. She screamed, though she sounded more surprised than pained that this beguiling beast had betrayed her so. Millicent’s complexion, usually so rosy, paled ever so slightly as if the monster was draining her of her life, and while Millicent seemed to be slowly waking from the music’s spell, she wasn’t able to crawl away from the hollowhorn.

Because I’d injured her ankle… which may have been a mistake.

The creature whickered and pressed its horn deeper into Millicent’s shoulder. Millicent cried out as her skin turned an unhealthy grey color. The hollowhorn pulled its soft white lips back, revealing sharp fangs with serrated edges like a shark’s teeth. They were stained with the blood of previous meals. It lowered that awful mouth towards Millicent’s wound and licked at it delicately with a forked blue-black tongue. Millicent screamed as if the contact burned her.

I glanced toward the building and saw Headmistress Lockwood making her way across the lawn but not fast enough. She didn’t realize what was happening or else she would have run as fast as she was capable in her voluminous Castwell green skirts. My friends were still drifting towards the hollowhorn as if they wanted to be next on the menu.

I glanced down at Wit in my hand. It was a powerful magical instrument, but it was still a knife. It was carefully forged steel and enchanted to stay as sharp as any dagger could be. I balanced its weight in my hand and wondered how much damage it could do to such a creature. I held the blade by its tip, throwing Wit like I was throwing an arrow on the belomancy range.

Unlike the lessons on the belomancy range, I managed to hit something. The force of Wit shattered the creature’s horn, the substance cracking like porcelain, as the blade embedded itself in the hollowhorn’s forehead. Those awful grave stone eyes focused on me, as if it couldn’t believe I’d done something so very rude. Its glossy white legs folded under its dead weight, and it dropped to the ground. As the hollowhorn’s eyes rolled back into its head, it breathed out one last angry groan.

My classmates wilted collectively. I let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding and propped my hands against my knees. Sweat dripped down my face and soaked into the neckline of my gown. Ivy gasped, grabbing my arm.

“What just happened?” she asked me, shaking as if to clear cobwebs from her head. “What’s wrong with everyone? Why is Alicia napping, and why is there a dead unicorn on the lawn? Why does my chest hurt? Did you tackle me?”

“No.” I sighed. Relief rushed through my tense limbs and it felt like I could breathe properly for the first time since dance class started.

I cast a sigil to wake Alicia, who suddenly took in a huge gulp of air and shouted. “Slime mold!”

I paused while helping her to her feet. “What were you dreaming of?”

“Botany,” Alicia said, frowning. “It was the most boring dream I’ve ever had. Painful, really. I’d prefer a nightmare. What happened here?”

Madame Rousseau blinked rapidly, and her expression shifted from dazed to extremely offended that we were out of formation. “Ladies, what is this? Why has the music stopped? And your lines? Has not one girl in here ever heard of proper posture? Were you all raised to be slouching sloths?”

Madame Rousseau’s eyes went wide as she caught sight of the fallen hollowhorn, but she turned her back to it and cast what appeared to be a shielding spell over her shoulder because the carcass disappeared from sight. The girls blinked at the illusion but in their disorientation focused on the brisk instructions coming from her mouth. “Miss McCray? Who gave you permission to take a nap in the middle of class? And Miss — Miss DeCater? What has happened to your ankle? Oh, my dear girl, do not try to stand on it. It’s quite swollen.”

Leveling a long, speculative look at me, Headmistress Lockwood interjected, “Ladies, you are dismissed. Please return to your rooms and dress for dinner, which begins in one hour. Miss Reed, please stay, I’d like to speak to you and your usual cohorts in chaos, as well.”

Headmistress Lockwood was a tall, compact woman with iron grey hair pulled back into a severe knot. While she had a surprisingly delicate features, her dark eyes were always stern and alert. It was as if she was as eager to catch her charges misbehaving as she was to protect us from all threats, known and unknown. She would not respond kindly to the hollowhorn’s intrusion on our peaceful campus.

Callista and her friend Rosemarie had enough composure to call “Oooooh,” as if to mock my predicament, but Headmistress Lockwood snapped, “Miss Cavill, please help Miss DeCater stand and take her to the hospital wing.”

Callista’s expression shifted from smug to annoyed in an instant, but as someone who spent most of her time trying to prove to the faculty what a darling she was, she could hardly protest something as thoughtful as taking one of her closest friends to seek medical attention. She pulled Millicent to her feet and none-too-gently guided her across the lawn.

