There was a low inlaid malachite table beside her chair. A tray sat upon it, holding a pitcher of water, a single glass, and a small, stoppered brown bottle with a label pasted on it. Some sort of medicinal tonic, Effie suspected.

Shutting the door behind her, she crossed the room to join her former teacher.

Miss Corvus watched her come with a raptor-like intensity. In appearance, she was all but unchanged from the enigmatic lady who had entered her life when Effie was a child. Only the threads of silver in her hair, the fine lines at the corners of her eyes, and the grooves bracketing her perpetually disapproving mouth betrayed the truth of Miss Corvus’s age. She was approaching fifty. A great age for a woman, especially an unmarried one whom the years had made peculiar.

Effie stopped in front of her. She dropped a graceful curtsy, honed to a perfect degree of fashionable elegance in the drawing rooms of Paris. “Miss Corvus.”

“Miss Flite,” Miss Corvus replied in the same icy tones. “I see my money has not been wholly wasted.” She motioned for Effie to step back. “Let me look at you.”

Effie remained standing, back straight and chin lifted, silently submitting to Miss Corvus’s cold perusal. She examined Effie from top to bottom. The thick ebony hair worn back in a stylish plaited roll. The catlike blue eyes so dark they might be mistaken for violet. The solemn face, with its black arching brows, high cheekbones, and wide, voluptuous mouth. And the figure—lithe and athletic, but not lacking in curves.

Taken along with Effie’s striking complexion (a clear rich hue that lingered somewhere between dark ivory and olive), the whole of her appearance made her less a traditionally pretty girl and more a compellingly seductive mystery. People couldn’t help but stare. Couldn’t help but wonder. Who was she? they whispered. Where did she come from?

The very questions Effie had begun to ask herself. The ones that had resulted in her being sent away five years ago.

“I rarely get things wrong,” Miss Corvus said when she’d finished taking Effie’s measure. “But I readily own my mistakes.” She signaled for Effie to sit with an impatient flick of her hand.

Effie gave Miss Corvus a sardonic bow of acknowledgment before taking the seat across from her. She was confident enough in her own attributes to recognize the hidden compliment in her former schoolmistress’s words.

“You were a pretty child, but had no promise of great beauty,” Miss Corvus went on. “Not like Miss Trewlove. It was she who was meant to grow into my Aphrodite incarnate.”

“Hence her name,” Effie said.

“While you…You were meant to soar.”