Gladioli for courage. White carnations for luck. Hellebores for peace.

Though I’d filled the sitting room with flowers and wrapped myself in their sweet perfume, I could not forget the Council’s warning.

Miss Clara Danielle Lucas, representatives of the Most Esteemed Council of Magicians will pay you a visit today at ten o’clock.

My heart beat in rhythm with the clock, ticking ever closer to the hour.

I threw the windows open wide and let in the delicious summer air. The magic within me hummed delightedly as I stood in a sunbeam. And then, after a moment of calm, it whispered, The Council has no use for a witch like you.

My hands clenched in the fabric of my sky-blue dress. I hated the taunts of my magic, but this time, I feared it was right. I could not help but think of other witches my age, picking out white gowns and trying on elbow-length gloves for the induction ceremony and the ball. Finally beginning the careers to which they’d devoted their lives.

And I thought of Xavier Morwyn. My dearest friend from my childhood had been certified a year ahead of schedule. He was running a shop alongside his parents. He helped people; he made miracles. He’d become all that the two of us had dreamed we could be.

I wondered if he ever thought of me. Or if he knew what a disappointment I had become.

The kitchen door creaked open, and Papa pushed his way through, holding tight to a tray of three teapots and an assortment of mismatched cups. His blue eyes glimmered with hope—a fire within him that never seemed to go out, no matter how many times I’d failed.

“Don’t you fret,” he said. He set the tray on our low, weathered table and navigated through a maze of chairs—every one that we owned, since we didn’t know how many Councilmembers to expect—until he reached me, clapping his hands against the puffs of fabric at my shoulders.

“You’re the most talented young witch I know,” he continued. “I’m certain they’ll recognize that.”

On most days, his confidence in me was sweet and refreshing—but today, it was as cloying as a bowl’s worth of sugar in my tea.

“The Council isn’t known to make house calls for good news, Papa,” I murmured. Magic pulled my muscles tight and quickened my heart and whispered relentlessly, Failure, failure, failure.

It drew out my memories, lit a spark to fuel the burning shame in my chest. The time I’d set Madam Carvalho’s curtains on fire. The fit of laughter that had caused lilies of the valley to grow up through Master Pierre’s floorboards. My magic had taken the power of my own anxiety and twisted it until it broke all of Madam Ben Ammar’s potion bottles.

Behind Papa, something rattled and clinked, like a strange musical instrument. One of the teapots had begun to wobble to and fro, threatening to spill its contents. I glowered and marched over to set my hand hard against the pale pink lid. Sometimes my magic frightened me—other times, it simply annoyed me.

Please, I begged it, please behave yourself.

There was a soft knock on our front door.

My plait whipped against my throat as I whirled back towards Papa, wide-eyed. “Will you stay here for the meeting?”

His freckled brow furrowed. “But dear, I’m not magical—”

“Please.” The word was small, like I was just a child.

He nodded, stepping towards me to squeeze my hand.

As I faced the door, my magic dug its claws into my heart. With all my might, I concentrated on being brave. An ounce of fear would be all my magic needed to wreak havoc on our little cottage, right in front of the Council. Buckle the buttercup-yellow door. Send clouds of pollen from the flowers into the air. Shatter our windows.

I could not let that happen.

With a deep breath, I reached for the doorknob—but the door was already creaking open.

Where my front lawn ought to have been was a dimly lit chamber with marble floors and ceilings. A foot away from me stood a witch all dressed in black, as was traditional, with the golden sun pin that marked her as a Councilmember. Her cold blue eyes made my shoulders tense. I remembered that stare so well—and the lectures that always followed.

“Miss Lucas,” said Madam Albright, my very first teacher.

I grimaced and bowed my head to her. “It’s good to see you again, Your Greatness.”

She sniffed and wiped the front of her black silk gown like I’d sullied it somehow. Papa hurriedly offered her our “best”—only—armchair.

Next, a wizard stepped through the doorway, sweeping a silk top hat off his head.

“Miss Lucas,” said the wizard, “I’m Master O’Brian.”

I curtsied. Magic hammered against my breastbone. “Welcome, Your Greatness.”

I let him step through, and at once, Papa set about shaking the wizard’s hand and finding him a seat.

Another wizard filed into the room, and then a witch, and then another, until there were eight of them, dressed in their austere black gowns and suits. As I bent in curtsy after curtsy and welcomed each magician, Papa scurried into the kitchen to find a stool.

I looked back at the group of magicians—a small murder of crows, the lot of them—and my mind stirred. What sort of judgment have they come to bring me?

All I could do was hold tight to the doorknob and to old lessons on how to calm my magic. Focus on your breath, my teachers had said.

I inhaled deeply and drew the door closed—

A shiny black shoe stuck itself into the crack of the door.

“Sorry,” came the voice of a young man—a voice I knew.

With a frown, I pulled back the front door.

My thoughts scattered about like leaves in the wind.

Xavier Morwyn.

As a child, I had always found him comely, but now, to my great chagrin, I found that he had grown to be very handsome. He was taller than before; we used to look one another in the eye, challenging each other to stare the longest without blinking. Now his hat nearly brushed the lintel. His once neatly trimmed hair now hung past the stiff white collar of his shirt. He was paler than I remembered, too, and there were dark circles around his brown eyes, like he hadn’t slept in many, many nights.

He slowly removed the top hat from his dark hair, pressing it to his heart.

“Hello,” he said softly.

If we had been children, we would have embraced each other, laughing and chattering away and picking up right where we’d left off.

Perhaps we still might have done so now if he had ever bothered to write me back. If he hadn’t ignored me for five long years.

And now, of all days to visit, he’d chosen this one.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

A blush painted his pale cheeks and spread to his ears. “Oh, er, they called a meeting of all the Councilmembers in the district.” He pointed to the golden sun pinned to his black cravat.

Envy pricked my heart. We were nearly the same age. There was nothing truly different between us; I should have been practicing magic. Instead, he was here with his peers to bear witness to my failures.

I offered him a stiff curtsy. “Welcome, Your Greatness.”

He winced and opened his mouth to say something, but seemed to think better of it. Instead, he bowed and stepped over the stoop, hanging up his hat with the others. I shut the door behind him and, turning back, found that he was still standing in the entryway.

“Papa will help you find a seat,” I said. In the back of my mind, the whispering of my magic started up again, growing in intensity every time my gaze flitted to Xavier’s.

His eyes were so beautiful. I’d forgotten.

