Indeed, it would have been very surprising if she had not been taught Charter Magic, given she was a granddaughter of the Abhorsen. The Abhorsen, chief of the family of the same name, both an office and a bloodline, descended from the remnants of the ancient powers who had made the Charter, codifying and ordering the Free Magic that had once been such a threat to all living things in its arbitrary and selfish nature.

The Abhorsens, like their cousins in the royal family and also the glacier-dwelling, future-gazing Clayr, were as deeply a part of the foundations and beginnings of the Charter as the more physical underpinnings: the Great Charter Stones beneath the royal Palace in Belisaere; the Wall that defined the borders of the Old Kingdom to the south; and the Great Rift to the north.

In addition to the dame school in the town, Clariel had attended another, more informal educational institution, largely without her parents’ knowledge. Since she’d turned twelve Clariel visited her aunt Lemmin whenever she had a day free. Lemmin was a herbalist who lived on the fringe of the Forest, in a comfortable house surrounded by her enormous, high-walled garden. Her parents assumed that Clariel stayed within those walls. But her visits to her relative rarely encompassed more than a hug and a greeting, for with her aunt’s good-natured connivance, Clariel would go on out through the Forest door, out to follow the Borderers into the deeper woods, or to join the hunters from the lodge. From them all she had learned the habits of animals, the nature of trees, and how to track, and hunt, and snare, to forage, to gut and skin, and make and mend, and live in the wild.

The wild … that was where she should be, Clariel thought. Not imprisoned here behind a great maze of walls, roped in by the vast net of streets, caught up in the thrashings of the multitudes of people likewise trapped –

‘It’s not like your old school,’ her father said, interrupting Clariel’s thoughts. ‘It is a new thing, that they call a polishing … no, I mean finishing … a finishing school. And it’s not for children as such … it’s for the young men and women of the senior Guildmembers. You’ll meet the best people in the city and learn how to mix with them.’

‘I don’t want to meet the “best people” in the city!’ protested Clariel. ‘I don’t particularly want to meet anyone. I’m quite happy by myself. Or at least, I was, back home. Besides, who is going to help you?’