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make of Mr. Marshall,” she said firmly. “I believe I am quite safe from unwanted advances on his part.” A less happy thought occurred to her, and she caught Mrs. Wallis’s sleeve. “I hope you will not put any such idea into the Professor’s head?”
    â€œI should think not, Miss Sophia!”
    She stayed a few moments more, pottering about Sophie’s bedroom and humming quietly to herself; Sophie began to feel terribly sleepy, and only just glimpsed the silent closing of the door before sliding headlong into oblivion.

CHAPTER IV
    In Which Sophie Shows Talents of a Nonmagickal Sort
    If Joanna’s near-accident at Kerandraon was indeed a sign of divine displeasure, Gray saw no further evidence of it. Nor, fortunately, did the Professor again call him to account for endangering Joanna’s and Sophie’s lives, as he had on that first afternoon, but Gray’s comings and goings grew more circumscribed and more closely watched, and Sophie more cautious in her excursions into the garden.
    The success of his finding-spell in the temple had given Gray hope that his magick might be soon restored. Throughout his many experiments in the ensuing weeks, however, it remained at such a low ebb as to prevent his warding his bedroom against listening-spells—or transforming so much as a fingertip into a feather.
    One blazing August morning, having gained the farthest reaches of the garden before recognising the absence of his now-familiar sunhat, Gray returned to the house to look for it, irritated and already sweating in the heat. Upon his return, he cursed under his breath; the hat was not in its place on the hatstand. Where in Hades had he left the thing?
    With an exasperated sigh, he ducked through the doorway and started towards the back staircase, whereby he could reach his bedroom without risk of encountering the Professor or Miss Callender. Halfway to the first floor he paused, listening; somewhere in the house, someone was singing.
    The voice was at once familiar and strange, and Gray instantly recognised the song:
    Ae fond kiss, and then we sever!
    Ae fareweel, and then forever!
    He shivered. He and his sisters had often played that music and sung those words, before their mother—who disdained the Border Country dialect of her childhood home, and who did not wish to encourage romantic notions in her daughters—declared it unsuitable for their tender years. Though Cecelia, a cynic even in childhood, considered its sentiments amusingly histrionic, Gray and Jenny had always found it affecting and had been genuinely grieved when it was forbidden them.
    Deep in heart-wrung tears I’ll pledge thee,
    Warring sighs and groans I’ll wage thee . . .
    Now, listening, Gray could no more have stopped climbing than if strong chains had been dragging him forward. As though bespelled, and dismayed at his inability to resist, he ascended the staircase and softly trod the passage on the first floor, through the baize door and out towards the drawing-rooms. The music came from the smaller of these, which Gray had not previously had occasion to enter.
    He entered it now, and—hairs rising like an angry cat’s—halted on the threshold in amazement.
    The singer, of course, was Sophie. This was not amazing; Joanna he knew to be quite tone-deaf, and Miss Callender—no, the notion was absurd. Although the voice did sound
remarkably
like Jenny’s, he knew that Sophie it must be. But that Sophie could look like this . . .
    Her hair was dark and shining, her cheeks glowed pink; she wore, he thought, the same blue gown as at breakfast, but there the resemblance ceased. Hearing Gray, she looked up at him but went on singing; her dark eyes sparkled so that he could not restrain a grin. How could he have thought her dull and listless at table that very morning? She was radiant now, joyful—beautiful, in fact. It was difficult to know how the same person