And what was so wrong with the Realworld anyway? People didn’t have as much magic, but that wasn’t their fault. Some people tried really hard to do magic even though it was so difficult for them, like Effie’s friend Raven. She was so loving and kind, but if she came here people would no doubt just write her off as a “filthy” islander too. No one Effie had ever met in the Realworld had been as mean to her as the girls in Frog Hole. And the Otherworld thought it was so superior? And they supposedly had so much magic—but where was it? Everyone did their own washing up. Why did Clothilde bother to knit socks when surely she could just whip up a pair with a spell?

For the first time ever, Effie wanted to go home. Home to the Realworld. Home to her father, Orwell, her stepmother, Cait, and her baby sister, Luna. Home to people who might call her all sorts of things, but would never say she was a galloglass.

By the time the guard came to unlock Effie’s cell, she was very angry. And it didn’t help to see that he now wore her vial of deepwater around his neck as if it belonged to him.

“I want you to let me go,” Effie said to him firmly. “I would like to meet my cousin and go home. And you can give me my necklace back too.”

“Hahaha!” said the guard. “You want me to release you, just like that?”

“Yes, please,” said Effie.

“And if I don’t, what will you do? Cry?”

“No. I’ll use my other necklace. The one your colleague was too stupid to notice.”

The guard looked at her with contempt. “Stop talking, filthy galloglass,” he said. “I’ve come to take you for interrogation. You’d better cooperate.”

There was nothing else for it. Effie touched the golden Sword of Light hanging on the chain around her neck and whispered the word that made it real: Truelove. It sparkled into life, forming itself from all the purest and oldest particles of light in the room, many of which had been flying around the universe since the very beginning of time, gathering energy from the Big Bang, the greatest diamonds and the hottest suns. The small candle flickered and glimmered like a child in the presence of a great wizard. In less than a moment, Effie was holding a large, dazzlingly golden sword in front of her.

“Let me go, please,” she said.

The guard looked at her in astonishment.

“You really are a galloglass islander,” he said. “I’d heard about your sort but never really believed in you.”