“Miss Lucas?”

His voice was warm and gentle as spring air, marred only by the coldness of his address. I’d always been Clara; in our earliest letters he’d even called me “my Clara.”

Xavier meekly pointed at my hair. “You’ve got some . . . some flowers.”

My hands flew to my frizzy, bright orange plait, where large pink camellias had indeed started to grow.

Almost every night, Papa used to read to me from an old book that had belonged to my mother—Waverly’s Botany Defined. The book had no story; it was just illustrations of plants with their names, their origins, how to grow them, and what they meant. After years of repetition, the cadence of the flowers’ meanings was etched into my mind.

Pink camellias, I could hear him say in his honey-bright voice. For lasting affection.

I let out the calmest laugh I could manage while I grasped for any excuse that could spare me some dignity. “Oh! Oh, yes, I grew them on purpose. I thought they’d look nice.”

Xavier pressed his lips together and dropped his gaze to the floor. “They do, Miss Lucas. Look nice. The flowers. I—”

“Master Morwyn?”

Xavier leapt at the title, one I’d only ever heard his father be called. It was odd, I thought, that his parents hadn’t come with him, when they too were members of the district.

Across the little room, Master O’Brian frowned at us. “Do you two know each other?”

Xavier frantically shook his head. The wound in my heart ached and deepened. “Yes, we were, erm, friends, when we were younger, sir, but we haven’t spoken in a great many years. It shan’t be an issue, I assure you.”

I wished to shout that it was Xavier’s fault we hadn’t spoken in so long and that it certainly was an issue, but the magic burning under my skin and the muttering Councilmembers reminded me of more pressing matters.

Xavier tipped his head to me once more in a little bow and ducked into the sitting room. Before the Council could see me, I ripped the camellias out of my hair and dropped them to the floor.

Papa was quick to greet Xavier with a cry of delight and a pat on the back so firm it made the young wizard flinch. They argued for a moment about whether Papa could give his seat to Xavier, and then if they should offer it to me instead, but ultimately, Xavier leaned against the far wall, as though he was as much an outsider in this group of great magicians as I was.

I offered tea to every Councilmember. Each shook their head, except for Xavier, who accepted a large, misshapen mug with a meek “Thank you.”

“Your hospitality is much appreciated, Miss Lucas,” said Master O’Brian as I set the tray on the table once more. “Though, I think it would be better for all of us if we were to begin with our business.”

“Have you decided to certify Clara?” Papa asked brightly.

Heat flared in my cheeks, and for a moment, I regretted asking him to sit in on such a serious meeting.

“No, sir,” said Madam Albright. “In fact, the Council is greatly concerned that Miss Lucas is unable to be certified altogether.”

A chill sliced through me. “Madam—Madam Ben Ammar seemed to disagree,” I said. My favorite teacher had been forced to give me up, but at least she hadn’t marked me a failure—she wrote to me even after we parted and expressed her confidence in me. “W-where is she? I’d imagine she’d want to attend such an important meeting—”

“Madam Ben Ammar is currently leading an investigation in the name of public safety.” Master O’Brian held up a hand. “She has made her opinion known to the council in the meantime. But the fact remains, Miss Lucas, that we’ve never seen a magician like you before. A witch whose magic doesn’t obey her.”

“It obeys me sometimes,” I offered, wringing the fabric of my pale blue skirts in my fists. “I’ve made a few potions. For colds, and sore throats, and for arthritis—”

“Your temper set my kitchen on fire,” said Madam Albright.

My cheeks warmed. “That was years ago.”

Master O’Brian sighed. “We have a rather extensive record of your magic’s . . . eccentricities. It’s clear this is a persistent problem.”

Every gaze in the room was upon me, pointed and scalding as hot pokers. Worse still was that when I looked to Xavier, the boy who should have encouraged me, there was pity in his eyes.

“We’ve decided to present you with some options,” continued Master O’Brian.

A dark silence passed over the sunlit room.

“Options . . . for teachers, you mean?” Papa asked.

Master O’Brian was quiet.

The cold in me spread.

You’re going to get what you deserve, whispered my magic. You’re no better than your mother.

“Please, sir, go on,” I said, overly loud in an effort to drown out my magic and push aside any inkling of her.

Master O’Brian glanced at his fellows before saying, “The first option is a binding enchantment—”

“No.”

I lifted my head, gaping at Xavier’s interruption.

“It would only lessen her magic,” Master O’Brian told him.

“Yes, but not without cost,” Xavier insisted. His gaze met mine, his brown eyes wide with desperation. My heart skipped, and I hated it for doing so. “It would make spellcasting very painful.” He looked to Master O’Brian imploringly. “Please, Your Greatness; it’s reserved for criminals. Miss Lucas has done nothing to deserve such a spell.”

I imagined my magic being smaller, obedient, contained; and me, overcome with pain if I were to brew even a little potion. I couldn’t do much healing that way—and the thought of the Council placing a spell like that on me, one meant for criminals, made my stomach turn.

“And . . . what was the other option, Your Greatness?” I asked.

A silver-haired wizard was the one to answer. “We could neutralize your magic.”

At the back of the room, Xavier had grown very pale, like he might be ill.

My heart knocked against my breast. “Neutralize?” I repeated.

Master O’Brian nodded. “Remove, Miss Lucas.”

Remove. I pressed a hand against the magic buzzing within my ribcage, imagining them ripping it out of me, tearing out my very heart.

“You—you can’t,” I breathed.

“It may be for the best,” said Master O’Brian.

Madam Albright nodded furiously. “We fear your magic could harm someone. And then there’s the matter of your mother. If she were to try to use your power for her own ends . . .”

“Her mother left before Clara could even remember her!” Papa insisted.

Mother. That word. Bright and destructive as lightning. My magic coiled tight, and there was a loud pop. The pale pink teapot exploded, scattering bits of porcelain and nearly, nearly splashing Madam Albright with hot tea. With a scream, she staggered out of her chair, glaring at the spill and then at me.

I rushed to the table, mopping up the tea with my apron. “Forgive me,” I said, “I didn’t ask it to—”

“This is precisely the sort of behavior we fear!” snapped Madam Albright. She frowned at Master O’Brian. “She’s nearly of age, for heavens’ sake, and she has no control!”

“A broken teapot is not the same as poisons and illicit potions,” said Papa.

