In the meantime, midnight ticks ever closer. There’s fifteen minutes left of the day when I finally set the diary aside, and then after a moment go and lock it away in my trunk to help me resist temptation tomorrow.

  There’s an awkward silence. Normally people would say something about what sort of a year it’s been, but… well, with everything that’s happened in this one, I don’t think any of us quite know what to say about it. I certainly don’t.

  It’s eleven minutes before midnight.

  It was ten minutes before midnight, and Elsie was staring at her bedroom wall in the dim golden light of the spell cupped in her hands. She was still too young to stay up until midnight on Esteral, according to her parents. Even though she was a magician now. Even though she was an oracle. Even after everything she’d learnt the last few months.

  It hurt, to be told she was still too young. She wasn’t. So she was going to stay awake and see the new year in, even if she had to do it alone.

  After today she wouldn’t be alone for much longer. She’d have her friends. Stars, she missed Tallulah. And not just because she enjoyed the other girl’s company. It had been awful, having no-one she could talk to about her powers for nearly a month. And no-one she could talk to about that encounter with Lord Blackthorn, and whether she’d made a mistake and what she was going to do if he asked her again.

  Tallulah would be able to help. Things would get better.

  It was nine minutes before midnight, and Lord Blackthorn was turning down an invitation to dance. Really, he wasn’t sure why the Duchess of Lyrinn had even bothered asking. She must have known he’d refuse. He’d danced once with anyone who asked him and who he didn’t mind being associated with, and then refused every other invitation, every single night.

  How hard could it be to understand that he had no intention of remarrying? He had an heir, and no interest in a political match. Stars, it was bad enough he had to think about that problem for Edward. It just wasn’t worth it for himself as well.

  With any luck that would at least be the last time. The final dance would start in only a minute or two, to give time for proposals and romantic moments before midnight struck. Only a few hours, then, before he was free of this cursed feast for another year.

  It was eight minutes before midnight, and Beth was sitting on her bed. She wasn’t alone; Jack was beside her. Close, but not too close. The distance between them felt like a tiny gap and an eternal chasm.

  “It’ll be okay,” she said. “By this time next year we’ll be free of all this.”

  “That, or dead,” Jack replied grimly. He still hadn’t recovered from Isabelle’s little revelation about that. Beth couldn’t blame him. That wasn’t something you could recover from without getting away from its cause. And Isabelle was still being tight-lipped about her escape plan: she was reasonably sure it would work in theory, so she said, but some of the alchemical ingredients it would need apparently took months to mature.

  Isabelle was in the lab, alone, working. Personal tradition, was all she’d said. Beth was curious, but not curious enough to risk interruption. Prying into Isabelle’s secrets seemed like a very dangerous thing to do right now.

  “We’re not going to die,” said Beth.

  “You trust Isabelle?”

  Beth paused, choosing her words carefully. “I trust her to do everything in her power to get us out of here. I don’t know if that will be enough.”

  “Nor do I,” said Jack. Then, suddenly, his face brightened.

  “What?”

  “I just had a thought. If I am going to be dead by this time next year? Then this is my last chance to dance on Esteral night. So…” he got to his feet and offered her a hand. “Will you dance with me?”

  Beth thanked the stars the room was so dimly lit, because it meant he wouldn’t see the scarlet flush of her cheeks. “I can’t dance.”

  “Nor can I. But will you try, anyway, with me?”

  Slowly, Beth reached out and took his hand.

  It was seven minutes before midnight, and Electra was working. Not because it was Esteral night. She just worked late into the night on occasion. It was often necessary, when a new Malaina case came up and she had to spend hours researching that and still keep up with lesson plans and grading homework.

  But she wasn’t working on lesson plans or homework now. Nor was she researching – or not researching Malaina at least. No, this was something altogether more… anomalous. She’d spent half the holidays reading through all the literature on unusual magical signatures, trying to find some pattern that matched what she’d observed in Edward and Tallulah. And she still had no answers.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Not except the one wild fanciful theory. Which couldn’t possibly be real.

  Unless.

  If she didn’t find anything before they returned to the Academy, maybe it was time to try and test it.

  It was six minutes before midnight, and Robin was trying not to cry as she watched the last dance. No-one had asked her, because why would anyone want to dance with her? This Feast had been five days that just spelled out everything that was wrong with her life. It didn’t help that she couldn’t completely avoid Lady Cavendish, either. Mildred was suffering, too, she knew, but the way Mildred dealt with it was to be cruel to others and Robin was a convenient target.

  That was all it was, she told herself again and again. It wasn’t that the awful things Mildred was saying had any merit. But it was hard to convince herself of that after what had happened at the end of term. She’d risked everything to try and restore herself to her family’s good graces after the scandal, and lost. Oh, she’d long since accepted that she had no real chance with Edward, but just being his friend, just having that tight-knit little circle… she hadn’t realised how much that meant until she’d destroyed it.

