The spell on me wore off in an hour, although it wasn’t until two years later that I understood why. By then, Dad had literally thrown Great Aunt Stregheria out of the hall and ordered her never to return. The spell on my sisters lasted nearly a week before it finally collapsed. Dad was delighted, utterly over the moon. He insisted I had a definite magical talent. I had to have something, he reasoned, to escape such a complex spell. Our parents had been unable to unravel it for themselves.
I knew better. Alana and Bella had been trapped, but neither of them had been in any danger of losing themselves in an animal’s mind. Their magic had even fought the spell when it was first cast. But I had no magic to defend myself. The protective spells Mum and Dad had laid on me had never been anchored properly because there was nothing for them to anchor to. It was sheer luck that I’d survived long enough for the spell to unravel. I was defenseless. Anyone could cast a spell on me.
It was a lesson I should never have forgotten.
I was a zero. And being powerless was my curse.
Chapter One
THE WORKBENCH WAS UGLY.
It had been made of dark brown almond-tree wood, once upon a time. It would have gleamed under the light, when it was new; now, it was covered in burn marks and scratches and pieces of mismatched wood where its previous owner had replaced broken drawers and covering with newer material. Half the drawers were tight, so tight that opening them was a struggle; the remainder were so loose that I felt I’d have to replace them sooner rather than later. And I’d found five secret compartments, concealed by careful design rather than magic, one of which had been crammed with gold coins from a bygone era.
Yes, it was ugly. But it was mine and I loved it.
The workbench had been in the family for centuries, according to my father. It had belonged to Anna the Artificer, once upon a time, before it had gone into storage after her death. Her children hadn’t had the heart to use it for themselves, apparently. None of them had come close to matching their mother when it came to forging talent. If there hadn’t been stories of her fighting a duel with a prospective suitor, I’d have wondered if she’d been a Zero. There were no stories about her forging Objects of Power - at least, none that had been passed down through the ages - but some of her Devices of Power had lasted nearly a decade without maintenance and repair. Very few forgers could make that claim.
Dad had given me the workbench, along with a workroom and suite of my very own. He’d said that I was the first person in centuries to live up to Anna’s legacy, the first person to deserve to sit at her workbench and forge. Personally, I thought he felt a little guilty. My sisters - Alana and Belladonna - had long since had their rooms decorated, to mark their progress in magic, but I’d never managed to cast even the simplest of spells. Until recently, everyone had assumed that I was either a very slow learner or a freak. And I was a freak.
Just a very valuable freak, I thought.
The thought made me smile. It was good to be appreciated, to be something more than my family’s private shame. I still didn’t understand why I could forge Objects of Power - where everyone else was limited to Devices of Power - but it gave me a talent none of my sisters could match. Alana had never been a good forger - Bella had been too lazy to learn more than the basics and only then because Dad had pushed her nose to the grindstone - yet it wouldn’t have mattered if she spent every waking hour at the workbench. I was the only person who could forge Objects of Power.
“I can still turn you into a toad,” Alana had said, last night. She’d come home from school, along with Bella. “And you can’t do that to me without help, can you?”
“No,” I’d said. My sister was a spiteful person, now more than ever. I was careful to wear protective trinkets every time I saw her. “But anyone can turn me into a toad.”
I leaned back and surveyed my new domain. Dad hadn’t skimped on outfitting the chamber, either. Two walls were lined with bookcases, sagging under the weight of reference textbooks and a small collection of reprinted volumes from the Thousand-Year Empire. I wasn’t the only one who could read them - I’d had Old Script drilled into my head before I’d reached my first decade - but I was the only one who could make use of them. The instructions for making Objects of Power were easy to find, if one had access to a decent library, yet something had been left unsaid. It had been sheer luck that I’d realized that the missing ingredient, something so obvious the ancient magicians had never bothered to write down, had been someone like me.
Maybe I couldn’t use magic personally. It didn’t make me useless.
A second workbench, covered with handmade tools, sat near the door, next to a furnace, a kiln, a set of cupboards and a giant translucent cauldron. Dad had crammed one of the cupboards with everything a budding forger would want, while Mum had filled the other with potion ingredients. I hated to think how much it must have cost, even though I knew my family was rich and that my sisters had earned rewards for themselves, over the years. Being best friends with a commoner had taught me more than anyone had realized. I was almost embarrassed at the thought of bringing Rose into my workroom. A single gemstone - like the ones hidden in one of my drawers - would be more than enough to buy and sell her entire family.
I put the thought aside as I carefully pulled on a set of protective robes, tied my hair into a tight bun and inspected myself in the mirror. My dark face was marred by a nasty burn from when I’d managed to splash hot potion on myself, although it was healing nicely. I had a nasty feeling that I’d have forger’s hands - hands covered in burn marks - by the time I was twenty, even though my tutors had drummed safety precautions into me from the very beginning. It wasn’t something that bothered me, although Alana had made snide remarks about me not having ladylike hands. It was proof that I was more than just another aristocratic brat entering High Society.
Not that High Society ever really cared about me, I thought.
It was a grim thought. I’d gone to birthday parties, of course, doing the social whirl that ensured that everyone who was anyone in Shallot knew everyone else. But birthday parties for young magicians had been hazardous for me, all the more so as rumors about my magic - or lack of it - had started to spread. Very few people had grasped that I had no magic whatsoever, but it was clear that I was a very late bloomer. No one had wanted to be associated with me, for fear that whatever had laid me low might be catching. I’d had no true friends until I’d gone to Jude’s. Now ...
I swallowed, hard. I wasn’t looking forward to going back to school, even though I’d declined when Dad had offered to let me stay home. Rose was there, after all. I couldn’t leave her alone, not after everything she’d done for me. And maybe things would be better, now I’d beaten Isabella. The school’s honor code was strict. Isabella had been beaten fairly and that was all that mattered.