My hands trembled as I delicately placed the ceramic shards back onto the wooden tray. Hatred boiled within me. Mother. A ring. Some books. A lifetime of rumors. A box on our stoop the day I’d turned sixteen—a box that I’d thrown away as soon as I’d found it.

The wretched magic she’d passed down to me.

Focus on your breath. The recitation in my head was beginning to sound more like a plea.

“Althea,” said Master O’Brian in a calm voice, “we cannot compare young Miss Lucas to a criminal, not even her own mother.” He held out a steadying hand towards Papa. “We don’t suggest these solutions to punish Clara. We fear her magic could hurt someone. Or worse.”

I’d never let that happen. Perhaps I was weak for being unable to control this magic of mine, but I would never allow it to cause true harm to someone.

“There must be another way,” I said. “I—I’ll find a way to train it.” I took a shuddering, steadying breath. “Please give me some more time. If—if everything had gone right, I would be preparing to become a witch on Midsummer. Maybe something can change before then.”

Xavier only watched me. I wanted to beg him to speak, to help me, to tell me if he’d thought of me at all these past five years.

The witches and wizards around me exchanged glances. Some murmured to each other in tones too low for me to hear. They thought me wicked, uncontrollable. No better than the mother I never knew.

The Council needed to know that I wasn’t like her.

“Being a healer is all I’ve ever wanted,” I told them. “When I was little, I saw the Morwyns save a man’s life.” I remembered it so clearly, how we’d hidden behind the sofa in the sitting room and watched as his parents performed a miracle. The man, barely able to breathe; his lips, turning blue; his wife, weeping. Xavier had held my hand so tight.

“Madam and Master Morwyn used their magic together,” I recalled. “With their potions, with their enchantments, they saved him from the brink of death. The joy that filled that room after . . . I knew I wanted to do something that important. That powerful. All I want is to help people.”

I shut my eyes, drowning out the world, the Council, the thought that my magic would retaliate if I took one wrong breath.

The silence in the room was grim.

“I’m sorry, Miss Lucas,” said Master O’Brian. “We need your decision.”

Bile rose in my throat. It was a choice between two poisons. Between a life with no magic at all, and a life where this wild gift of mine would hurt me with every spell I cast.

I thought of my mother, who’d defied the Council, who’d fled from them, who’d carved a reckless path for herself. I was not like her. I intended to help people. To heal them.

No matter the cost.

With a shaky breath, I nodded. “The binding spell,” I said.

Papa grabbed my arm. “Clara, no!”

“I am entirely opposed to this,” Xavier shouted over the murmurs of the Council.

“You’d see me powerless, then, Master Morwyn?” I shot him a glare and squeezed my hands to keep my scalding magic at bay. “If it’s pain or a life without magic, I choose pain.”

“It’s not your decision to make, Morwyn,” said the silver-haired wizard. He jerked his head towards me. “She thinks she can endure it.”

Doubt bloomed within me the more they spoke of the binding spell.

Xavier stepped forwards again, setting aside the mug of tea and pressing his hand to his heart as he faced Master O’Brian. “Sir, surely there’s another option—”

“I would be slow to speak, Master Morwyn. You’ve been rather cavalier in your contributions to the Council thus far,” said Madam Albright snippily. Xavier flinched.

Master O’Brian clapped a hand on Xavier’s shoulder, as if he were the one receiving bad news. “We will respect Miss Lucas’s decision.” Turning back to me, he smiled. “So you truly wish to be a healer, no matter the consequences. I think that’s very brave, young lady.”

I gave him a perfunctory curtsy. Within me, my magic was screaming.

“How soon will the binding spell be performed?” Papa asked.

“It’s quite powerful. I’ll need more Councilmembers. But we should be ready by tomorrow evening.”

My heart lurched. “Tomorrow?”

“Yes.” Master O’Brian fetched his hat from the coatrack and placed it back on his head. “In the meantime, I’ll do my best to find you a teacher who can complete your training once your magic has been bound.”

I imagined it stewing within me, angry and biting and loathing me for having diminished it. Every pain a spell would cause me would be its own act of vengeance. I prayed it would be worth it.

If I’d had my wits about me, I would have thanked Master O’Brian for putting more effort still into trying to find me a teacher. I’d have wished him farewell and curtsied. But I stood there, numb.

Master O’Brian led the queue of wizards back to the front door. He drew it open, and once more, the marble Council chambers lay beyond. The witches and wizards filed out, some deigning to wish us farewell.

And after the rest of the magicians had left, Xavier lingered in the entryway, worrying the brim of his hat with his pale fingers. He was looking at me. Being near to him felt like it had when I’d visited my old schoolhouse yesterday. There was a fondness, yes, but grief, too, and the imposing sense that I no longer belonged there.

“I’m sorry about all of this,” Xavier said, his voice so very gentle. He cast a glance back to the doorway leading to the Council chambers. “I—I must go. But I would like to see you again, Miss Lucas. Under some better circumstances.”

“Come along, Master Morwyn!” called Madam Albright.

Xavier jumped at the sound of his title, and then reached out a hand for mine. I cautiously gave it to him, anger and confusion and sorrow and delight warring within me.

He gave my hand the faintest kiss. He had done that as a boy, copying the prim etiquette of his wizard father.

“Goodbye, Clara,” he said, and before I could register it, before I could ask him why he opposed the Council’s spell, why he’d stopped writing me—why he was acting as though he never cared for me at all—he slipped through the entryway, shutting the door behind him.

When I threw the door open again, the Council chamber was gone. There was only the colorful garden that Papa tended and the oak tree I’d climbed as a child. It was as if the Council, their meeting—Xavier—had been nothing but a dream.

But it was no dream, and soon my magic would be tightly, painfully bound.

I ran outside, sheltering myself beneath the oak’s branches. I squeezed my eyes shut, held my palms out to the sunlight, and breathed in the perfume of summer: flowers and dew and earth.

Some people believed that magic came from the sun, spilling into the ground and bringing life. It was why our magic wove together so beautifully with nature. When I was like this, basking in a summer morning, it felt like I was back where I belonged.

Perhaps if I tried hard enough, I’d come up with some sort of plan to convince the Council to keep my magic intact for one more week, one more day, one more moment. . . .

Far away, softer than an echo, sounded the faintest clap of thunder. I shivered. That was me. My magic, worming into the world around me without my permission. “Behave yourself,” I whispered to it. But the clouds continued to loom in the distance.

“Clara!”