  And there would be no coming back from this. Edward did not forgive easily, not when it came to something like this. Tallulah would be sad about it, feel pity for Robin – and wasn’t that so utterly ironic – but in the end she’d choose him, because she loved him. Elsie had attached herself to Tallulah like a little puppy. And Elizabeth had no reason for a personal grudge, at least, but she wouldn’t abandon everyone else for Robin.

  So she was alone now. She’d thrown herself into magical theory at every opportunity this winter in a desperate attempt to hide from her despair. But she couldn’t very well do that here, in public, with everyone waiting to see what awful thing would happen next.

  At least the year would soon be over. And she’d have a new start next year. Once she was a qualified magician, she’d be able to forget all this and find her own way.

  It was five minutes before midnight, and Isabelle was brewing. She didn’t normally work alchemy this late. She’d learnt the hard way how much easier it was to make careless mistakes with potentially deadly consequences when you didn’t get enough sleep.

  But this was Esteral night, and she had to keep to her little rituals. Some days it felt like the only way to remind herself of who she was. An alchemist of the old, true kind, a Master certified by the Guild. The granddaughter of Francis Froment, himself a Master of Alchemy. A keeper and heir of the Guild’s traditions.

  Never mind that she was betraying those traditions every single day. This would pass. She was going to make it pass. Because she had to. Because the alternatives were unthinkable.

  This particular ritual was a private one between her and her grandfather. Esteral was the only time that certain complex mixtures could be prepared. Alignment of the stars, or the magical currents. Isabelle didn’t know exactly why. But it was an opportunity she had to take advantage of.

  She was making a Potion of Stars’ Blessing. Named because of how it felt to drink it. As if you were blessed by the stars, as if they were as determined as you were that you would succeed. It sped up thought processes and reaction times, increased the drinker’s sensitivity to magic, and boosted their focus and confidence.

  It was one of her most precious memories, the first one her grandfather had made her. For emergencies, he’d said. And eight years later, when she was finally old enough to help him with the brewing.

  She’d never drunk a single one. She’d lost those ten vials he’d kept for her in being taken here. But she’d find them again. And in the meantime: she’d made two more. After tonight, it would be three.

  Maybe she’d need them soon.

  It was four minutes before midnight, and Elizabeth was asleep. She was old enough now that staying up until midnight was no longer an adventure, and she didn’t have anyone to celebrate the new year with. Didn’t want to think of celebrating the new year, really, because she still remembered what had happened last year. She would let it pass unremarked, just as any other midnight did.

  It was three minutes before midnight, and Mildred was jealous. The eldest son of the Duchess of Ridgeton was engaged now, to a minor lady from the west of the country. She would never have that, because as a magician she was barred from inheriting land, and that extended to her future husband. Unless some young heir fell so in love with her that he’d sacrifice his fortune to be with her, it was hopeless.

  She’d come here dreaming that this would be her fairy tale. That she’d find love, or at least someone who saw her as more than a useful but ultimately expendable political asset. And nothing of the sort had happened. She was a magician – and not a Royal Magician – and the daughter of a traitor. That meant she was worth no more than one vote in Parliament. And she’d underestimated the King’s anger at the stunt she’d tried with Ariana Carling.

  It had been risky, she knew, but if it had worked then she would have made the new government. She would have been respected, listened to, seen as something more than what she was now. Oh, if only.

  It was two minutes before midnight, and Edward was eating cinnamon bites. Elspeth had made an extra plate just for him, in addition to the one that was sent to the Round Palace daily for his father. He wondered if these bites were the only things keeping his father sane (well, as sane as a Blackthorn could be).

  This time next year, he’d be there as well. He was dreading it. Everyone would see him as his father’s weak point and try to exploit that weakness. And he didn’t know if they were wrong. He didn’t know if he could survive without letting a secret slip, or worse having an active episode.

  But he didn’t have a choice.

  That had never seemed like a problem, before now. He’d had his life planned out for him and seen no point in deviating from the plan. But that was before Malaina. Before Tallulah.

  He wished she was here with him. He’d tried, really, to be happy that she was with her father. That she still had family who cared about her. But stars, without her he felt so alone.

  It’s one minute before midnight, and I’m standing in the living room of the tiny apartment with my family. My grandmother has lifted the Holy Days candle from the mantlepiece, and she holds it in her cupped hands as I might a light-spell, ready to extinguish it when midnight strikes. My dad takes a step closer to me.

  “Hug?” he asks.

  I let him wrap his arms around me.

  “I’ll be a better father this year. I promise.”

  I want to say something but I can’t work out what, and then it’s too late.

  The clocks chime. It’s midnight. It’s another year.