“Are they in danger?” I asked breathlessly, thinking I would do little good as a bodyguard.

“Not that kind of danger.” She sighed. “Young people being what they are, we must take great caution that no unsuitable alliances or flirtations form.”

“Are you worried about Rollo meeting shopgirls?”

She frowned. “You must not know the ways of the magisters. To keep the magical blood pure, they must not mix with the nonmagical.”

My heart racing and a knot forming in my stomach, I asked, “What happens if a magister does…” I trailed off, searching for a euphemism, then settled for the one she’d used: “… mix with a nonmagical person?”

She looked even more horrified at that thought than she had when I suggested Rollo could walk to school on his own. Pressing her hand against her chest as if to quiet her heart, she said, “That would be unspeakable—an abomination!”

My stays seemed to constrict drastically around my chest, cutting off my breathing. There was a roaring in my ears, and my vision swam. It had never occurred to me that my very existence might be considered an abomination.

In Which My Position Becomes Unexpectedly Precarious

IN WHICH MY POSITION BECOMES UNEXPECTEDLY PRECARIOUS

Mrs. Talbot must have continued speaking, but I heard nothing over the roaring in my ears until she grasped my hand. “Miss Newton!” she said firmly enough to snap me out of my fugue. “You’ve gone absolutely ashen. Should I get the smelling salts?”

I came back to my senses enough to wave her away. “No, no, I’m quite all right. I’m afraid the events of the day caught up with me all at once.” I gave her a smile that felt weak, shaky, and entirely unconvincing. “Please forgive me.”

She patted my hand reassuringly. “You should rest until dinner, and I’ll see to it that Olive leaves you alone.” She slipped out of the room, easing the door shut behind her.

As soon as she left, I clasped my hands over my mouth to stifle a pained whimper, lest Olive hear my cry. I’d discovered I had magical abilities when I was about Olive’s age and tried to will a rosebud to open into a flower the way the magical princess in my storybook did, imagining a full blossom and channeling the power from the ether—and it worked. I tried other magical tricks I’d read about in fairy tales, like making feathers fly, conjuring balls of light, and sending scattered buttons into a jar, and I could do all of them. I had never seen anyone else in my family do these things, so I had kept it a secret.