The rest of the ceremony passed without incident. As the clouds above us gradually parted and the snowfall outside our bubble slowed from a thick flurry to a mist, the representatives of the Boudiccate and the elven court traded and received their traditional greetings and reassurances in the sing-song tones of ancient ritual.

When the solstice sun hit its highest point, shining weakly from a pale blue sky, the very last snowflakes fell with a sigh outside our protected gathering.

The storm was over at long last.

“May we tempt Your Majesty to stay and join us for a Solstice Feast?” Lady Cosgrave asked at the very end, as the elves stepped back to take their leave. “It may not measure up to the famous delicacies of your own court, but...”

“We thank you,” said the elven king, “but we must return. It has been too long since we partook of a great hunt.” His silver eyes glittered as he spoke those words, and a hiss of anticipation sounded from his gathered courtiers.

It sparked something primeval in my spine—something that remembered a time, not so long ago, when humans had been favored elven prey.

I fought the sudden, cowardly urge to sidle backwards.

The elven king’s icy gaze passed over our assembled company and landed with the weight of inevitability upon me. “There is,” he murmured, “still the question of a new ambassadress from your nation. Perhaps we might finally agree upon one who is accustomed to speaking freely to elves...and understanding our own words even in the most perilous of circumstances.”

My stomach clenched.

“Why, yes,” said Lady Cosgrave brightly, taking another step toward him. “In fact, my own young cousin, Miss Fennell, has developed quite an interest in your court, as you may have gathered from her earlier contributions! She would make an excellent addition to your company. Or—”

“Forgive me, ma’am.” Miss Fennell gave an apologetic smile to her cousin and a deep, respectful bow to the elven king. “Under other circumstances, I would be honored beyond words by such an appointment...but I’m afraid I’m rather urgently needed here at the moment.”

Her hand closed around Miss Banks’s arm, and the two of them leaned into each other in a moment of perfect harmony.

But I couldn’t enjoy it even for their sake as the elven king’s lips curved into a smile of dangerous satisfaction...and his gaze remained firmly fixed on me.

“I am no diplomat.” My voice came out half-strangled. “I would be a terrible ambassadress, Your Highness.”

“And yet,” purred the elven king, “I do see why Lord Ihlmere found you intriguing.” His eyes narrowed, and his voice dropped to a silken croon that tugged underneath my skin. “You’ve lost your own magic, haven’t you? I can see it locked into your bones, unreachable...at least, as long as you remain in this outer world.” His smile deepened. “Our magic works differently than yours, you know...and so do the forces of nature within our hills. If you tasted the mysteries of our hidden court, you might yet be surprised by what possibilities you could discover...but only while you remained with us.”

My magic. The possibility shot through me like a jolt of lightning, every inch of me from the nape of my neck to my gloved fingertips suddenly tingling with alertness.

It was the impossible dream that had consumed me for the last four months, even after I’d told myself that I had given up hope. It was the single, overriding goal that I had spent my entire life fighting to achieve.

I could almost taste the power flowing through me once again. It was so amazing—so miraculous—I felt a sob of pure wonder try to break its way out from my throat.

I’d have to give up everything to achieve it—but when had I not happily sacrificed everything else in my life for the pursuit of magic?

As my head whirled, I wrenched my gaze away from the elven king, taking one last look at the human semicircles around me before I gave my answer.

Amy’s eyes were huge with shock, but her lips curved into a wobbling smile as I met her gaze, and her chin dipped into a tiny nod of acceptance.

Jonathan frowned, folding his arms across his chest, but he didn’t speak.

Wrexham’s dark eyes held all his heart...and then he took a deep, shuddering breath and took a firm step backwards, away from me.

...Letting me go at last.

My family and my lover had always allowed me to make my own choices in the end. And I had never hidden from anyone in my life the truth of where my priorities lay.

So I stood on my own for the first time that day as I gave the elven king a deep and heartfelt bow. “I am truly honored by your invitation, Your Majesty,” I said, “but I cannot—no,” I corrected myself firmly, “I will not accept it.”

I wouldn’t use anyone else as a shield for me this time. This was my decision, mine alone, and my moment: the moment, after all those months of pain and despair, to finally step away for good from the wreckage of my past dreams and stride into a new and different future.

I’d thought I’d lost everything four months ago. But in the months since then, I’d discovered even deeper priorities after all...and shining new possibilities.

The elven king’s eyebrows rose. The elf-lords around him stiffened.

“I have important work to do here,” I explained, keeping my chin raised and my gaze unyielding, “and people I love far too dearly to leave behind.”

