I was expecting the final stage of the enchantment to be simple. It’s not. I should have known better, really. Making an enchantment that activates and deactivates when it’s touched isn’t hard; it’s just the additional complexity added to the pieces that barely fit together in my mind as it is.

  After spending far too long making no progress I decide I need a break. The problem being that I intend to spend that break reading Georgiana’s diary and also to keep it to a reasonable length, because there’s only so long left in the day and I need this enchantment to be finished. I’m not going to be able to accomplish both of those things on my own, so I make my dad promise to drag me away from the diary by four after noon.

  I could swear that only five minutes pass between my dad making that promise and carrying it out. And that it was just before three when I started reading. But unless he’s literally adjusted the clock and also made the skies suspiciously darker, it is in fact now four after noon. I tear myself reluctantly away from Georgiana finally realising the implications of an Esteral dance with the King’s son. It is helpful to have my dad around for things like this, because his stern look is more than strong enough to help me resist the temptation to just finish this entry, because there’ll still be enough time, won’t there?

  “Thank you,” I make myself say once I’ve snapped the diary shut, even though I don’t feel particularly thankful in that moment. This is the only way the enchantment is getting done tonight. And once it’s done – because I can do it, and I’m going to – I can read the diary for as long as I like. Well, as long as I remember to eat and sleep. Which in practice means I won’t have anything close to as long as I like.

  I take a minute to drink some water and then pace around the room, just clearing my mind of thoughts of Georgiana and the Feast of Stars. It makes me wonder what’s happening at this year’s Feast. I pity whoever ends up having to sit next to Lord Blackthorn at dinner: I imagine that though the King may be able to demand his attendance, no-one can make him into a pleasant conversation partner. I set that thought aside and sit down on the sofa. It doesn’t feel like the sort of spot where enchantments should be worked, but it’s the best I have right now.

  I begin by casting the version without the trigger again, just to prove that I still can. One trick I’ve picked up from enough of these frustrating sessions is that it helps to start by casting something I know works. Just to make myself believe a little more. If I can do this, why not the next step?

  A lot of magic is about playing mind games with yourself to trick yourself into believing you’re good at it. Maybe that’s why the anomaly gives me such an advantage: it has utterly unshakeable confidence. That can’t be all there is to it, but I imagine it helps.

  I really shouldn’t try to use the anomaly to help me here. If I don’t manage it, the worst that happens is that my grandmother doesn’t get a gift from me tomorrow. Whereas I still don’t know the consequences of relying on the anomaly too much, but I have no doubt they could be very serious indeed.

  Besides, isn’t relying on it an admission of defeat? That I can’t do the magic on my own? That argument is more likely to work on Edward than me, but I try to persuade myself nonetheless, and keep trying the normal way. If there is a normal way of doing magic, which I’m not convinced of by this point.

  And finally – finally – it works. The brightness is reasonable, enough to see by without drawing on more power than my inefficient enchanting can provide it. And it turns on and off with just a brush of my hand, without my needing to channel the slightest scrap of magic.

  The feeling of success almost makes the afternoon’s frustrations worth it. I can understand a little how people devote their entire lives to magic, if every new spell and enchantment gives them this feeling. It’s intoxicating.

  I test it, turning the light on and off and on again. It works exactly as it’s meant to. I laugh.

  “Working?” my dad asks.

  “Yes,” I reply. “Here.” I lean across the room to pass it from one sofa to the other.

  He tries it too, prodding experimentally at the base of the candleholder and smiling as he sees the light appear at his command. I recognise the expression of wonder on his face. It’s the one the little boy, Matthew, on the coach wore when I made his toy walk. It’s the one I must have worn when I first saw the enchantment on Electra’s office door or travelled through the Portal Network.

  The realisation that magic isn’t a distant abstract thing that belongs to faraway people. It’s part of the world around us. It’s something that he can have, too.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  “It’s…” my dad says slowly. “Why aren’t there more of these?”

  “The brightness isn’t enough to compare to a torch. A master enchanter could make it better than what I’ve done, but not by enough.”

  He shakes his head. “Not this. Not in particular. Enchanted items. How much easier it would make every person’s life to have those things to clean and cook.”

  The idea is unexpected, so it takes me a little while to find a response. “Enchantments can’t be… mass-produced. I don’t think any magician would want to spend hours a day casting the same enchantment over and over again. A lot of them do some enchanting as a side business, but mostly only for wealthy clients.”

  “That isn’t right, is it? That only the rich should have enchantments as toys and gadgets, and the rest of us are left with nothing?”

