“This looks good,” Mika said, peering at the gently frothing mixture inside the cauldron. Eyeing Rosetta’s stirring hand, she added gently, “It helps to stir in the same direction the whole time. Potions like consistency, so maybe you could decide at the start whether you’re going to go clockwise or anticlockwise and then stick to it. Your wrist won’t thank you, but you’ll get a better potion out of it.”

“That makes sense,” Rosetta said, her cloud of black curls bobbing as her serious brown face brightened in a smile.

Mika’s heart constricted. Rosetta reminded her so much of her younger self. There had been a time when Mika, too, had been shy and serious. She had been desperate to please, and had tried in vain to contort herself into a shape that her nannies and tutors would deem lovable. It was obvious that Rosetta had absolutely no doubt whatsoever that she was loved, but there was still something there, something painfully familiar in this child that made Mika want to reach out and wrap her arms around her.

Rosetta was lonely. It was obvious she loved her sisters and adored her caretakers, and was for the most part an extremely happy young girl, but Mika knew loneliness. She’d seen it in the way Rosetta had latched on to her the minute she’d arrived, and in the way she’d asked wistfully if it would be such a bad thing if more people knew about witches, and in her endless questions about what life was like as an adult witch. Rosetta spent time online. She watched TV and played video games. She knew there was a whole world outside Nowhere House. Unlike Altamira, who was still young and content, and Terracotta, who wanted their small, closed circle to stay that way, Rosetta, the shyest of the three, was also the one most interested in what was outside the gates.

On impulse, Mika said, “I was thinking of going into Norwich to see this bookshop I’ve heard about. Would you like to come with me?”

Mika regretted it as soon as she said it. The bookshop was in the very heart of Norwich, a good forty-five minutes away. It was miles outside Lillian’s wards. And Norwich was a small city, but it was still a city and cities were full of people. She had no business inviting Rosetta to leave Nowhere House for the first time in years, let alone to go into a city almost an hour away, and she certainly had no business getting her hopes up before checking with one of the other adults.

Rosetta’s eyes widened. “Can I? Am I allowed?”