“Far too late,” Amy said firmly. “Trust me. The ultimatum that the Boudiccate gave me in their last letter was entirely explicit. I’d hoped that I might persuade them to see reason, but apparently, all of my arguments have failed. So...” Her lips twisted. “Let’s make certain this school is a success, shall we?”
“Indeed.” My chest tightened even as I gave her a firm nod.
This schoolhadto succeed, now more than ever. It wasn’t only a matter of my satisfaction, or even of hers; it was a point that had to be proven for the sake of every magic-loving woman who came after us.
For over seventeen hundred and fifty years, ever since the great Boudicca herself had sent the Romans fleeing Angland with the help of her second husband’s magery, a clearly defined line had been drawn in the public arena, never to be broken. The hard-headed ladies of Angland saw to the practicalities of rule whilst the more mystical and emotional gentlemen dealt with magic. Together, they had worked for centuries to hold our nation strong against invasions and threats without ever crossing that agreed-upon line...
Until me.
I had been the first woman student ever admitted to the Great Library of Trinivantium to study magic. Afterward, I had been Angland’s only known woman magician for years—until I had lost all my ability to cast magic in an experiment of overwhelming folly.
As a solitary, never-to-be-repeated exception to the rule, I had been grudgingly accepted, if never approved. But I was hardly the only woman in Angland to be born with a gift and potential for magic. Those other girls, along with their descendants, deserved every chance that I had recklessly thrown away when I’d risked too much in my own experimentation.
At the time, I’d imagined my goal worth any danger: to prove my power beyond debate to everyone who flatly refused to work with a woman magician. Now, I finally understood the truth: the only way to change those attitudes for good was to use all of my hard-won skills and knowledge to train a whole new generation of magical girls as my successors. But with the entirety of the political and magical establishments of our nation irate and poised against my challenge...
Nothingcould be allowed to go wrong.
“When exactly is the Boudiccate’s inspection due to begin?” I asked Amy. “If we can take a few weeks to settle everyone in first—”
Amy held out the letter, grimacing. “They’ll be with us within the next few hours, I expect.”
“They’re trying to ensure that we fail.” I closed my eyes for one brief moment, gathering my scattered thoughts before they could break loose and send me raging.
So much for all of my extra preparations!
Really, there was only one consolation to be found: if the Boudiccate’s inspectors arrived at the same time as my new students and all the bustle of their assorted baggage and anxious parents, I would hardly have any energy spare to yearn for my missing husband anymore, or to fret over those poisonous dreams that persisted in plaguing me.
I can do this, no matter what they think,I told myself firmly.This time, I will not let myself fail.
For the sake of my loyal, loving sister-in-law, who had risked so much to support me in this venture...
For the sake of all those brilliant, talented girls whom the Great Library stubbornly refused to train...
And yes, for my own sake, too, because—despite everything I had feared after the loss of my magic, and despite the haunting whispers of those dreams—I was neither helpless nor broken after all.
...And if anyone from the Boudiccate insulted Amy on this visit, I would simply have to murder them. That was all.
At the other end of the house, the great bell sounded, vibrating through the walls.
I lifted my chin, suppressing the panic that wanted to choke me, and I gave my sister-in-law my most confident smile. “Well, then,” I said, “let us go and welcome our first arrivals to Thornfell College of Magic.”
2
Six months ago, Thornfell had been nothing more than my family’s ancestral dower house: rambling, ivy-choked, absurdly over-large for its intended purpose, and almost entirely unused. It had been designed to be a safe haven for the men of my family to retire to once their wives passed away and their daughters (or more dangerously, daughters-in-law) assumed full control of Harwood House.
Between tragic accidents and loving family relations, though, it had been over a century since it had been used as anything but dusty storage space for the most unbearable wedding gifts, the most outmoded furniture, and the most baffling but indisposable family heirlooms—such as twelve closely handwritten volumes of observations on the plant life of the Harwood estate, composed by my most eccentric ancestor, the infamous recluse Romulus Harwood, before his tragically early death. The family had apparently discovered those volumes in his room, collectively shrugged, and shelved them in Thornfell’s abandoned library to molder in dignity well out of sight, along with all the books of magic too antiquated to be kept any longer at Harwood House.
In fact, over the twenty-eight years of my own life, as the wild woodlands beyond had gradually invaded Thornfell’s overgrown gardens—exploratory roots and branches stretching closer to its red brick walls every year—the house had been very nearly forgotten even by our own family. When I’d first moved here from the bright elegance and comfort of Harwood House in preparation for my wedding—only to find myself left alone when Wrexham was abruptly summoned away—I’d felt quite horribly cut off from the vibrancy of my own family home.
Now, though, as Amy and I walked through the maze of interlocking rooms that led from the refurbished library of magic to the front entryway, I looked with deep satisfaction at the warm, modern fey-lights that lined the freshly wallpapered walls. Amy and I had decorated it all together, with Jonathan’s help in researching historical details that would add richness and personality to the ambience. Now, the whole house was patterned in shades of bronze, gold, copper, and green with the leaping stags, ravens, and boars that had each symbolized different aspects of my family’s magical heritage at various points over the centuries. The effect was remarkably handsome, comfortable, and welcoming, and I could hardly have imagined it a few months ago.
Of course, my magician-ancestors would have had a collective fit of the vapors at my radical transformation of this masculine retreat. My own late father had done everything he could to quash my unladylike fascination with magic, whilst he’d struggled in vain to instill it in Jonathan. Still, there was no opening for the Boudiccate’s representatives to find any fault in the house’s transformation. Thornfell had been as radically reborn as I had in the past several months, both of us reimagining ourselves toward a common purpose, and I gave the wall of the final reception room a reassuring stroke as I passed.
No matter which great challenge we were about to meet, Thornfell and I would welcome it together. Whether it was an irate politician hoping to shut us down, an anxious parent in need of calm reassurance, or...
“No food set out to await me?” An unexpected—and horrifying—male voice rose in outrage in the foyer ahead. “D’you mean to say I’ve rattled halfway across the country to this ramshackle little hidey-hole only to bestarvedwhen I finally arrive? Do youknowwho you’re talking to, woman?”
Oh, no.My jaw dropped open. I turned to stare at Amy in disbelief.
