“You promise this is to help Dorana?”

“Yes.” A note of pain in his voice. His beautiful eyes steady on her face. “I swear it.”

“Then we should get started, Councillor. Time’s ticking on.”

He wanted to kiss her again, she could see it. But he was handfast with Maris Garrick… and an honourable man. To spare both of them, she turned away.

“So, tell me how we begin.”

These past days of their mageworking, flowing into weeks, they’d discovered that together they could achieve things no mage could achieve alone. They complemented each other. Light to dark, shade to sun. Between them there was an instinctive comprehension, understanding without words. She found it more powerful, more perfect even than working with Remmie.

And though transmuting a living creature would be the hardest thing they’d ever attempted, she had no doubt that together they’d succeed.

Speaking quickly, his thoughts running ahead, Morgan explained his intent. It was to invoke the reworked transmutation incant on both beetle and feather together, using a bridging sigil enhanced with the catalysts she’d prepared, to make certain they did not fly apart in the moment of transformation. And in the incant’s deliberate gap he intended to insert a sequence of syllables that would see the rook’s feather imbued with the armoured character of the beetle.

“Wait,” Barl said, reading his scribbled notations. “That’s not right. Your harmonics are out of kilter.” Snatching the quill from his fingers, she scrawled over his neatly written syllables. “See? Four beats, then two, then five. Not four and three and three. That will keep the harmonic ripples gentle. And not taking from Berring’s Compulsion, either. That’s too bullish. What do a feather and a beetle have in common? Not enough that we can shout at them. This needs to be a whisper.”

“Show me,” Morgan said, pulling the paper toward him.

Though he knew syllabic harmonics were her strength, he never would accept her corrections without first poking and prodding and twisting them about. His unwillingness to capitulate had irked her until she realised it was simply his way of making peace with imperfection.

By now used to waiting, she wandered to the attic window and gazed at the distant woodland. How long was it she’d been on this estate? Weeks, now. Had she ever stayed anywhere so long and never left it? No. And yet she didn’t feel trammelled. She felt utterly free.

If I’d listened to Remmie, been meek and apologetic, I would’ve missed this. Missed Morgan. Let that be a lesson. First and foremost, I must always trust myself.

Dear Remmie. If her joy was marred it was marred by knowing he could know nothing of her life here. Not until she was freed by the Council. Then she’d send for him, and they’d celebrate, and he would marvel at what she’d achieved.