“Cohorts sounds a little cold,” Alicia grumbled under her breath as we helped her brush the grass from her light brown curls. “I prefer to think of myself of a partner or at least a fervent accomplice.”

“I think she was prioritizing alliteration over word choice,” I assured her. “You are the author of most my ill-advised plans.”

“Thank you,” Alicia preened while Ivy laughed.

As the other girls filtered away from the now-invisible spectacle of the dead hollowhorn on the lawn, their expressions baffled and tired, Madame Rousseau called, “And do not despair over the condition of your persons. Remember, ladies do not perspire. We glow with the dew of our exertions. Be proud of your work today!”

Alicia burst into giggles but hid it with a fit of coughing.

“What happened here?” Ivy asked again.

“An evil unicorn tried to eat our dance class… which sounded far sillier than I thought it would before I said it aloud,” I mused.

“A hollowhorn?” Madame Rousseau scoffed gently, giving me an indulgent smile. “Miss Reed, I assure you a hollowhorn would never venture onto school grounds, particularly when we were trying to summon their mortal enemy.”

Headmistress Lockwood sniffed and waved her hand, undoing Madame’s glamour. The silver-white body faded into view, its gold and ivory horn in pieces on the ground. “While I would normally agree with you, Madame Rousseau, the evidence seems to speak for itself.”

“But why would a hollowhorn come here of all places?” Madame Rousseau demanded.

“What if we were trying to summon them with a song played at the wrong tempo?” Ivy asked, nodding toward where the musicians had abandoned their instruments in their daze to get back to the school building. “Using a violin made of blackthorn wood, which is known for its appeal to more sinister creatures?”

“That’s Emily Benisse’s violin,” Alicia noted, with a yawn. “It belonged to her great-grandmother, Charlotte. She was so excited to play it with the band for the first time.”

“Charlotte Benisse was known for her skill at parlaying with the most frightening of creatures,” Headmistress Lockwood muttered, deep in thought.

Madame Rousseau’s mouth dropped open. “You must know, Headmistress, I never intended for this to happen. And sweet little Emily wouldn’t hurt a dormouse. She would never dream of luring a dangerous creature to her classmates on purpose.”

“Of course not,” Headmistress Lockwood sniffed dismissively. Born with a permanently exasperated expression, she exuded a dismissive air without really trying. “Though, I believe I will keep the violin in my office for the time being. Emily can use her practice instrument until further notice.”

“I’m sure she will see that would be best,” Madame Rousseau agreed. “I believe I will retire, ladies, after I return these instruments to the other musicians.”

As Madame Rousseau gathered the drum and guitar from the grass, Headmistress Lockwood turned to me with an arch look. “Miss Reed, I appreciate your quick thinking in seeking help in your predicament, but could you have found a way to do that without breaking my office window?”

I turned to see the shattered pane of glass at the headmistress’s office hanging in the frame by a tiny sliver. Then that sliver snapped, and the glass fell two stories in a shower of glittering destruction.

“I may have thrown that spell a little harder than I intended, ma’am,” I admitted. “I’m sorry.”

Headmistress Lockwood waved her own blade, a long black dagger with silver twisted into the handle, and the glass returned to its original state. “I suppose you did do the school a service by not allowing a cursed creature to devour fellow students.”

I nodded. “Thank you.”

“But you did break my window. And Millicent DeCater’s ankle, using a curse not sanctioned by the school.”

“It’s not broken, merely sprained… enthusiastically,” I insisted. “And I thought an ankle injury would be easier for you to explain to her parents than her being digested by a hollowhorn.”

Headmistress Lockwood seemed to mull that over for a moment. “Fair enough. For your grace under pressure and devotion to the well-being of the students, you will be rewarded with the shattered remains of the creature’s horn… once the groundskeepers clean up this mess.”

My brows raised. The horn she was offering me was a powerful magical ingredient, valuable for purging the effects of malicious spells. I could sell that powdered horn to one of the purveyors on the Magical Mile and save quite the little nest egg for myself. It would be the difference between survival and destitution should my situation at Raven’s Rest ever change.

“Thank you, Headmistress,” I said, curtseying. “Should we to send it home to Aunt Aneira for safekeeping?”

“No,” Headmistress Lockwood said, in the flinty tone she always used when speaking of her longtime rival and old school chum, Aneira Winter. “I would rather keep the powerful magical item where I can see it, under the school roof.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I agreed, careful to keep my tone glum. Ivy elbowed me lightly, but I ignored the nudge.

