Chapter One CHAPTER ONE New York, June 1913 Nineteen sets of eyes are looking at me. I should be used to it by now, the strange reverence in their gazes, but I don''t think it''s something that will ever feel normal. I turn to face the blackboard instead. The piece of chalk in my hand snaps as I go to write the spell. I''ve pressed too hard again. In and out, Frances, just breathe. It''s funny to think now, just how deeply I hated the Emotional Control classes I was forced to take my first year at Haxahaven Academy, how I resented Mrs. Li.

She''s become a trusted colleague, the deep breathing exercises have become a habit, and I have grown steadier right along with them. There''s a joke in there, probably. Something about growing up. I do feel it sometimes, growing up as the days pass, like a flower tilting almost imperceptibly toward the warmth of the sun. At least I do in the moments where it doesn''t feel like I''m pretending. It feels like pretending now, standing in front of a class, my class. Nineteen baby witches, all looking to me to learn the basics of elemental and magical manipulation. The magic isn''t complicated--simple spells to unlock doors or float something across the room.

But my broad-shouldered stance and unwavering voice are all playacting. "Is everything all right, Miss Hallowell?" Of course, it''s Bernice who asks, the little teacher''s pet. She''s sitting in the front row, her hands folded politely in her lap, her freckled face looking up at me. She''s the kind of perfect student I never could manage to be. "Everything is fine, just lost in thought. And it''s Frances, Bernice. Please." I''m barely their teacher.

Just last year I was sitting in the same seat she was. It''s only out of necessity that I''m standing in front of the blackboard now. Headmistress Florence called me into her office last fall to ask for "a favor." I think she thought it would be good for me to take on some responsibility. I overheard her wife, Ann, tell her it might help me to stop moping around the library so much. I took umbrage with that. Sure, I sometimes sulk. I rarely mope.

Bernice nods with the wide-eyed enthusiasm of a golden retriever. You''d never know her power was awakened just three months ago after her mother passed. "Have you all been practicing?" Their nineteen little heads nod at me. "Very good then, please turn to page thirty-eight in your fall semester packets." Copying spells down from the The Elemental , the book Lena, Maxine, and I found in the woods, what feels like a lifetime ago, was no easy task. In the end, it was Oliver who did it. In his neat, university student penmanship, he created a curriculum from the disorganized spell book. For all the trouble it once caused, the magic inside of its pages proved worth knowing.

At least some of the spells. On page thirty-eight my students find, in bullet points and careful diagrams, instructions for how to spark a small blue flame between their thumb and forefinger. We''ve been working on object manipulation for the past few weeks, and moving on to elemental magic has become one of my favorite things about being a teacher. I talk them through the spell, then release them to try it themselves. Bernice furrows her brow as she snaps her fingers over and over again. "Snapping isn''t part of the spell, Bernice," Bess whispers next to her. In the next moment, a light pops into being between Bess''s fingers. She shouts and stands so quickly she topples over her chair, right into Georgia, who falls directly into Charlotte''s lap.

The movement bumps Yael''s arm, sending her flame colliding with Berta, whose cape immediately catches fire. Yael shrieks, then uses the small cup of water I''ve placed on everyone''s desk for this exact reason. No one is any worse for wear except for the hem of poor Berta''s cape, which drips sadly onto the floor. Once the chaos has calmed down and all the chairs have been righted, the ruckus starts right up again as Theo in the back row creates a spark of light and holds it too close to their desk, burning a hole right into the wood. I can''t help but smile at the scene. The first semester I taught this lesson, no fewer than three students burst into tears. Another went back up to her room, determined to practice, and burnt her curtains to a crisp. I might feel like barely a teacher, but there is nothing more rewarding as an instructor than communicating to my students, Yes, that giant, awful, incredible, endless power you feel within yourself is real.

You did not imagine it. You truly do contain that much. It''s teaching them what to do with it that remains the hard part. It''s hard keeping my secret too. The students don''t know yet. At least I don''t think they''ve figured it out. If they have noticed that I stopped demonstrating months ago, they haven''t said anything. I read from the textbook and ask students to come up and practice, but it''s been ages since I performed an actual spell myself.

It''s made even worse by me not knowing how to explain it. It''s not that my magic is gone ; it''s just. wrong. It''s unpredictable, it zaps and stings like a live wire. Every day, it feels further out of reach; like a lighter without fuel, it sparks but it doesn''t catch flame. I can feel it, but I can''t make it bend to my will like it used to. It started slowly. My demonstrations in class didn''t work right, or when I tried to close a door while lying in my bed it would slam instead of gently latch.

Ann noticed too. We were rolling out pie crusts in the kitchen together. I tried to float a stick of butter from the butcher block to the ice chest, but halfway across the room, it splattered all over the floor. Maxine magicked a ball of embroidery thread across the sunroom for my latest cross-stitch, but I was unable to stop it and it smacked me directly in the forehead. At first it was embarrassing. Now I''m starting to panic. The first few weeks, Florence thought it was nerves. "You''ve been through so much," she said kindly as I clutched a steaming tea mug in my hands and cried in her office.

But it hasn''t gotten any better. In fact, it''s getting worse. Florence promises me we''ll find an answer, and I''m trying not to worry, but the truth is I am. I thought Finn stealing my magic was the worst thing that could happen to me, but this almost hurts more. The part of me I love the most is just out of reach. It nags in the back of my mind now, a shadow to the joy I''m witnessing on my students'' faces. Florence can''t come up with an explanation for what''s happening to my power. Neither can Maxine or any of the library books or terrifying Therese Theresi or the other hedge witches at the Bizarre Bazaar.

I haven''t told the students. There''s no reason they need to fuss over me too. What is the saying, again? Those who can''t do, teach? For ninety minutes nineteen sets of hands loop and twist, their mouths trying to make sense of old Gaelic. Once they''ve mastered the simpler spells, they can move on to working on creating bigger fire with more creative, less precise magic. But when it comes to fire, I''ve learned to start with the basics. At the end of the ninety minutes eight girls have created flame from nothing, which I count as a success. Despite the pride I feel as a teacher, I find it a relief to retreat upstairs. There''s something profoundly exhausting about being looked at like I have the answers when I don''t even know what is happening within myself.

Teaching is more difficult than I anticipated but more rewarding, too. It''s nice to have something to pour my focus into. I don''t know what I''d do otherwise. Usually this time of day I''d head to the kitchens, make myself a cup of coffee, and settle in the library for a few hours of independent research before lunch. I''m making my way through a stack of books on the magical history of the Scottish Isles looking for anything useful, anything that might help me understand what is happening to me. Nothing has been helpful so far. It''s like searching for a needle in a haystack without knowing if a needle is in there at all. Or I''d find my mother in the solarium, where she''s taken to tending a particularly finnicky group of orchid plants after her morning lessons.

It was Florence who suggested moving her in after her release from the asylum. After all, she''s hardly the first Haxahaven pupil over forty, and her magical education wasn''t finished when she ran away with my father at eighteen. She''s still fragile, still. my mother in all the good and bad ways, but like her orchids, she''s begun to bloom. She''s in class now, or I''d say goodbye in person. Instead, I slide a note under the door to her room saying I''ll miss her and be back before she knows it. I hugged her goodbye at breakfast too, and she hugged me back tight around my middle and told me to have a marvelous time. I hear Maxine before I find her, the swearing coming from behind the door to her room on the second floor.

I don''t bother knocking. The door is unlocked. I should have known better than to let Maxine wait until the last minute to pack. "Lena is going to kill you," I say from the doorway. Maxi.