Chapter 3“It isn’t that you aren’t trying,” the Deputy Second Sorceress said, to Talis. Margaret Thistle possessed a tiny bluebell voice, petite wood-nymph curves, tumbling curls far more silver than black, and a boundless amount of patience. She’d been a laundress eighty years ago, before Lorre had scooped her up for the School; she was one of the few magicians left who’d personally studied with Lorre, even briefly. Most of the students called her Maggie, in the same way most of them called her statuesque forceful partner either simply the Sorceress or Mistress Lilac.
She drummed fingers on the grey of a stone seat, thinking. “We know you’re trying. We know you’re powerful.”
“I’m not sure I am,” Talis protested. The sun brushed his shoulder with twig-thin heat, trying to help. It was bu