“Now, you should help Misses Cowell and McCray back to their rooms to dress for dinner.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I tucked my arms into Alicia and Ivy’s elbows and walked toward the school.

“And Miss Reed?”

I paused to return my gaze to Headmistress Lockwood, who was smiling. It wasn’t a wide grin by any means, but it was a more mirthful expression than I’d seen from the woman in months of knowing her. “That was an excellent bit of marksmanship. Your belomancy instructor will be very pleased.”

“Oh, that’s praise I do not deserve, Headmistress Lockwood.”

Ivy elbowed me in the ribs and out of the side of her mouth, muttered, “Accept the praise.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” I amended.

Headmistress Lockwood frowned down at the hollowhorn carcass and dismissed us with a wave. “That’s enough, ladies. Go dress for dinner.”

Alicia sighed as we turned towards the Castwell’s building. “You couldn’t just let her think you’d done something impressive for one moment?”

“It was praise I didn’t deserve,” I insisted as we passed the knot garden.

“How could you say that?” Ivy demanded. “You withstood the temptation of that creature’s evil stupefying music. You defended your classmates from said creature using a single blow from your blade. You hit the hollowhorn dead center in its forehead. That was very difficult.”

I pursed my lips. “Yes, but I was aiming for its neck.”

2

THE MOTHER BOOK DISAGREES WITH ME, VEHEMENTLY

“Do we know any spells to cure blisters?” Alicia asked as we limped down the narrow, high-ceilinged corridor to the dorm wing. The floor-to-ceiling Castwell green wallpaper reflected on the black-and-white tile floor, giving the whole hallway an otherworldly glow.

“Madame Rousseau says blisters build character,” I said. “Right now, I’m much more concerned with the ‘dew of my exertions.’ I do not smell dewy.”

“None of us are walking out of here smelling like a rose,” Ivy groaned.

“Speak for yourself. Those of us who are ladies manage to control our baser functions,” Callista sniped as she slipped by. I could only imagine that she had unceremoniously dropped Millicent at the hospital wing and run away before she could be asked to be supportive of her friend in any way. “By the way, COW-ell, you sound like a cart horse clomping about when you promenade.”

“Well, you sound like an imbecile when your mouth opens. We all have our burdens to bear,” Alicia shot back.

Alicia had no gift for diplomacy or understatement.

“I suggest you move along, Callista,” Ivy said. “Alicia, dear, you know that it’s unkind to find a battle of wits with the unarmed.”

Callista’s blue eyes narrowed and her thin upper lip curled back from her teeth, but instead of speaking, she whipped her head around and stomped away — sounding a bit horse-like herself.

“She never changes,” Ivy noted.

I rolled my eyes a bit because my ladylike restraint had met its limits for the afternoon. “And never learns.”

“Well, if she did, I would be rather disappointed in her inconstancy,” Alicia said, tucking her arms into ours as we made our way past the oil portrait of our frowning founder, Emmeline Castwell. “But I am going to have to remember that ‘battle of wits’ comment for later. I noticed you still remain silent in her presence.”

“I promised Mrs. Winter I wouldn’t antagonize her, and that includes aggressive wordplay,” I sighed as we climbed the sweeping main staircase, filing in behind the other tired girls. “And aggressive spell-casting. And aggressive salt-passing at meals. Mrs. Winter gave me a very comprehensive list of what counted as antagonizing her. And then Mr. Winter added a few Mrs. Winter hadn’t thought of. Callista and her mother are just barely intimidated enough to keep mum about Mary’s scene at the masquerade ball. Any provocation and Callista may decide that the threat of Mrs. Winter’s wrath isn’t enough of an incentive to behave like a decent human being.”

Far from her floral claims, Callista had always been a thorn in our collective side. She’d bullied Ivy mercilessly since they’d started classes at Miss Castwell’s. She’d tried to turn me into her little lapdog, attempting to harness my social cache as Mrs. Winter’s niece and the Translator to her advantage. Alicia probably had it the worst of all three of us because Callista still had delusional hopes of somehow persuading Alicia to her side in Callista’s lofty goals of courtship with Alicia’s ridiculously attractive older brother, Gavin — which was why Callista tolerated Alicia’s impertinence.