“Ah.” The elven king let out a hissing sigh and gave an infinitesimal shrug. “A pity, that. But if the Boudiccate has no other appropriate candidates to suggest...”

“Ahem.” Standing in the inner semicircle, old Mrs. Seabury planted her walking stick in the snow before her like a statement of its own. “Your Majesty.” Her wrinkled brown face creased into a wicked smile. “I believe you’ll find I can speak my mind...and I have a reasonable understanding, too.”

“Why, Mrs. Seabury.” The king’s face lit into a startlingly open and amused smile of his own. “Our old nemesis. You always did know how to speak your truths, didn’t you?”

She’d been the oldest member of the Boudiccate for as long as I could remember...but for an instant, as Mrs. Seabury grinned at the elven king, I could almost see the fiercely sparkling young woman she had once been.

...A woman who, perhaps, had not been as different from myself as I’d always imagined.

“We would,” said the elven king, “be honored indeed to welcome you into our ancient halls. And we shall expect you to join us there by the next moonfall at the latest.” He bowed, with deep respect, and turned away. “To the hunt.”

A chorus of eerie beauty answered him as every elf-lord spoke as one. “The hunt!”

Snow swept upwards from the ground to surround them...

And they were gone, leaving the rest of us behind in a cold, clear day.

My limbs were suddenly trembling in long, shivering waves. Laughter and tears crowded together in my throat, until it was impossible to distinguish between them.

The magical bubble around us disappeared with a snap. “No need for that anymore!” Lord Cosgrave dusted off his hands. Letting out a puff of disbelieving laughter, he shook his head. “Well...well. Indeed.” He turned to his wife. “Now to the feast?”

“Now to the feast,” Lady Cosgrave agreed in a shaking voice. She rested one hand on his arm for a long, shuddering moment before straightening and assuming her usual regal demeanor. “And then...then we all have much to discuss. Including...” She gave Mrs. Seabury an exasperated look. “A new member of the Boudiccate to appoint on extremely short notice, apparently, as we’re being abandoned by our oldest member.”

“Ha!” Mrs. Seabury snorted and turned toward the house, waving her walking stick for emphasis. “A fine muck you’ll all make of it without me, I wager! But I’ve no time for this nonsense. I’m off to eat!”

A new member of the Boudiccate. My gaze flew to my sister-in-law.

But at this utterly crucial political moment, she was, for once, ignoring all of her friends and colleagues to hurry toward me across the snow. “Cassandra.” Amy flung her arms around me, her firm, rounded belly pressing hard against mine. “Cassandra, you sweet, absurd fool. You could have reclaimed your magic after all! How could you say no to that?”

I pressed my cheek into her soft, crinkly dark hair, breathing deeply as the last waves of shock and fear and regret and relief shivered through me, leaving me emptied out...and finally free.

“I have everything I need right here,” I whispered.

Something hit me hard in the stomach, and I jerked backward. “What—?!”

Amy’s eyes brimmed with tears, but she beamed as she rested one hand on her belly. “Apparently, your niece wanted to be a part of this conversation.”

A choke of laughter escaped my throat as I took that in.

My niece...whom I would actually meet, myself, in person, after all.

A new generation was unmistakably beginning.

Jonathan grabbed me for a rough hug, mussing up my hair. “Don’t worry,” he growled, “she’ll meet you soon enough. And then we’ll have two lots of trouble in this family!”

“Oh—!” I shoved him off, grinning. “I was never the troublesome one in our family. If you only remembered...”

But the words dried up in my throat as the semicircles parted and Wrexham strode toward me at a near-run, tall and lean and full of so much focused intensity—all for me, forever, after all—that I didn’t even try to stop myself.

In full view of the assembled members of the Boudiccate and every magician in the house-party, I lunged forward and threw myself directly at him.

His lips were cold and perfect. His arms locked me close...and home, for the rest of our lives, after all.

“Hopelessly compromised,” I heard Jonathan say behind me, with satisfaction. “I daresay they’ll have to get married this week to make up for the shame of it!”

But I had far more important things to rise to than my brother’s teasing.

When Wrexham finally pulled back, he kept his firm hands around my waist and grinned down at me, his lean, dark face alight with unleashed happiness. “‘Important work,’ eh?” he asked.

Most of the Boudiccate had disappeared by then. The magicians were still milling around, of course, discussing various details of the near-confrontation with an inordinate amount of hand-waving and noisy debate over exactly which spells would have worked best if they’d only been called for...