Papa marched down the hill and plopped into the dirt beside me. His forehead was deeply furrowed. “What happened in there—well, how are you feeling about it? What are you going to do?”

I let out a bitter laugh and pressed my knees close to my chest. “There’s nothing I can do, Papa. The Council has made up their minds.”

“I think you’re giving up too soon.”

“No.” I rested my chin on my arms and watched the sun sparkling on the dew-slicked grass. “I’ve tried for five years. I’ve fought so hard to tame it on my own. Maybe it’s better this way.”

The sounds of teachers shouting at me, of breaking glass, of my own sobs, filled my head.

“Something’s wrong with me,” I murmured, more to myself than to him. “With my heart, perhaps. If—if I was a really good witch, then I’d be able to—”

“No, blossom, no.” He shifted closer to me, draping an arm around my shoulders. His other hand, callused from years of gardening, covered mine. “You are a good person, you hear me? Nobody bad would have worked so hard to become a healer.”

I wiped my sleeve against my teary eyes. “It shouldn’t have been a struggle at all,” I said. “Magic reflects what’s in our hearts. Every teacher’s said so. It’s this force inside of you that harnesses your emotions. So my emotions must be horrible.”

Papa was painfully quiet. The silence echoed my own words back to me so I could hear how silly they sounded.

“I think it’s more that your magic can hardly keep up with you,” said Papa eventually. “You’re ready to save the world, but your power . . . well, it just needs a little more time.”

The brightness of my love for him was clouded by the dark reality of my situation. “I don’t have time.” When I closed my eyes, I could see those Councilmembers surrounding me like birds of prey, claws at the ready to snatch away my magic.

Papa’s hope for me was constant and sweet. But it was also naive.

I turned from him, folding my arms tight against my middle, where magic thrummed impatiently. The dark storm clouds that had loomed in the distance now hovered over our cottage. “You don’t know what it’s like. You haven’t seen me in my apprenticeships. You don’t know what my magic does.” I could almost hear Madam Ben Ammar’s scream that day when my hands had gone up in flames. How even she, calm and brilliant, had been frightened by what my magic could do.

“I just . . . I just think you should fight. Fight to keep your magic the way it is.”

“Fight the Council?” I fiercely shook my head. “Papa, I don’t know what you see when you look at me, but when the Council looks, they see her.” My voice broke on the last word. The fire in my heart grew. My mouth tasted like ash.

She was everything I hated. Wild, thoughtless, impulsive. Just like my magic. The magic she had prayed that I would possess, too.

“My magic is all I have,” I said between staggered breaths. “The power to help someone. And still, it’s not even mine—it’s hers. She gave it to me.” Tears rolled down my cheeks. “I was foolish to think I could be different from her.”

Papa carefully drew me close, my head resting against his heart.

“I hate her,” I said—to the air, to the sun, to my magic, to myself.

“Clara. Listen to me.”

The more I thought of her, the more my magic seemed to be a real, white-hot flame emanating from my body. My chest tightened; my shoulders quaked; heat rolled through me—

Papa gasped and pulled back from me. Over his heart, where my cheek had just been, the yellow fabric of his shirt was scorched, curling and black. And from his skin, small pink blossoms poked forth.

I screamed.

Papa clasped a hand to the flowers on his heart, shuddering. His face turned the color of bone as more pink blooms poked out from the gaps between his fingers.

“What’s happening?” I asked, my voice quivering and weak.

I touched a trembling hand to his cheek and he yelped, flinching away. A bright pink burn was left behind.

My head whirled like a seed spinning from a tree. Thunder crashed, and suddenly, buckets of rain fell from the sky, soaking our cottage as well as the village of Williamston below. I became drenched as I scrabbled to my feet and stumbled back from Papa, afraid to look away, but equally terrified to see my magic ravaging him.

He coughed, an awful, rattling sound. He covered his mouth with his hand, and when he drew it back, five pink petals lay in his palm.

His eyes were wide and bloodshot. For the first time, he was looking at me with the same fear as the Council had.

“Clara.” My name was faint and hoarse. The flowers on his breast were blooming.

Azaleas, that old book had said. A sign for care—and for stubbornness. Poisonous if ingested.

Papa glanced at his chest and seemed to realize it the moment I did.

“Get help,” he breathed.

I laid Papa on the sofa and darted to my bedroom.

I couldn’t help him, even if I knew how; not after my touch alone had hurt him. I needed a magician who was skilled enough to save him.

Beside my bed was the case of flowers and spare supplies I’d brought back from my time with my most recent teacher, Master Young. I unlatched the lid and threw it back, digging through little glass phials and stems of lavender and lilac.

A green maple leaf was tucked neatly at the bottom, a charm used for sending messages—although it would take too long to reach anybody, especially given my wild magic. And I couldn’t waste a moment.

There was another option. The Morwyns lived close by. If Xavier could not help me, then his parents would.

I set aside the maple leaf and dove under my bed to pull out the small jewelry box that contained my life’s savings. Every coin I’d scrounged up from selling scraps of fabric or doing chores about town. Every tip from a generous patron, from my time assisting various witches and wizards. The pearl earrings Papa had given me for my sixteenth birthday. The gold band my mother had thrown at Papa before disappearing in a cloud of smoke fifteen years ago.

I dashed into the hallway. Just beside the front door, Papa’s boots and mine lay cast aside. I tugged on my dusty gardening gloves along with Papa’s overcoat and the bowler he wore when we traveled. It would be little protection from the rain, but judging by the growling thunder and the turmoil in my heart, the storm—and my magic—would not let up any time soon. As I stuffed the coins and jewelry into the coat’s pockets, I dared to glance at my father.

He had grown quiet, eyes shut and chest heaving. Sleep would help. But there was no telling what the azaleas’ poison could do, given time.

I swept into the sitting room and hovered over him, cautiously touching the cracked leather of my glove against his index finger. His eyelids fluttered open.

“I’m getting the Morwyns,” I whispered. “I’ll be back before you wake.”

“I love you,” he said, the words jumbled and slow.

My teeth pressed hard into my lip as I tried to tamp down the tears and the magic writhing in my chest. “I love you, too.”

When I strode out the door, I did not look behind me. If I told myself I could be seeing Papa for the last time, I’d start to believe it. And as I’d learned in my time as an apprentice, once my heart took hold of an idea, my magic might very well act upon it, whether I wanted it to or not.

