[excerpt from chapter 1]

Adalia was working in her garden when she heard the sound of an approaching horseman. Her heart sped up, but she took the time to tamp the sandy earth down firmly around the roots of her transplanted mint and water it from a wooden bucket beside her before she stood up and walked to the front of the cottage. She dusted off her hands and squinted down the road. Nothing was visible yet. She smiled broadly.

Winding from the cottage steps to the dirt track down the hill, a swath of paving stones rang with ghostly hoofbeats. Breathing deeply to settle herself, and ignoring the apprehensive twisting of her stomach, she leaned down to touch the sun-warmed cobblestones and closed her eyes. The magical resonance she had created between these rocks, hauled laboriously up the hill from the river, and their original bed, projected the sounds of visitors right to her doorstep. There was, however, no need to reveal this trick to them. She let her consciousness ride lightly across the edge of the spell, disengaging the aural link while leaving the main part of it intact. The rock tingled against her skin, and the sound faded to silence.

Even if everyone but her brother was frightened off from visiting this side of the river by legend of the Queen’s curse and the shadowed lands it haunted, it was good to have a warning. Living out here alone wasn’t as dangerous as Phillip liked to pretend, but it was only sensible to take precautions. And it gave her a chance to wash up a bit before he arrived.

She straightened quickly and bustled inside. The cottage was gloomy to her sun-accustomed eyes, but tidy and clean, as always. She opened the shutters to let in more light and changed into a faded muslin skirt. Glancing into the oval-framed mirror on the west wall – her one luxury – she ran her fingers through her hair, untangling a few of her russet curls. Her deep green eyes stared back at her, pinched and serious, the beginnings of a frown creasing her forehead. She shook her head. It was just Phillip coming to visit. Not the end of the world, by any means. She took a few deep breaths and smiled deliberately at her reflection, straightening her shoulders.

Hoofbeats sounded on the dirt track outside, solidly real.

"Hello the house!" called her brother. Adalia ran outside.

"Phillip! How are you?" He swung out of the saddle, his short-cropped brown hair matted to his forehead with sweat, his traveling leathers spotted and dusty. Miribelle, his horse, shook her head irritably, sweat glistening on her chestnut flanks.

"Happy to see you, Dale, and cursed hot! Have you got anything to drink? Even the river’s running low for this time of year. I swear, Miri hardly wetted her belly on our way across the ford." He unsaddled the horse and tethered her in the shade while Adalia fetched a couple of heavy clay cups full of well water.

They sat down on the stone steps, looking down the hill towards the river. It was one of Adalia’s favorite places, with a sweeping view of the green slope, the shining river below, and the neat patchwork of fields and pasture that spread out on the opposite shore around Riverside. She could even make out the tiny white specks of sheep grazing in one of the meadows on a clear day. The haze that had settled in over the water made today’s view a gauzy, humid one.

"And how is my little sister faring out here in the back of beyond?" Phillip said, looking down at her through his eyelashes. His eyes were the same deep, late-summer green as hers, usually sparkling with good humor. But Adalia sensed something beneath his affability, some reserve, a whisper of mountainous silences.

"I’m doing well," she replied, tempering her tone to suit the complexity she sensed in his mood. "The garden is flourishing, and this year I have more time for my studies now that the house is finished." She laid a hand fondly on the doorframe of the cottage. He responded with a half-smile.

"So you have enough to eat out here? I’ll admit, I asked a few of the townspeople as I was passing through how often you visited, and they told me that you hadn’t been across the river in a while."

"Oh, Phillip." Adalia rolled her eyes. "I am nothing if not a competent earth witch, and you worry that I’m not feeding myself? Not only do I have an entire wood to forage through, and a tremendous garden, but if I wanted to I could charm birds from the sky and rabbits from the woods to my table."

He eyed her dubiously. "And do you? I thought you had given up on compelling and commanding magics. I thought that was why you were out here in the first place, trying to discover something new. Or did you change your mind?"

"No, I haven’t changed my mind." She grinned up at him. "And no, I haven’t been commanding bunnies into my stewpot. As it happens, I have an understanding with a small flock of chickens. My point was just that I’m not likely to starve."

Phillip looked out over the half-wooded, flower studded tangle. "But where’s your garden?"

"This is my garden. You’re looking right at it."

"I thought you said you were feeding yourself! All I see here are flowers and bushes! Where are the vegetables?" He paced the edge of the blooming jumble, lines of strain etched into his face.

"Phillip!" she said sharply, "Calm down! This isn’t like you at all!"

"Now look," Adalia continued in a softer tone, putting a steadying hand on his arm. "These are sun lilies. Every part of them is edible. And roses have flowers, yes, but also fruits in the autumn. Violets, again, edible. This patch over here is lettuce, and here under the bushes, these were strawberries which I had about three weeks ago." The low-growing leaves still carpeted the ground. She bruised a leaf of a tall, weedy plant with spikes of tiny light purple flowers and lifted her fingers to his nose.

"Mint, for tea. And these are all herbs, over here. Rosemary, and bergamot, basil, parsley, sage. And purple coneflowers, for winter ills. Licorice, for coughs. And some of these bushes, when they’ve grown another few seasons, will have berries. Brambleberry, elderberry, hawthorn, and bilberry. And back behind those are the apple trees."

She turned to face him, wrinkling her freckle-dusted nose. "Now tell me, what’s really bothering you about all this? You don’t usually doubt my methods with such vehemence, even when I do things my own way."

Phillip frowned, staring at the garden without really seeing it. "The thing is, Dale, it’s not just Mother this time. I want you to come home, too. We all do. You’ve had your little adventure in the wilderness out here, for three whole years, and I’ve supported you, even when Mother had tantrums about your career. But now I have to start looking out for myself, and I can’t keep looking after you."

He turned, catching her wrists in his hands and looking into her eyes earnestly. "I’m getting married, Dale. And my new posting is on the coast. I won’t be able to come out here anymore."

Adalia pulled her arms back, out of his grasp, and wrapped them around herself, pacing. "I never asked you to come out here in the first place, you know! I don’t need to hear about how you stand up to Mother for me, as if I asked you to do it. So you have to go have a career. Fine, go have it! But I’m not going to give up on my life, on my dreams, just because I have to live it alone. Honestly, I’ve known that it would come to this, ever since I broke with the traditions of the Academy. I never expected you to take so much time out for me, for even this long."

"But, Dale! What about your own future? What do you see for yourself in this backwards hut in the middle of nowhere? You’re going to grow old here, and for what? For a house you built yourself, a tangled garden, a flock of chickens? You’re not really building a new life here. You’re just giving up on everything you were born to be."

"And what is it you think I was born to be, Phillip? You think I was born to sacrifice my life for the nation, like our great-grandmother did? Do you think I was born to be City nobility, living out my life in a tangle of politics and velvet, like Mother? Or should I join the Corps, like you and Miranda, and go placidly where anyone orders me to, whether it be the coast or the colonies? No! And no more am I meant to while out my days teaching Craft to dunderheaded young witches at the Academy, as my professors seemed to think!"

Phillip scowled. "That’s an awful lot about what you don’t think you want. But you’re still not telling me what you hope to accomplish out here. What is it about this place that you can study magic out here and nowhere else?"

Adalia turned away, pacing restlessly towards the woods. How could she possibly explain it to him, to anyone, and not sound mad? This was the same question that had stumped her in the final days of school, when she drew away from her professors and struck out on her own. Still, for all the help he had given her, Phillip deserved an explanation.

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