...but I ignored them all to grin up at my fiancé with pure joy.

“I do,” I said. “I’ve finally found a new vocation to replace my first one.”

It was true.

Nothing would ever be quite the same as practicing magic myself...but I’d finally realized that there was one moment in the past week, after all, when I’d felt every bit as deep a satisfaction as I ever had when casting a spell...along with that singular feeling that I’d thought I’d lost forever: the certainty that this was what I was meant from birth to do.

Generations were shifting, and not only in my family. It was time for my own goals to shift, too.

“Oh, really?” Wrexham cocked one eyebrow. He’d been watching me ever since we first met, and I’d been watching him, too—so I knew exactly that look of sizzling anticipation in his face. It meant he thought he had puzzled out the answer to a particularly tricky problem before I had.

Ha.

His smirk of satisfaction confirmed it. “It’s young Miss Banks,” he said, “isn’t it? You’ve come up with a new strategy to get her into the Great Library, along with all of those other young women like her.”

“Not anymore.” I shook my head without regret. “Amy was right,” I admitted. “There would be so much resistance to that from the Great Library, the Boudiccate and more. I would need to spend all of my days playing politics, and it would still take years for the Great Library to finally fling their doors open. That’s far too long for the girls who need training now...and I was never meant to be a politician.”

For once, that thought didn’t even make me grimace. I knew exactly who I was, now, and I no longer needed confirmation from anyone else to believe it.

“I am a magician,” I said firmly, “and you were right: losing the ability to practice my magic didn’t take away any of my knowledge from the last twenty years of study. So...” I looked around, including my brother and sister-in-law in my gaze as they stepped up beside us, a warm circle of family and support that I knew I would be able to count on forever.

“What would you all think,” I asked, “if I started a new school of my own?”

Jonathan’s bushy eyebrows shot upward. “A magic school, you mean? For girls? As an alternative to the Great Library?”

Not an alternative, I thought with deep satisfaction. A competitor.

If the Great Library wouldn’t hire a woman or train any others...then as much as I’d adored my own time there, it was time to shake them out of their complacency for good. Let them try to ignore a whole generation of fabulous new female magicians!

But there was time enough to reveal all the details of my plan later. In the meantime, I smiled at my brother as I pulled out the final card that I knew would convince him.

“I’d like to add another subject to the curriculum,” I told him. “The Great Library may not require it for their own students, but I think this adventure has proven quite conclusively that magic alone isn’t enough for a working magician in the field. No, my students will need a good understanding of—”

“History!” Jonathan finished in a crow of triumph. “Good God, if you only knew how many times I’d tried to tell hard-headed magicians—oh, and I know exactly where you ought to start! If I can just...”

I turned to his wife as Jonathan began to rummage through the inner pockets of his coat. “Of course, there is still the question of where to host my school,” I told her. “I could rent a house somewhere, I suppose, if I found somewhere secluded that I could afford, or...”

“Away from us? Don’t be absurd! If you’re going to do this, you’ll need our help. And if you think we’re going to lose you all over again...!” Amy’s brown eyes narrowed. I could almost see the wheels of strategy beginning to turn inside her head as she tapped one finger against her side. “We do have an unused dower house on the estate. That should be large enough at least for the first lot of students...and then perhaps...”

My sister-in-law’s words trailed off as her pretty face tightened into the look of intense concentration that heralded a perfect political maneuver in the making. Beside her, Jonathan pulled out a commonplace book to start scribbling down notes with a silver pencil, muttering to himself all the while.

My family was on my side, as always—and together, we were unstoppable.

“So?” Keeping my hands wrapped firmly around his shoulders, I looked up challengingly at Wrexham, the only one who hadn’t spoken yet. “What do you think of my great plan? Are you still ready and willing to marry me even if I scandalize all of your colleagues and the Boudiccate itself?”

Wrexham’s smile was slow and certain as he pulled me even closer into the warmth of his embrace. “I think, Harwood,” said the love of my life with deep affection, “that you live to scandalize the nation...and I can’t wait to be a part of it.”

“You always will be,” I promised him.

Magic swirled through the air around us as the other magicians’ loud debate turned into a laughing, cheering competition.

Sparks and flares danced in the corner of my vision.

I’d spent so much of my life fighting to win every magical contest that I came across...

But now I closed my eyes, smiling, and kissed my fiancé, while grand plans and schemes built themselves in my head and happiness soared irresistibly through my body.

For the first time in months, I couldn’t wait to see what the future would bring me.

* * *