Chapter 1

I was about to drip my blood onto the Royal Magic Academy's enrollment contract when the silver mirror my grandmother left me suddenly reflected a haggard face.

It was mine.

She had a burn scar under her left eye and only three fingers on her right hand. Something was slamming against a stone door behind her, dust raining down on her black robes.

"Evelyn, put down the contract."

My fingertip hovered over the parchment.

"Don't go to the Royal Academy. Don't give up your magic and your future for Caspar."

The woman in the mirror gasped for breath, her voice nearly tearing apart.

"He loves Sybil. They've already promised to marry after graduation. You're the only one still wearing that engagement ring."

A drop of blood rolled onto the table.

I instinctively covered my left hand. The ring pressed against my palm, cold as ice.

"Who are you?"

"When you were seven, you broke grandmother's astrolabe and hid the snapped silver needle behind the third brick in the fireplace. You never told anyone." The woman in the mirror raised her right hand.

At the base of her maimed ring finger was a crescent-shaped scar identical to mine.

"I'm you, nine years from now. Listen. I only get one chance to send word back through this mirror."

Two acceptance letters sat on the desk.

One was from the White Crown Royal Magic Academy. A golden griffin floated on the wax seal—the dream of every young mage in the kingdom.

The other was from Grey Thorn Magic Academy in the North, its envelope still dusted with frost from the long journey.

"Take the rune scholarship at Grey Thorn," she said. "The Royal Academy's Resonance Oath will seal what hasn't awakened in you yet. Grey Thorn has no such oath. There's someone there who can teach you to control it."

Outside, Caspar's messenger bell chimed impatiently.

I didn't answer it.

"Tomorrow, go to the Silver Deer Merchant Guild and buy Star Wheel lottery tickets. For the outer ring, pick five, eight, twelve, twenty, thirty-three. For the inner ring, pick six. Buy ten tickets."

I frantically grabbed a blank piece of parchment.

"Don't sell grandmother's house on Old Bridge Street. The abandoned well underground connects to a dormant ley line. This Frost Moon, when the capital rebuilds the barrier, they'll find it. The underground rights in the deed—do not transfer them."

My hand shook as I wrote. Ink splattered.

"Two years from now, on the sixth day of Flower Moon, at 2:50 in the afternoon, buy every available share of Dawn Alchemy. That's when it hits rock bottom."

"That same afternoon, the Sacred Healing Council will announce the results of their review for the Marrow Restoration Potion. Within two months, the share price will hit nearly a hundred times what it was."

A crash echoed from behind the door.

The woman in the mirror looked back, then pressed something against the silver surface. A seven-pointed star pattern blazed to life around the frame.

I had never seen that kind of light in any magic textbook.

"Take the mirror and grandmother's ring to Grey Thorn. When you get there, show them to Professor Morwen Vael."

"Why?"

She looked at me, and her eyes suddenly went red.

"Because our mother was never just a washed-up witch."

The mirror began to crack, her voice stretching thin and broken.

"Evelyn Ashbourne, you're only eighteen. Don't wait until they've taken your last piece of everything before you remember to save yourself."

I reached for her.

My fingers touched only cold silver.

The room went quiet again. The mirror reflected my young face, and the unsigned royal contract on the desk.

I stared at the golden wax seal, then slowly tore open the other letter.

Grey Thorn's contract was short: the academy provides tuition, housing, and research materials; students complete required courses each year and submit an independent rune research project before graduation.

No lifelong loyalty. No shared magic.

I signed my name and let a drop of blood fall at the end.

The frost-white words rose into the air and became a silver moth that flew out the window.

My enrollment confirmation was sent.

A moment later, Caspar's handwriting appeared on my daily message board.

【You signed, right? Sybil just got her acceptance. All three of us can go to White Crown. We'll live in the same tower.】

Then came my sister's message.

【Evelyn, potions class is going to be so hard. You'll help me, right? Caspar said you promised to take care of me.】

I stared at those words and almost laughed.

Sybil was only half a month younger than me.

Two weeks after my mother's funeral, my father Oswin brought her and her mother Lavinia into the house. Only then did I learn who the "poor mother and daughter" he'd been supporting all those years really were.

Grandmother took me away. She taught me star charts and runes, and how to stop before my magic ran dry.

After she died, I went back to the Ashbourne house.

Father always gave me a few extra gold coins in front of others. My stepmother would smile and straighten my cloak. My sister loved to link her arm through mine and introduce me as her brilliant older sister.

I thought if I just behaved a little better, I could find my place in that family.

But the face in the silver mirror showed me how it would end.

The message board chimed.

Caspar's voice came through the silver thread: "Evelyn, the deadline bell is about to ring. Did you sign or not?"

"It's submitted."

He exhaled in relief. Sybil cheered on the other end, saying she wanted my room next to hers.

"I knew you wouldn't do anything stupid," Caspar said with a laugh. "Grey Thorn—in winter even the hallways freeze. You can't just abandon your fiancé and your sister for a few ancient rocks, right?"

I looked at the old scar on my palm.

"It's late," I said. "I need to rest."

After cutting the connection, I put the royal contract back in its envelope and wrote a formal letter of refusal.

The golden griffin struggled once, then went dark on the page.