Chapter 1
TO SAY I WAS NERVOUS about the up and coming trial, was the understatement of my life. My stomach constantly churned and the hairs on my neck stood on end, waiting for the axe to fall.
Currently, I sat at my bureau, brushing my long blonde hair over and over again. It soothed me, as it normally did when my sister Bella used to do it after a particularly bitter fight with my mother.
My heart clenched. My mother was gone now. I never thought I would have missed those fights, but I was wrong.
“Good morning, Ava,” Matlock—otherwise known as the High Warlock of the Magic Realm, also known as... my father—said, as he knocked on the door frame of my open door and walked into my room.
“Morning,” I said, turning around to smile at him. I didn’t want him to see me nervous, so I hoped