My boots strained against the mud as I sprinted down the road out of town. I climbed hill after hill, and at the top of the final one was the strange and beautiful house I knew so well.

Morwyn Manor had a cobbled-together look: a mix of a watchtower and a palace and a cottage, a combination of several different eras of architecture. On one side, a turret seemed to have been taken from an old fortress and made to adhere to the mansion. On the other end of the house was a chimney covered in ivy that crawled all the way up to the roof. At the top of the roof stood a weathervane with a blazing sun, a sign for “magician” that anyone could identify even from afar.

When I was a child, my time at the Morwyns’ mansion had been spent rolling down hills, weaving crowns of daisies, and playing hide-and-seek in its wild, twisting halls. Every Saturday, Papa let me ride in our wagon filled with flowers on his way to the market, dropping me off at the Morwyns’ while he worked. I’d bounce eagerly in the back of the wagon, jabbering to Papa about the games I would play with Xavier and his little sisters, Leonor, Dalia, and Inés.

Now an altogether different, altogether more frightening sort of anticipation filled me. Every step was a second in which Papa was suffering. Today I was at the Morwyns looking for a savior, not a playmate.

I climbed the slick path snaking up the hillside until I passed under a swinging sign reading Morwyn. Standing on the porch, I leaned against a square, faded-white column to catch my breath. My sides ached. My head spun. My boots had rubbed my heels raw where my stockings were worn thin.

My legs wobbled like a fawn’s as I approached the emerald-green door. Above it hung a little golden bell that rang as customers came and went. Garlands of white heather streamed from the lintel—a charm against robbers.

On either side of the door were square, white-trimmed windows, aglow from the light inside despite the sign that hung in one declaring the shop Closed. The interior was warped by the glass; I could make out the outlines of shelves and a counter and perhaps a chair or two, but no people. Still, the lamps were lit. Someone was home. Someone could help my father stay alive. I imagined Dalia, Leonor, and Inés racing to call their parents and then their brother.

I tugged on the handle, but the door was locked. I beat my fist against it. My magic was already whispering eagerly in my ear that my efforts were hopeless. Instead of yielding to its teasing, I took out my anger on the door, hitting it harder.

“Madam Morwyn?” I shouted. “Master Morwyn?”

Why did you even come here? asked my magic. You’re too late!

I kicked the door, scuffing the bright green paint. “Xavier?”

Perhaps he was upstairs. My cynical magic insisted that he was ignoring me—Just like he ignored your letters.

“All right,” I mumbled to my magic, “if you’re going to be so chatty, you may as well help.”

I stepped close to the door and inhaled deeply, concentrating on the way my power boiled inside my middle, on the burning in my cheeks, on my outraged thoughts, on the way my elbow quivered as I held the handle. I imagined opening the door fluidly, as if it had been unlocked all along. On my exhale, I whispered, “Open,” and then pushed.

There was a loud crack, and the door flew off its hinges, ringing the shop’s bell with fervor as it slammed to the floor. I yelped, hopping away from it with my hands over my mouth.

Frantic footsteps pounded close by.

I stepped into the shop, tracking mud over the fallen door, and craned my neck towards the sound. At the far end of the room, at the bottom of a spiral staircase, Xavier appeared, still in his prim, Council-appropriate suit, but with mismatched socks and a butter knife he wielded like a dagger. His dark eyes, ringed purple with fatigue, darted from the door to me.

“Miss Lucas?” he asked. The hand holding the knife fell to his side. “You broke down my door?”

An explanation was on the tip of my tongue, but I thought better of it—my father was forefront in my mind. The fear in his eyes. The flowers bursting from his heart.

“I need help. From you or your parents or anyone; I just need a magician.” I crossed the room, turning out my pockets and holding out the ring, the earrings, the coins. “I’ll pay—”

His hand lightly touched the back of my glove, slick with rain. With his other hand, he tucked away the knife into his pocket as subtly as he was able. “Miss Lucas, please—I, I don’t understand. What’s happened?”

I took a long breath and kept my gaze averted. The confusion and worry in his eyes only made my own panic grow. “It’s my father. He collapsed. He . . . he has azaleas blooming from his heart.”

His already pale face turned lily-white. “Was it your magic?”

The monstrous thing squirmed inside my chest at the mention.

Tears muddied my vision as I nodded. This was precisely what the Council had feared.

“That doesn’t matter now,” I said, the tremor in my voice breaking any illusion of resolve. “Please, he’s in danger.” Once more, I held out my dripping, gloved hands filled with payment. “This is all I have. Heal him, please, you must—”

“Of course I will,” he said, his voice stern but soft, like he was calming a child. “Let me get my case.”

I dropped the money into his cupped hands. With long strides, he entered the room I’d blasted the door off of, which served as a storefront and a kitchen all in one. The pouch and jewels clattered against the countertop where he set them down. My heart lurched at the sound, at losing all I had ever saved, and to someone who I’d thought was my friend—but I would make any sacrifice if it meant saving my father. I wrapped my arms around myself to keep from trembling from the cold and from fear.

Xavier kept his back turned to me as he plucked bottles and jars from cabinets. He stuffed a large green jar into his potion case and then snapped it shut.

“Follow me,” he said. “I’ll make the portal.”

He approached the kitchen’s pantry, which would serve us in lieu of his broken front door.

In a language I didn’t understand, his voice gentle as a lullaby, he sang over the door, pressing his forehead against the wood. A few times in my life, my teachers had created portals for me to visit Papa in Williamston. But never before had I heard the portal spell sung. Listening to his song, my heart pounded. As I stood there by his side, I felt like his friend again for just a minute—despite the horrid purpose of this visit.

When he pulled back the door, the air was heavy with a sickening, flowery perfume.

I stepped through into the comfort of my own living room—the table with our broken tea set from this morning, my old cross-stitch on the wall, and Papa on the sofa where I’d left him, his chest rising slowly, still sprouting flowers.

With wide eyes, Xavier halted in front of my father. “Curse me twice,” he muttered. “There really are azaleas.”

I stood a pace away, folding my hands tight to keep them from trembling.

Kneeling, Xavier unlatched and drew back the lid of his case. He looked to Papa and touched a gentle hand to his cheek. “Mr. Lucas?”

Papa’s eyes opened. His forehead wrinkled with confusion. “Did . . . did I forget your delivery?”

“No, sir. Your daughter called on me.”

Papa grinned, his head lolling against the arm of the sofa. “She’s a gem, she is. You should be her teacher.”

