“It was your father’s,” the serving girl explained, bobbing a curtsey. “No one was using it and—”

“It’s perfect,” Emry interrupted, hardly daring to believe her luck.

“Is that my new apprentice?” a gruff voice called from what sounded like the top of a stairwell.

The serving girl blanched.

“Best go and see what he wants,” she said, eyes wide. “You wouldn’t want to keep Master Ambrosius waiting.”

Her words seemed ominous, but the girl escaped before Emry could ask what she’d meant.

Emry’s heart hammered as she stepped into the hallway, pausing at the base of the narrow stone stairwell that led to the wizard’s workshop. There were so many ways this could go wrong, she thought. Just because she’d fooled the king didn’t mean she could deceive his wizard. What if he was disappointed in her abilities? Or saw through the spells that enhanced her disguise? Still, up she climbed, until she was dizzy from the spiraling staircase.

The top of the tower was an odd, pungent space, with herbs drying from the ceiling, cages full of twittering birds, and shelves bursting with glass apparatus. It reminded Emry of a cross between an apothecary and her father’s disorganized study, and instead of finding it strange, the room felt unexpectedly like home.

Emry hesitated in the arched doorway, taking it all in, and waiting for the walls to stop spinning.

“Come closer, boy.” Master Ambrosius reached for an elaborate pince-nez, settling it on his nose. “Let me get a look at you.”

Practically blind. Excellent.

“Hmmm,” Master Ambrosius said, his eyes hugely magnified as he peered at Emry through his thick lenses. “I taught your father a very long time ago.”

“Yes, sir, I know,” said Emry.

“I was old even then,” the wizard said with a cough that might have been a laugh.

Emry believed it. Master Ambrosius was tall and thin and so pale that Emry wondered if he ever left the tower. White hair puffed wildly around his wrinkled face. His eyes were bright green, and his nose was very red, and he wore an unfashionably long tunic in a faded shade of yellow.

Father had favored expensive court fashions, worn a flashy gold earring, and been almost as much of a rake as Emmett. But Master Ambrosius was like a wizard from a storybook, or perhaps an absentminded scholar, the kind who was forever misplacing his inkpot. And Emry desperately wanted to impress him. Being here, in her father’s old workshop, with his former teacher, was everything she’d dreamed of.

And yet, it was only hers by deception.

“I assume you have a basic foundation in Mechanical magic,” Master Ambrosius continued, removing his pince-nez, which dangled from a gold chain around his neck.

Emry nodded, recognizing the term, which referred to the casting of spells and charms on inanimate objects.

“Good,” Master Ambrosius said. “What is your limit?”