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I smiled at it, forgetting for a moment where I was or from where I’d come. I was only aware of the small weight in my hand, its exact texture.

How many times had I felt dirt at my fingertips, and yet none of it had made my mind burst into a kaleidoscope?

Around me, I heard the delayed feedback of hurried footsteps. The click-clack of heels seemed far away, then abruptly beside me. It took several moments to notice the eyes stabbing me from every corner of the room, down the entire length of the table.

It took longer for the shapes of their lips to form coherent sound. Words I understood, though never, even in my wildest imaginings, in reference to me.

Earth Charmer.

Earth Charmer.

“Earth Charmer!”

CHAPTER 8NINA

Earth Charmer,” uttered the man behind the desk.

He stared at the vial in my hand as though it were a grenade with its pin pulled. “Artisan,” he called out hesitantly.

The word catapulted around the room. It thrummed inside me.

And I smiled.

I was only twelve.

Later, it would be a litany. A lullaby.You were only twelve. You couldn’t have known.

A hand gripped my upper arm, and not gently. The high-heeled Artisan woman stood beside me. I tried to pull my arm from her grasp, but her fingers were a vise. She smiled tightly. “How wonderful,” she uttered, loud enough for all to hear, and then she began towing me away.

I stumbled over my own skirt, dropping granules of dirt in my wake. She marched me around the desks, down a long hallway, past a series of paintings. We took a left turn, and only then did she release my arm, having caged me adequately in an empty hall with no exit.

We were alone.

“Give me your name.”

She was severe in every facet. Precisely combed black hair, neatly painted lips, peaked chin, narrow-nosed. Tall and slender with hands roped in veins. She stared at me, awaiting an answer.

“Nina Harrow.” I was sure I’d never felt so afraid.

The woman seemed to be completing some immense calculation. Her eyes marked me by inches, totaling the sum of my parts. Frayed socks, scuffed shoes, blouse buttoned at the wrists and throat. I hoped my bow was on straight. I hoped I met the score of an acceptable candi-date.

Of course, I didn’t. Dread settled over me. This woman would tell me it was all a mistake. She’d put me on a train home. Without another dose of idium, none of it would matter, would it?

But when she spoke next, her voice did not match the shell of her. “God help you,” she said, then rubbed her forehead with her fingers. She turned away, placed her hands on her hips and tipped her head back. She whispered questions to herself for a moment. Wisps of them made it back to me, and they all started with “How…?”

I did not dare interrupt this private consult. It seemed the woman was still devising her equations.

The sum of a Scurry girl turned Charmer.

When she finally faced me again, the shell had hardened once more. “I’m Francis Leisel,” she said. “And you are Nina Clarke.”

I frowned. “I’m—”

Francis Leisel stepped closer, towered over me. “From this moment onward, you are Nina Clarke.Clarke.Nina Harrow has ceased to exist. You were born in Sommerland,notScurry. Your mother was my sister, and she was an Artisan wood Mason. Her name was Greta Leisel. Your father was Frederick Clarke—a Craftsman from Sommerland. Both are dead.” Her words overlapped. She glanced over her shoulder repeatedly as she spoke. “Repeat it back to me, girl.”

“But I—”

“Listen to me, now,” she pressed, bending until her nose almost touched mine and her voice became little more than hot breath. Her eyes flittered across my face with alarming fervor. “It is most important. Do you understand? You must do as I say.”