Xavier averted his gaze. “A little delirious, I see.” His fingers hovered over the flowers blooming from Papa’s chest. He tenderly tugged at one of the dark green stems, but stopped at the sound of Papa’s sharp, frightened gasp. I flinched, and Xavier leaned back, his lips pursed. “It’s possible they’re latched in deep.” He glanced back to me, a notch in his brow. “If we’re lucky, there aren’t any more growing internally.”

My blood chilled. “He—he coughed up some petals. Do you think these flowers are connected to the ones inside him?”

The very idea made bile rise in my throat. My magic, infesting his heart as well as his lungs with flowers like parasites . . .

“Perhaps.” He withdrew a stethoscope from his potion case and then lightly tapped Papa’s shoulder. “If you would, sir, I’d like to listen to your heart.”

Your fault, your fault, your fault, chimed my magic. I forced my palm against my chest like it could smother the sound.

Xavier pressed the metal of the stethoscope over Papa’s heart and ribs.

“Your heartbeat is irregular. And I do hear something in your airway.” Xavier reached inside his case, where each bottle and jar had been tucked away perfectly like little soldiers in formation. He selected a long phial filled with a thick, dark green liquid. “Miss Lucas, I’ll need a large bowl or a bin.”

“Why?”

He jostled the little potion bottle. “I want to see if an expectorant will help in expelling the flowers.”

I sped out of the room and into the kitchen, swiping a mixing bowl from the shelf over the washbasin.

When I returned, I found Papa clutching his chest, moaning in pain. My throat pinched shut and I squeezed his hand through the thick fabric of my gloves.

Is this truly my fault? Had my magic acted on its own, and I was just too weak to stop it? Or was there something within me, something unknowable and awful, that would drive my magic to hurt him?

With the mixing bowl in his grasp, Xavier turned back to my father. “This will be a rather unpleasant experience, sir.”

Papa released my hand and rested the bowl against his lap. His head was bowed, like he was ashamed of himself. “You don’t have to see this, Clara.”

I pulled a chair close to his sofa and kept my hand braced against his arm. “I’ve been an apprentice several times over. I’ve seen my share of foul things.”

He sighed and then nodded to Xavier, who passed Papa the little green bottle.

Within moments of drinking, Papa was coughing into the bowl, expelling bright pink petals as well as leaves, whole stems, and long, spidery roots, wet with saliva. As his body lurched, trying with all its might to cast out the magic, I clung tight to his arm, biting hard on my lip to hold in tears.

Eventually, my father collapsed against the arm of the sofa, chest convulsing. His cheeks were waxy, and his pale ginger hair was slick with sweat. Though he was exhausted, his breathing was clearer and no longer so labored.

After a quick inspection with his stethoscope, Xavier confirmed that the flowers had been cleared. But his face was still troubled.

“What happened there on your cheek, Mr. Lucas?” he asked, pointing.

Papa touched the raw spot where my hand had been. He looked to me before mumbling, “I’m not sure, myself.”

My stomach tied itself in knots. Of course he’d try to defend me, even when I had hurt him.

The lamp on the table beside us started to rattle as I grew unsettled again. “It was me,” I said. I stared at my tan gardening gloves. “I just touched his cheek, and it burned him, somehow.”

Xavier procured a small silver pot from his case and applied a buttery mixture to the burn. “That could scar,” he noted softly. “Magical wounds are hardly predictable.” He wiped his pale hands on a handkerchief and then lightly felt Papa’s pulse. Xavier’s frown made my own heart leap.

“What is it?”

His brown eyes flitted to me. “Miss Lucas . . . did you say anything hostile towards your father before he fell ill? Did you have an argument?”

I bristled. This was how people spoke about curses. Dark, cruel spells. A young woman who had begun rapidly aging. A boy with thorns growing from his fingertips. They said my mother had done that sort of magic. But I never would.

“No,” I said.

“You weren’t cross with him at all? You didn’t . . .” He cleared his throat and glanced at his socked feet. “What did you say in your curse?”

I clenched my fists, anger burning in my middle. “I did not curse him!”

There was a piercing, ringing ping, and the lamp on the table exploded, littering the floor with shards of glass.

I leapt from my chair, away from the sofa. Papa turned to look back at me, his face white.

Even after causing him such pain, my magic still wasn’t satisfied. It craved destruction.

“I’m sorry,” I said from behind my hands.

Meanwhile, Xavier took a calming breath, stood to his full, alarmingly tall height and extended a hand towards the mess of the broken lamp on the floor. He swirled his finger in a circle, as if trying to make the rim of a goblet sing. The shards wobbled against the floorboards and zoomed upwards, fusing themselves perfectly around the flame they’d been encasing moments ago.

When Xavier turned back to us, his cheeks were bright red, the rings around his eyes were darker, and sweat glimmered on his temples. I’d seen such simple repair spells before, but I had never seen them make a wizard so weary.

“Mr. Lucas,” he said, smoothing the front of his vest, “may I speak with your daughter in private?”

Papa tipped his head to me. “It’s her you should be asking.”

“I’ll talk with him,” I said. “Stay here and rest. Can you do that? Can you keep still for a few minutes?” I flitted to his side to fiddle with the thin blanket thrown over him.

Papa let out a wry laugh before nestling himself among the worn cushions and shutting his eyes. “Yes, yes. Go on, don’t fret over me.”

An impossible request.

Still, I strode to the kitchen door and held it open for Xavier. He swept up his potion case before following me dutifully into the next room. I shut the door behind us, but stayed pressed up against it, my eyes on him. It ached, how the years had flown by, and we were suddenly two different people.

We had been apart for so long, and now he’d visited my home twice in one day. It was like a cruel joke.

Xavier set his case atop the table and leaned against the kitchen counter. He chewed on his lip. The old clock on the wall ticked noisily, like it was impatiently tapping its foot at us.

He opened his mouth to speak, but at that same moment I blurted out, “Do you think he’s going to be all right?”

Xavier grimaced. “I—I don’t know. Curses are extremely difficult to—”

“I. Did not. Curse him.” I stepped forwards, gripping the back of the nearest chair to keep my temper and my magic in check. “I’ve studied magic for five years, and I know as well as you do that a curse must be spoken with intention. I didn’t say anything like that, and on my life, I would never intend anything wicked upon my father.”

“I believe you,” he said. “You didn’t intend to hurt him. But your magic is still afflicting him.”