Fortunately, Gavin had other ideas about who he wished to court and had been visiting me at the Winters’ home, Raven’s Rest, for several months. We weren’t officially courting, as Mr. Winter, who for all intents and purposes was my uncle and legal guardian, hadn’t given his permission. And, frankly, Gavin’s mother didn’t like me very much. Gavin had recently graduated — early — from Palmer’s and was helping his uncle run McCray and Company. And Mrs. McCray believed he should focus his efforts at the office and with her at home. We were, however, in a nebulous pre-courting stage where Gavin was allowed to visit me with chaperones and was allowed to send me gifts and letters, as long as said chaperones screened them. And yet, given the reactions of the other Castwell girls when those gifts and letters arrived, ours was a scandalous affair.

There was a good deal of giggling, so much giggling.

“You couldn’t have at least nudged Callista towards the evil unicorn?” Alicia mumbled. “Technically, it wouldn’t be murder. Merely pointedly failing to save her.”

“You’ve become a very sinister individual since fall term,” I told her.

“Would it be terrible for me to skip the dressing for dinner process all together and just eat dinner from a tray in my room? In my nightgown?” Ivy asked. “While I soak my feet in a tub with peppermint oil? And study our potions notes? Surely ‘evil unicorn’ is justification enough for dinner in bed.”

“It would be incredibly clever for you to do that, but Headmistress Lockwood caught on to girls doing that last year and banned all dinner trays on dance lesson days unless you are actively vomiting or bleeding from the head,” I sighed. “I feel that people have spent an inordinate amount of time explaining rules to me recently.”

“Where’s the trust, I ask you?” Alicia asked as we neared my room. “You break a curfew or two, enter forbidden areas of the school, disintegrate a teacher, and suddenly you’re considered a problem student.”

“Should we be worried about recent cursing from an evil unicorn?” Ivy asked. “In terms of residual magic or vulnerability to other evil horned animals — evil stags and evil gazelles and evil narwhals and such? And why weren’t you shambling toward certain horn-related injury along with the rest of us?”

“I have no idea,” I said, holding up my hands. “Maybe because of the mark? Or perhaps my connection to the Mother Book? Or because I’m smarter than the two of you?”

They burst out laughing.

“All right, you didn’t have to laugh quite so loud at that. You’re both simply terrible people,” I said, making them giggle. “Also, change of subject, just to make you both feel guilty for teasing your friend who loves you, Auntie Aneira sent me some charmed bath salts to use after dance lessons. She didn’t make it clear what the salts did, but she did say that I wouldn’t look like a ‘shuffling street urchin’ and bring shame upon Winter House after using them — which I found promising.”

Alicia snorted. “All my mother sent me in the last mail call was an extremely guilt-laden missive telling me that I will be joining the family on the annual holiday to Scotland immediately after school closes, even if Mother has to tie me to the luggage rack of the carriage.”

“Scotland in summer sounds rather lovely,” I responded.

“Oh yes, picturesque, sweeping landscapes, stunning views of the Loch of Amethysts, blah blah blah,” Alicia muttered. “But holidays with my mother generally mean a months-long slog of Mother chasing me around to stop me from ‘over-exerting myself’ as if I’ll shatter like painted china if I sit down too firmly.”

“I’m suddenly very grateful that my family has never been on holiday,” I said, nodding.

“Well, I’m sure Auntie Aneira could arrange a tour of the continent if you ever feel the need,” Ivy snickered. “And do not think I didn’t notice how you manipulated Headmistress Lockwood’s dislike of your aunt into keeping the horn close, here at school.”

“What did Mrs. Winter do to Headmistress Lockwood when they were at school together?” Alicia asked, her eyes wide.

“I believe she implied that Headmistress Lockwood was too prideful about her appearance to be taken seriously as a student,” I whispered while my friends made cringing faces. “Which is why the headmistress adopted such a severe aesthetic all these years later. And I do not like to use the word ‘manipulate,’ but I couldn’t let Headmistress send the horn home. Auntie Aneira would never let me sell it. She’d rather display it in Raven’s Rest as a demonstration of my accomplishment.”

My friends were the only people at Castwell’s who knew that my “auntie,” Aneira Winter, was actually my Guild Guardian. While I was enrolled under the name Cassandra Reed, the orphaned distance niece of the powerful Winter family, I had been born a Snipe, a member of the servant class to families like the Winters.

Generations before my birth, magical people had been quite alarmed at the technological progress that us mundane people had managed to make during the Industrial Revolution. While they enjoyed the luxury of steam-power and some machinery, magicals from around the world agreed that industrialized non-magicals would eventually create weapons beyond magic’s ability to protect them. My papa said they also were deeply concerned about our inability to have arguments that didn’t escalate into wars, which seemed fair. Although, stepping out of obscurity to inform non-magical populations that they would be taking control of the planet seemed like an over-reaction.

