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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, not Scurry. 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.”

I understood enough, even then. A sense of danger crept out of the woman’s pores and drenched the hall we stood in.

“There’s been a mistake,” she said. “One that cannot be undone.”

I was relieved. The hawk-woman did not think the mistake was mine. I wasn’t in trouble.

“You… you will be all right. But only if you remember to do as I say. Only if you never breathe a word of this conversation to another.”

“Yes,” I said. I tilted. The hallway tilted.

“You are Nina Clarke. Say it. ”

“I am Nina Clarke.” My lip trembled. The feeling of catastrophe returned.

“You were born in Sommerland.”

“I’m from Sommerland.”

“Your mother was Greta Leisel.”

“My mother was… was…”

“You are my ward.”

“I am your ward.”

Francis Leisel placed a long-fingered hand on my shoulder. “When I call on you, you will refer to me as Aunt Francis. It is crucial that you remember.”

“Aunt Francis.” I was nodding mechanically. “Yes.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise.”

“Should you forget, Nina Clarke,” Aunt Francis warned, “we will both be thrown from this city forever, or worse. Is that what you want?”

Lord help me, it wasn’t.

I was first pulled into a secondary room for something Francis Leisel called processing.

I’d pictured the moment to be more ceremonial in my mind.

In reality, there was only a flushed woman with a sweaty upper lip holding an iron brand in the coals of the open fireplace, then pressing it into the underside of my wrist for four excruciating seconds.

I screamed and bit into a leather strap. Aunt Francis held on to me.

The burnt skin showed a bubbling depiction of the Artisan emblem—the profile of Idia, her eyes closed in death, her hair sweeping around to form a near circle.

That was that.

The Artisan children had boarded carriages that waited before the National Artisan House, but all had departed, save one.

Here, the building facade was luminescent and clear of limescale. The street beyond the drive and the rampart were filled with onlookers, waving and fluttering kerchiefs as I was hustled out the grand doors. They cheered good-naturedly. Wished me success. Long live Belavere.

The coach was black. The horses were sabino.

The driver was a Craftsman who tipped his hat to me.

These were the only details I could recall later as I sat alone in the National Artisan School dormitory, clutching my bandaged forearm, barely believing I was there on that narrow bed, in that unfamiliar room.

In the morning, I would dress in the apprentice’s uniform waiting in the wardrobe.

I would blindly follow the other freshly branded first-year students to the refectory, then to the orientation.

I would sit in a curved room with vaulted windows and oak desks.

The professor would take us through the school rules, schedules, classes, and then point to a large charcoal sketch affixed to the paneled walls—an elaborate diagram of terranium ore.

The professor would say, “We will start at the beginning.”

I would sit among my peers, whose eyes would slither in my direction, and wish for the first time in my life that I were home in Scurry.

In the evenings, I would lay awake in that small characterless room, unable to sleep. I’d summon dust from the candelabra, from the narrow windowsill, from the floorboards beneath my bed, and watch it dance in my hand.

In the pocket of an old skirt hanging in the armoire was a vial that pretended to be idium but wasn’t.

Meanwhile, in a forgotten mining town far away in the North, rumors of fixed siphoning ceremonies would begin to spread.

HONORABLE HEADMASTER OF THE NATIONAL ARTISAN SCHOOL

Professor H. Dumley

To

RIGHT HONORABLE MASTER OF THE NATIONAL ARTISAN HOUSE

Lord G. Tanner

My Lord,

On this 535th year of siphoning, our great Belavere welcomes two hundred and sixty-six inductions to our academy of the finest arts. Most exciting, of course, is the inclusion of a genuine earth Charmer!

Nina Clarke, an unexpected presence among the mix, appeared on our registry as the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Clarke of Sommerland. Regrettably, both are deceased.

Nina Clarke is joined by a water Charmer, Theodore Shop, whose father resides in your House of Lords. What a blessing it is, to welcome two Charmers into our hallowed classrooms in the same year!

This year’s siphoning also accrued a healthy number of Masons and Smiths. Unfortunately, I must report that there were no new Alchemists among the lot.

While you may find this news distressing, I am hopeful that the coming years will see a resurgence in Alchemists and their ancient art form.

Long live Belavere,

Prof. H. Dumley

RIGHT HONORABLE MASTER OF THE NATIONAL ARTISAN HOUSE

Lord G. Tanner

To

Miss Nina Clarke

Miss Clarke,

It was with utmost joy that I learned a new earth Charmer was added to our esteemed school of arts. I write to you now to formally welcome you into the fold. I do hope your years under the tutelage of our masters are as rewarding as they are fruitful.

It has been some time since a Charmer of your medium has blessed this country, and though your journey has only begun henceforth, I grow elated to think of all you might do for your countrymen.

I must admit that I was greatly interested to hear of your parentage, Miss Clarke. I knew your mother and father quite well. Well enough, I think, to have remembered the blessing of a child while they lived.

Please accept my belated condolences.

I am most pleased that you have emerged from the shadows. After all, Miss Clarke, an earth Charmer is a wonder to behold. As for a child of false breeding, who is of no great benefit to me? Well, a child such as this is better placed in Scurry.

I will be kept informed of your progress.

Long live Belavere.

Yours faithfully,

Lord Geoffry Tanner