My stomach dropped “Still? But the flowers—you said there weren’t any left!”

“They poisoned his blood. He will continue to be lightheaded and nauseated and he will possibly experience other symptoms of azalea poisoning. And the flowers may yet return.”

Poison. It brought my mother to mind. It made me hate my power all the more, because it was so like hers. “Can’t you administer an antidote?” I asked, my voice broken and raw.

“If it were merely poison, I could treat him. However, this is magic—your magic specifically. It is only by your words that you’ll be able to fully heal him.”

I crumpled into the nearest chair. “He can only be healed by my power?”

“Yes. I believe if you cast a blessing over your father, with the full strength of your magic, you’d free him from whatever hold it has on him.”

A blessing—a spell only powerful, controlled magicians could perform. The kind that could save someone’s life; the kind that made healers collapse in exhaustion. A spell for the desperate.

“I—I’m not capable of something like that,” I said. “My magic doesn’t listen to me, and more than that, come tomorrow, it won’t be at its fullest strength anymore.” I slumped back in my chair, pulling my curls from my eyes. “And it’s done what we all feared it would do! What if the Council just takes it away?”

“I’m going to ask that they give you more time,” said Xavier. “It’s in our creed to do no harm. If they took your magic, they’d be signing away your father’s life.”

A sob broke from my lips. I clapped both hands over my mouth, my shoulders quaking with the effort. My magic wobbled a teacup on the kitchen countertop.

Xavier rounded the table, sliding a white handkerchief onto the table before me. I gratefully accepted the little cloth, embroidered with an M, and dried my eyes.

He sat across from me, silent and calm as I caught my breath. His straight posture, his neat, black uniform, his serious expression—he was truly the perfect image of a wizard. It was strange, almost dreamlike, to see this person from my childhood now placed in the role of an adult. It suited him.

“Your father can be helped,” he said, soft and soothing. “If the Council gives you time, you can teach your magic to yield to you. Then, you can cast a blessing or any other spell you’d like.”

Flames of magic seared the back of my throat. He didn’t understand. “You heard the Council; I’m hopeless, I—”

I paused.

I remembered peering into the Morwyns’ kitchen with Xavier at my side. Watching his mother and father touch their hands to a patient’s heart, and the room filling with golden light. An old, powerful ritual. The Morwyn family was well-known and celebrated in the magical community. For generations, they’d performed complicated magic and healed thousands of people.

“Your parents perform blessings,” I murmured.

Recognition and worry flickered in his eyes. “Yes, they do.”

“My other teachers didn’t.”

“It’s very difficult magic.”

I leaned across the table towards him, my heart beating faster as my plan made more and more sense to me. “Perhaps they could take me on! They could teach me how to cast a blessing!”

“They—they’re out of the country, Miss Lucas—”

“Then you!”

Xavier blinked rapidly. “Me?”

“They taught you about blessings, didn’t they?”

“Well, yes, but—”

“Teach me,” I said, slapping my gloved hand against the table. “You aren’t like my other teachers. You know me. You aren’t afraid of my power.”

He opened and shut his mouth like a fish on land. “I have a prior engagement,” he said.

I glowered at the flimsy excuse. “A prior engagement?! My father is dying!”

His ears turned red. “I have a very important potion due to the Council on Midsummer—”

“Is it more important than my father’s life?”

In the stunned silence, my voice echoed through the kitchen like we were in a concert hall. I drew back, my arms tight around myself. The shock of my words, my anger, my magic, rang through me.

“You’re the only hope I have,” I said. “You don’t have to help me as a favor. I’ll pay you. I’ll give you anything. I’ll work for free, all day long. I’ll clean your house, darn your socks; whatever you like.” I pressed my hand to my face, blotting out the world. Xavier and I had once wished on clovers for our magic to come. And when our powers arrived, mine and then his, we ran about and whooped and hollered and declared we would work together as partners. Morwyn and Lucas. We’d had beautiful, wild dreams of using our powers to save lives.

Now my magic had nearly killed my father.

I wanted nothing more to do with it.

“I’d even give you my magic if I could,” I whispered.

“Don’t say things you don’t mean.” His voice was cold and sharp as ice. When I lifted my head, his eyes were the same.

“I mean every word,” I said. “You’ve seen my power. It’s good for nothing.” It hurt me to say it, my magic burning my throat to punish me for the insult. “I’d trade it away in a heartbeat.”

The severity had vanished from his face. When he met my eyes again, I felt like we were children again. Equal.

“If it were possible,” he murmured, “if you could give your power to another person—would you?”

A chill danced up my back. Magic was a gift that appeared to so few. To trade away such a gift was foolish, was heartbreaking. . . . But for Papa, I could bear such things. “If you taught me to bless my father, then yes, I would.”

He touched his fingertips to his mouth. His thumb, I noticed, had a black band inked around it.

“You made a vow to someone,” I noted.

It was a practice used between magicians when striking certain bargains. Some of my teachers bore black rings on their fingers; promises to coworkers, to the Council. Master and Madam Morwyn had them in place of wedding bands. When we were younger, Xavier and I used to make pretend vows. We’d clasp hands like we had seen magicians do, and promise to be friends forever, or to always share our secrets with each other. We’d mark our fingers with little bands of ink.

But we weren’t children anymore.

“What was it for?” I asked.

He hid his hands beneath the tabletop. “It was for the Council. And it’s a vow I propose to you. If you truly meant it, if you truly wanted to, you could give your power to me.”

I shivered. To make a true vow, as two grown magicians—it felt strange. Our childhood game, made more serious than I could have ever fathomed.

I didn’t understand why he would want my volatile power. But if this was the payment he’d take in exchange for his help, I would not question his reasons.

“You’ll teach me to bless Papa,” I said, “and then once he’s well, I’ll pay you—with my magic?”

“Precisely.”

I could imagine Papa pleading with me not to give up my gift, my future. But a future without my father was bleak and empty. And a future with my magic would be fraught with trouble. Besides, after what my magic had done, the Council would surely forgo offering me the “mercy” of the binding spell and take my power away from me altogether.

“I agree to it,” I said. I reached a hand towards him.

“You’ll need to take your glove off, Miss Lucas. For the vow.”

I drew my hand to my chest. My throat tightened. “When my skin touched Papa’s, it burned him. What if it does the same to you?”

He shook his head. “I’m sure you mean me no harm.”

“I didn’t mean to harm Papa, either,” I muttered.