  “No,” I say. “It’s not. But I don’t know how to change that.”

  “Tallulah, I was hardly suggesting – you’re fi – sixteen,” he corrects himself pointedly. “It’s not your responsibility. You shouldn’t have any responsibility beyond getting qualified as a magician and working out what you want to do after that. Speaking of which…”

  I grimace. “I don’t know. Maybe I will take up enchanting. At least to earn enough money to get by.” I could rent a place in Ryk. Except maybe I couldn’t, because as Elizabeth discovered many landlords blatantly discriminate against Malaina. Edward would let me live with him, I have no doubt of that, but I don’t really want to live with his father if I have an alternative.

  And realistically I’d need some form of security whenever I settle down more permanently, unless I want to keep my address hidden forever, which seems destined to fail. Things aren’t going to get any less complicated from here, are they?

  “Not a bad idea,” my dad says. “Just… whatever you do, think about it. Make sure you’ll be happy. And if… if there’s anything I can do to support you, all you have to do is ask.”

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “Don’t thank me. That’s what fathers are supposed to do, isn’t it, support their children?”

  The bedroom door creaks open. My dad quickly brushes his hand along the edge of the candleholder to switch it off and stuffs it under the nearest cushion. He and I giggle as if we’re schoolgirls who’ve been making fun of the teacher behind their back. Well, I don’t mind my grandmother knowing that we’re conspiring, as long as she doesn’t figure out exactly what I’ve made her.

  “Up to no good, I see,” she says as she emerges from the room.

  “Not at all,” I say.

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about,” says my dad, sporting an angelic smile that matches mine.

  “Right, yes, of course. Well, while you’re doing nothing suspicious whatsoever, I am going to cook dinner.”

  My dad sighs; evidently he’s lost today’s battle over the kitchen. “If you insist on doing it all alone without any help, who am I to stop you?”

  She laughs and glides through the room to the kitchen. My dad and I share another conspiratorial giggle, because we can. I smuggle the candleholder back to my sofa and amuse myself by repeatedly switching it on and off, enjoying watching the light appear and disappear and the knowledge that this is something I created. I tell myself I’m testing the enchantment, but really it’s just a childlike satisfaction.

  My grandmother’s cooking is as usual excellent. And once we’ve eaten I’m free to return to Georgiana’s diary. One of the older children – a Cavendish, I note, hoping for Georgiana’s sake that she’s nicer than her present-day counterpart – is finally explaining the symbolism of the Esteral dance to her.

  She says that if I dance with Charlie it means we’ll get married. I think that’s silly. I’m too young to decide who I’m going to marry. But Clara says it doesn’t work like that, for us, because marriages are political and all about alliances.

  That explains why Father is so keen on the idea. It’s good to be allied to the King. I still don’t want to get married until I’m a lot older, though, and I want – the next words are blotted out, and then she continues I want to do my duty to my family.

  Did she remember then that her tutor would read what she wrote, and realise that it wasn’t safe to express her true feelings? I feel awful for Georgiana. Stars, I’m finding it hard to confront the fact that everything I do has political meaning and my choices aren’t entirely my own any more. What must it be like for her to have grown up like that?

  What must it be like for Edward to have grown up like that? What must it be like for him to know even now that he’ll never be able to marry for love because he won’t ever love a woman?

  If I marry Charlie, then one day when he’s King I’ll be Queen. Queen Georgiana. That doesn’t seem so bad. I laugh. She is, after all, still seven years old.

  She does dance with him in the end. And she tells him about what she’s found out. Charlie says it doesn’t mean anything. Because someday he’ll be King and then no-one can tell him who to marry. People think it means something, though. Matilda was mean to me about it. She says it should have been her.

  I don’t know. I’m too young to understand these things.

  Georgiana’s life returns to its normal pace once Holy Days are done, and the diary becomes less dramatic. I know that – if I have the dates right – it can’t be long before the King becomes ill and history’s inevitability is set into motion.

  And, just as inevitably, I’m forced to stop reading if I want to get enough sleep. Sharing a room with my dad is probably good for my sleep schedule, even if I don’t always like that. We’ve managed to coexist well enough so far, but I am definitely looking forward to having my own space again.

  I find myself lying uncomfortably on something hard beneath my cushion-pillow when I try to settle into what passes for bed. The candleholder. My grandmother has retired for the night, and tomorrow there won’t be any more need for secrecy, so I just make sure that its enchanted light is turned off and place it on the nearest table.

  Then I rewrap myself in the blankets and let myself sink into sleep.