Frieda shifted in the tree and drew her legs up out of sight when Simber flew a little too close for comfort. But he wasn’t looking for her, and Frieda’s time to shine hadn’t come yet. So her mind wandered back to her nemesis.

Immediately after seeing the sparks, Frieda had reported Nadia to the governors, explaining that the new pirate girl was possessed. “Her eyes spark fire and birds follow her around,” she’d told them. Sealing Nadia’s fate, or so Frieda had thought.

It was such a strange claim that the High Priest Justine had called Frieda into the palace shortly before the Purge that year to question her. Frieda had felt a swell of importance. Surely she would be rewarded for this. But High Priest Justine grilled her with icy questions. And in the end, no matter how Frieda tried to defend herself, Justine declared that Frieda was telling tales. An illegal offense.

At the Purge, Nadia was declared a Necessary. And Frieda was named Unwanted.

It had been a terrible shock. The trauma of being declared Unwanted when she’d never been caught doing anything creative had scarred her. The shame of being shackled by the governors and the nightmares about being thrown into the lake of boiling oil lingered for years, even though she found herself in beautiful Artimé. It had been a horrible experience. She couldn’t seem to get over the wrong that had been done to her. And it was all Nadia’s fault. Later, Frieda often imagined Nadia’s reaction to Frieda being called Unwanted. She knew the pirate must have been smug. The girl had been performing actual creative acts in plain sight, and she’d gotten away with it.

Frieda felt fresh anger bubble up. She’d hidden it for a long time. Tried to forget it and managed to do so for years. And when Alex became head mage, Frieda found that he possessed none of his awful mother’s traits, so she accepted him. A few years later, when Nadia had died saving Thisbe and Fifer, Frieda felt a tiny bit of satisfaction. But over time, Nadia was considered some sort of hero. That burned. But Frieda held in her feelings then, too. At least there was Alex—the only good thing to come out of Nadia’s existence. She steered clear of Aaron and the girl twins, warily watching them grow up.

But when Alex was killed and Artimé appointed Justine’s successor, Aaron Stowe, to take his place, something had exploded inside Frieda. Not only were the twin girls a constant and growing reminder of Nadia, especially with Fifer’s birds and Thisbe’s sparking eyes, but Aaron was a constant reminder that the only decent one of them was dead. This time there was nothing Frieda could do to stop the rage inside her. She’d taken all she could handle of the Stowes. And she refused to live the rest of her life under the rule of people like Nadia.

The twin girls and Aaron would be the end of Artimé. They’d brought danger to the magical land already, and a great deal more was looming. And people had wanted to put their trust in Aaron? It was absurd. Frieda had to take matters into her own hands to save Artimé. She’d made it her mission to teach everyone about who the true dangers to the island really were. And it was working. Frieda was going to get rid of everything remotely related to Nadia Stowe once and for all, and save their world in the process.