He grimaced. “Then we will say the vow quickly.”

I squeezed the stiff gloves into fists.

“Don’t fret,” he said. “I’ve got some extra salve in my potion case, if you were to really hurt me. And if you do, I won’t blame you for it.”

Finger by finger, I pulled off my right gardening glove. I slipped my hand into his hold as gently as possible, like it would soften the blow, but the moment our skin touched, he gasped.

I leapt back. “I told you!”

He shook his hand like it’d been held over a stove. “It’s so curious,” he murmured. “Your magic doesn’t obey your own heart.”

“Curious?” I spat. “It’s maddening.”

Xavier reached for my hand again, our eyes aligning. There was the faintest stripe of pink along his palm where I’d touched him. “I’ll help you. We’ll get your magic sorted out. And after your father’s been healed, your power will burden you no longer.”

My magic curled up inside me. It hated being called a burden.

That’s what you are, I told it. Over the years, it had only become more fitful. Spells had been difficult the first few months of having my power; then they’d grown wild, unruly, and too strong. Now my magic was dangerous, pure and simple. Perhaps when wielded by someone else, it would be more manageable.

Still, jealousy and disappointment ate at me like parasites. Xavier was only a month older than I was. And though we’d gotten the same magical education, he’d graduated a whole year early. Been inducted to the Council almost instantly. Succeeded in every way I failed.

I could only hope he would succeed in helping me bless Papa.

Taking a gulp of air, I clasped Xavier’s hand, looking him in the eyes, and he didn’t flinch back this time. My heart soared into my throat as magic zipped through my veins, pooling in my palm. Light exploded all around us, golden motes floating around our hands and drifting by our cheeks like fairies.

And the light danced in his eyes. They were beautiful and warm, not flint-black but really a deep brown, and fringed with long lashes. Yet there were dark shadows beneath his eyes.

Xavier’s hand trembled, but his gaze didn’t waver as he spoke. “I vow to you, Clara Lucas, that I will teach you all I can, until the day you are able to free your father from the magic binding him.”

His words were soft, secret, but ricocheted somehow off the pale yellow kitchen walls and echoed through my mind. The pulse in his palm fluttered against my hand. The flecks of golden light thrummed in time with his heart.

Words spilled from me as if I’d practiced: “I vow to you, Xavier Morwyn, that upon the day I bless my father and free him of the magic binding him, I will give to you all of my magic. Willingly. Readily.”

He held my hand tighter. “Let neither of us speak of this vow to another soul.”

To have our hands clasped like this reminded me of our childhood. The secrets we’d kept for the other. The things we’d admitted with teary eyes beneath blanket forts. Such promises had felt so serious then.

Magic pulsed along my arms, aching like a pulled muscle. Then a bolt of electricity sang up my arm. I gasped and pulled back my hand. It stung as if I’d stuck it into a fire; and then, as quickly as they appeared, the lights and pain vanished.

My skin was not red and throbbing as I’d expected it to be—it was the same, if not for a thin black band inked around my ring finger.

Xavier flexed his hand, which now bore a matching black band. The skin of his fingers and palm were raw and pink.

“Your hand! Oh, Xavier, I’m so sorry—”

“It’s not your fault.” He turned to his potion case, which opened with a soft click. Procuring the little jar of salve from his bag, he nodded his head at it. The cork flew out on its own. After he applied the cream to his hand, he bound the wound in gauze.

“Does it hurt?” I asked. In part, I wanted to know if Papa was suffering terribly from my hand on his cheek.

“It stings,” he admitted, and left it at that. Before closing his case, he placed a golden calling card and a square bottle into my still-gloved left hand.

“This is a sedative,” he explained. “Your father will continue to be quite frail. A spoonful will put him to sleep. And he won’t feel pain.” He pointed to the card. “If something unforeseen happens, burn that and I’ll come to help.”

I looked at the card, which simply said His Greatness Xavier Morwyn, Wizard. I felt a pang of envy. I was just as smart and talented as he was. I should have been called “Madam Lucas.”

Now I would never be.

I curled my hand around the little potion. “All right.”

“I’ll call on the Council shortly. I’ll explain the situation, get them to postpone the binding spell. And they’ll be able to provide additional aid for the both of you.”

I did not relish the thought of the Council visiting me a second time—but I needed help. I’d accept it in any form.

Xavier turned back to his case, sweeping it off the table.

“How will I afford to pay a Councilmember?” I peeped. “I gave you all the money I have.”

“Not to worry. You’re my apprentice now. They will tend to your father if I ask them to.” He lighted his hand on the doorknob for one moment before looking back at me. “One last thing. I know we only live an hour apart, but perhaps it would be wise to keep your father far from your magic. Do you understand?”

I hesitated. He wanted my magic—he wanted me—away from my father.

“You want me to live with you?” I asked.

“It is customary for an apprentice to move house.”

I couldn’t help but scoff. Customary? For one’s former best friend to act in the place of an older and wiser mentor? For a witch to accidentally curse her own father? For two young people to make a bargain like this?

Xavier turned back to the door. “Will that be a problem, Miss Lucas?”

“No,” I said—though the thought of leaving my father behind in such a state made my heart sink. I squeezed the end of my braid with my ungloved fingers. “I’ll do whatever’s best for him.”

Xavier nodded. “We’ll start tomorrow morning, then.”

As he turned the doorknob, I piped up with one more question.

“Might I see him on the weekends, do you think?” I asked. “Would that be safe?”

His fingers danced against the scalloped metal of the door’s handle. “I’ll need your help on Saturdays.”

“You didn’t need an apprentice at all until five minutes ago.”

He let out a sharp, one-beat laugh—the sincerest part of himself I’d seen since our childhood. “Very well. Saturdays and Sundays, you may see him.”

Xavier inhaled deeply and pressed his forehead against the kitchen door. He whispered to it and then began to sing his song again. It was soothing, hypnotizing—my eyelids started to fall. I blinked, and the door clicked shut. When I opened it again, I found my sitting room, plain as ever.

Papa, wan and thin, sat up from his little makeshift bed. “I heard lots of ranting and then the kitchen started to glow,” he said. “What happened? What sort of magic was that?”

I thought of the black band that now marked my finger and quickly tucked my hand into my pocket. I couldn’t let him see any evidence of this bargain. That, in exchange for his life, I’d traded away the magic he called my treasure.

“Xavier asked me to be his apprentice,” I said, “and I start tomorrow.”