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Churchill sat very still, regarding Isadora through a plume of smoke. Lydia held her breath.

“Why?” he said finally.

Isadora raised her eyebrows.

“The witches of Britain have never offered their assistance before. Not during plague, or war. I daresay you’ve had good reason not to.

Why, before this moment, I only had the vaguest notion that your academy even existed.

If it weren’t for the things I’ve seen with my own eyes, the things I’ve seen you do …

well, I would think you were quite mad.”

Isadora waited patiently.

“Britain has been no friend to witches.” Churchill tapped the ash from his cigar. “Why help us now?”

“Because without us you will lose, and then we are all doomed.”

Churchill regarded her in thoughtful silence before speaking. “You’ve seen it?”

“Not me, I have no talent for spying the future. But our Seers’ visions have been clear: Hitler’s army will never stop, not until they’ve overrun all of Europe.”

“If the Americans—”

“It won’t be enough. The Americans will only delay the inevitable.”

Lydia was growing tired. She could feel her body pulling her back like a fish on a hook, but she couldn’t leave.

Not now. Isadora was the grand mistress of the Royal Academy of Witches—the most powerful witch in Britain, sworn to safeguard the secrecy of the academy with her life.

Lydia couldn’t conceive of what horrific vision of the future could have caused Isadora to break that oath, and that failure of imagination frightened her more than anything her sixteen-year-old mind could have conjured up.

Churchill appeared to have aged in the last few moments, as if cursed with the terrible knowledge of things to come. “If you join us, will we win?”

Just before Lydia was flung back into her exhausted body, she heard Isadora’s reply.

“If we join you, you will have a chance.”

···

Lydia maintained a careful silence as Isadora and Churchill said their goodbyes, then followed her mistress to the waiting car.

She noticed it again, the subtle change in the weight of the air as she passed back through that shining black door—not a magical feeling, but not exactly mundane either.

Lydia had the disconcerting sense that she was returning to the ordinary world, only to find that there was no such thing as ordinary anymore.

Once they had settled into the back of the grand mistress’s chauffeured car, Isadora allowed her glamour to fade.

She was sixty years old—handsome and well kept, but sixty just the same.

Lydia had never seen her true face before that moment, and something about the sight of it, with all its lines and imperfections, drove home the gravity of what had just occurred.

“Well?” Isadora broke the silence. “What did you think?”

Lydia looked up sharply. “The prime minister seems very nice.” She paused. “I was glad to be able to see Downing Street for myself.”

Isadora held Lydia in her gaze.

“Miss Polk, if I didn’t want you to observe my conversation with the prime minister, you would not have been able to observe it.”

Lydia felt the blood drain from her face. “Grand Mistress—”

“Your skill as a projectionist is impressive. Most girls your age can’t remain hidden for nearly so long.

They always end up showing their faces at the most inopportune moments.

” Lydia stared, unsure how to respond. “The prime minister would never have been so candid in the presence of a stranger, particularly one so young. Still, I hoped observing might be instructive for you.” She arched one slim brow. “Tell me what you thought.”

Lydia swallowed. “Swearing the academy to the war effort, revealing our existence…”

“To the prime minister alone.”

Lydia nodded. “It’s never been done. We’ve always remained separate. Hidden.” She had a sudden, jarring thought. “The high council approved this?”

Isadora studied her. “The high council was not asked for their approval.”

Lydia was stunned. She knew almost nothing of the twelve witches of the high council, although she would soon learn.

Some of them were her teachers, ordinary enough in the light of day, but together, under cover of darkness, they became something else entirely.

She imagined them as otherworldly, like the Fates, or the Norns.

Frightening, powerful women, not to be trifled with—and each with their own alliances and agendas.

A decision of this magnitude would have required their unanimous approval.

To proceed without it was unimaginable, even for one as formidable as the grand mistress.

Isadora chuckled softly at Lydia’s expression. “Have I shocked you?”

Lydia quickly fixed her face. “No, Grand Mistress.”

“The council still believes that secrecy and isolation will protect us from Hitler’s war. They’re wrong. I thought it best in this instance to ask forgiveness, rather than permission.”

Lydia tried to imagine begging forgiveness from the witches of the high council and shuddered. “It must be of utmost importance that we help, then,” she said carefully.

“Do you think we should help?” Isadora’s face revealed nothing.

Lydia looked out the window at the violence wreaked on the streets of London by the Blitz.

Piles of brick and stone lay scattered where buildings had stood just days before, and massive craters gaped like wounds where bombs had fallen in the night.

Sandbags sat in heaps in front of shops and banks, and everywhere men and women glanced anxiously at the sky, searching the clouds for German bombers.

For the rest of her life, Lydia would remember the Blitz.

She would vividly recall the bone-rattling explosions and the screams of air raid sirens, dozens of witches chanting long into the night to protect the academy from destruction.

How it had felt, lying awake and terrified all through the night, whispering the secret words to herself, adding her small scrap of power to the current of magic coming from the elder witches in the hall below.

And each morning, she would wake and find the academy still standing.

She should have been relieved, but deep down, she was racked with a terrible guilt, knowing that thousands were dead while she lived.

Innocent people, without any magic to protect themselves, lying beneath the rubble.

“Yes,” she said. “We should help.”

Isadora nodded.

“Do you know why you were chosen to be my apprentice?”

Lydia had often wondered. There were other, more obvious choices. Girls with more natural talent, more charm, better families.

“Mistress Jacqueline says it’s because we must be very much alike.”

Isadora snorted. “Oh, my dear girl, we are nothing alike.” Lydia’s face burned, but if Isadora noticed Lydia’s dismay, she showed no sign of it. “I was always very skilled at charms. Manipulations, influencing the minds of men. I mastered glamours two years ahead of the rest of my class.”

Lydia felt a fresh wave of humiliation wash over her.

“Politics and influence, that was my talent, right from the beginning. Bringing others along to my side of things. That was why I was selected. Because that was what would be required.”

Lydia’s mortification slowly gave way to curiosity. “Required for what?”

Isadora smiled but did not answer. She took another black cigarette from her case and lit it, filling the car with an aroma that reminded Lydia more of incense than tobacco smoke.

“You have no talent for diplomacy. Your teachers tell me you are hardheaded, and honest to a fault. You bow to no one when you know you’re right, not even when doing so would save you pain and trouble.

And when you have decided upon a thing, you will see it through to the end, even if it costs you dearly. ”

Lydia could scarcely feel insulted. She’d been summed up too accurately to deny a word of it.

“Why, then?” she asked. “Why choose a graceless, obstinate, irritatingly principled girl to be your apprentice?”

Isadora looked at her a little sadly.

Lydia would remember that look. Years later, she would recall every detail, every line and curve, and she would wonder if perhaps Isadora had known every terrible thing that would come to pass, right from the beginning.

“Because that is what will be required.”