I look up at the ceiling draped in shadows. “If only I could.”

“Yes, you’re utterly ordinary after all.”

“I understand now why my guard didn’t want to join me. You’re insufferable.”

He finally looks at me, his expression bored. “So I’ve been told.”

That’s not at all the reaction I was expecting. Annoyed, I reach for the top book in his stack. “Ronin says you agreed to invoke my magic.”

“I did. Do you even know what that means?”

I reluctantly shake my head.

“You don’t know a thing about magic, do you? Typical Evewynian ignorance. But I suppose you can’t be blamed for the faults of your upbringing.”

I narrow my eyes, uncertain if he’s insulting me or Evewyn. Probably both. “And I suppose you know all about the Callings of Magic.”

“Of course. I’d wager you didn’t even know you were a shaman until … well, until everyone else learned as well.”

“I had no reason to suspect.”

“No?” he asks archly. “What about your ears? The tops are shaped a bit funny, and they’re edged in a pale scar, like they were cut when you were a baby.”

I frown as I reach up to trace my finger along the top curve of my right earlobe, feeling the faint line of the scar. “How—”

“I have excellent eyesight.”

No one has ever noticed the scars before. In fact, I’ve never even told anyone about them, not even Saengo. That someone mutilated my ears as a baby isn’t exactly something you just bring up in a conversation. His vision must be exceptional, indeed, to pick out such a fine detail in the library’s dim light.

“I couldn’t have known about shaman ears,” I say. The shamanborn were imprisoned right before I left the orphanage. On the rare occasion I’d been allowed to accompany the monks into town, I’d been too taken by their eyes to notice their ears. “I didn’t really have the opportunity to interact with the shamanborn before they were imprisoned.”

I’ve always wondered at the scars, though—if my mother was the cause and why anyone would do such a thing to a child.

He looks down his nose at me. “As I said. Typical Evewynian ignorance. Both races of magic possess a slight point to their ears. It’s actually not very noticeable. It’s only in highborn shamans and shadowblessed that the difference is dramatic enough to be noted. Like Ronin’s.” He sweeps back his white hair, tucking it behind his pointed ears. “Like mine.”

Whoever abandoned me to the orphanage cut away the evidence of my heritage when I was a baby. They didn’t want anyone to know I’m a shaman. They didn’t want me to know.