The armies of the newly formed Coven Guild melted the gates of Buckingham Palace and informed the non-magical monarch that her reign was over and the Guild would now protect us from the escalating threat of our own technological innovations. The non-magical governments tried their best to put up a defense, but when the opposing forces can disintegrate buildings and people, it isn’t exactly a fair fight.

Over the years, the world devolved into a more feudal society where non-magical families — Snipes — were assigned to magical families for employment. Conditions for Snipes were by no means cruel. We were paid a fair, living wage for our work. The Guardian government wrote laws to protect our health and safety, but the unwritten laws were very clear. Guild Guardians ran the world. They made the decisions that shaped law, society, the economy, and magic itself. And thanks to that magic, the potential of their lives was unlimited. As long as they were accepted into the right research guilds after graduation, they could study metallurgy, crystallography, botany, glamours, any number of magical occupations.

Snipes stayed Snipes. We cooked and cleaned and served tea and did any number of physical chores that could probably have been accomplished through magical means, but Guardians preferred to keep their energy to loftier pursuits.

Snipes did not have magic, or so I had been told every day from birth. We simply did not have it in our bodies, and I believed that right until the moment I levitated one of Mrs. Winter’s favorite vases in her parlor out of sheer panic and threatened the very fabric of magical society. I was given a false identity and placed here at Castwell’s for safe-keeping rather than being turned over to the authorities for whatever fate they deemed necessary. I was one of the lucky ones.

I approached my suite door marked with the Castwell’s quill and blade crest and reached for the doorknob. The door swung open, and Jenny, my newly assigned lady’s maid, nearly bowled me over.

“I’m so sorry, Miss!” Jenny cried, curtsying deeply. Her cheeks were flushed, and her blond curls were mussed around her delicate heart-shaped face. Her thin arms were burdened with an enormous basket of linens she’d taken from my bed as part of her daily chores.

“It’s alright, Jenny. You didn’t know I was coming in,” I assured her. “Are you well? You look a little flushed. And I say that as someone who looks like she was a struck by a sudden land-bound hurricane.”

Jenny shook her head. “I’m quite well, Miss, thank you. I’ll just take these downstairs, and I’ll come back to help you dress for dinner.”

“I would insist that I do not need help, but I do not think I can lift my arms,” I told her.

“I can see that, Miss.”

“Miss Reed defeated an evil unicorn in single combat,” Alicia told her solemnly.

Jenny’s brow winkled, but instead of arguing, she simply gave a blank well-trained-servant smile and said, “Of course, she did.”

Jenny bustled down the hall and we three shambled into my room, an elegant suite done in shades of green, from the drapes to the counterpane to the green-tinted marble fireplace mantle. I took Wit out of my reticule and drew the blue symbol for silence against the door, preventing anyone from eavesdropping at the door. Unlike the spell I’d attempted on the hollowhorn, it worked. Silence was a spell I’d come to value more and more since Alicia and Ivy had learned about my origins. It felt good to be able to share that part of my life with them, to hold nothing back. That did not, however, mean I wanted the whole school to find out, bringing ruin on my parents and the Winters, not to mention, an arrest and worse for me.

“Your new lady’s maid seems very … excitable?” Alicia said, dropping onto my canopied bed. Phillip, my blue-green familiar of undetermined feathered origin, chirped indignantly from his perch. Phillip hated it when people sat on my bed. For a bird, he had an unreasonable hatred of rumpled covers. “Is it a permanent condition?”

“She does always seem to be in a hurry,” I admitted, digging into the chest at the foot of my bed to pull out a large jar of Mrs. Winter’s miraculous bath salts.

“Why did your old maid get re-assigned?” Ivy asked as I poured a bit of the peppermint and eucalyptus scented salts into two small glass jars. “Oh, that smells fantastic.”

“Susan wasn’t re-assigned. She got married to her sweetheart back in the Warren. The wedding was held right after her birthday. Her father wanted her to wait until she was at least nineteen, which was a matter of some discussion between them from what she told me,” I said. “They moved to a situation in the south, somewhere near Surrey.”

“Oh, how lovely!” Alicia cried. “I hope she’ll be very happy.”

I nodded as Alicia took her own portion of salts. “It was a love match, which is a bit rare for our ki- Snipes.”

“It’s rare for the upper class, too,” Ivy reminded me gently. “Marriages are carefully brokered between families to maintain the balance of power, to make new allegiances. It’s all strategies and wealth and breeding. My parents are treated like scientific oddities when they admit that they were a love match. My grandmother is practically embarrassed when she mentions how happy they are, as if Mother should have had some other, loftier goal in mind.”

“I think it’s wonderful that your parents love each other so completely,” I told her. “My parents — I supposed they’re perfectly civil to one another, but I cannot ever remember them sharing a laugh or a kiss or even a moment that wasn’t occupied with what they had to do to get through the day. I know they were matched by the Winters and some branch of the Mounfort family, who thought they would make a good fit as head groundskeeper and gardener of Raven’s Rest, but I wonder if they ever felt anything more for one another than polite friendship. I wonder if they were ever happy to be married, or worse, if they were happy, was it my birth and the problems that came along with me that made them less so? It couldn’t have been easy, the constant worry that they would be caught, a Snipe family harboring a child with magic and what that could mean for them. And I know that Papa disagreed with making me take the suppressors, when Mum insisted I should. He hated lying to me about those pills. He hated lying to me about why I was so sick all the time, even when Mum said it was for the best. What if that was an argument they never stopped having? What if that’s what wore them down to what they are now?”

Ivy smiled sadly and patted my arm. Alicia, on the other hand, sighed loudly and said, “How in the world do you have the energy to be so maudlin after what some would consider an act of heroics? Is it some after-effect of listening to that hollowhorn’s music to be the world’s longest-suffering martyr?”

I was so shocked I laughed out loud while Ivy made scolding noises at Alicia.

“Well, honestly!” Alicia cried, dodging a pillow Ivy sent flying at her with the wave of her hand. “Are you going to take the blame for everything that’s ever gone wrong the history of England, or just your tiny corner of it? Yes, it must have been very difficult and very frightening for your parents to be in that position, but it’s not as if you asked to be born with magic. It’s not as if you set out looking for it.”

“But —” I started before Alicia cut me off with a sharp hand gesture.

“Do you think I asked to be born as I was?” Alicia asked pointedly. “Do you think having to bind my power to keep me from the very source of my magic and life force was something my parents did lightly? According to Gavin, they argued about it extensively, but they did it because they loved me and it was what was best for me. And if it caused tension between them, that was theirs to resolve. It wasn’t something I caused or could change. It simply was.”

My cheeks flushed with shame. Alicia suffered from a condition known as reverberation. When any practitioner used magic, the body suffered gradual damage from energy drain of casting spells. Most practitioners were able to heal from this damage quickly and continue to use magic without problems. In reverb patients, their magic seemed to echo inward and instead of healing, the damage would fester. Many patients like Alicia had their magic bound so they were limited to small spells, and the disconnection from their magic left them under-sized and sickly-looking, much like I had been. Then again, we tinkered with the wards placed on Alicia during our confrontation with Miss Morton the previous year, resulting in some rather remarkable feats of magic. Gavin had tried to replace the wards, but they were less effective than before. Alicia was able to cast more easily. She’d grown nearly a foot in six months, and she was developing curves. Rather than looking like a skinny child of nine, she looked much closer to our age.

“You’re right,” I admitted. “I’m being self-indulgent. I wasn’t thinking of the parallels of your situation. I’m sorry.”

“Feel guilty for the deeds that you can claim as your own. Everything else? You do not carry that weight on your back. You’ll end up with great rounded shoulders like Margaret Macliber.”

“That’s not fair,” Ivy told her, though her shoulders were shaking. “The Maclibers are a mining family, a branch of the Cavills from the eastern areas of the continent. All of them are built like great stone bricks.”

Alicia wiped at her temples with the cooling towel. “True, I should be kinder to Margaret. She suffers enough being related to Callista. Can you imagine having to attend family gatherings with her?”

“I’m sorry. I’m not sure why all that just burst forth,” I said, shaking my head.

“Madame Rousseau does claim that dancing is a cathartic process,” Ivy suggested sagely.

“Madame Rousseau also claims that we can become great dancers if we only practice until our toes bleed,” Alicia retorted. “Sometimes, Madame Rousseau can be a bit mad.”

Alicia turned to me, her tone kinder. “And it’s possible that you’re feeling unsettled because it’s been months since anyone has seen your sister. Your parents are getting more frantic. I’ve seen your face every time Mrs. Winter visits with news of home. Your nerves have to be suffering.”