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in common with her fellow man rather than those that set her apart.”

    “But,” Colonel Chase protested, “she’ll wonder why I chose you to be her companion.”

    “Tell her you chose me because I am not impressed by evidence of the supernatural. Tell her I am a modern woman who assumes that once in a great while, through no offices of their own making, people are born with characteristics of an inexplicable nature. Such a happenstance of birth does not, however, give those people license to pretend to powers they do not have.”

    Colonel Chase’s malleable face pleated with compassion as he read her guilt. “My dear, I did not know you well as a child, but I am a good judge of character, and I knew your parents. I would not seek to employ you had I any doubts as to your integrity.”

    She felt a surge of gratitude but waved aside his comfort. “I am not blameless. But I am guilty more of stupidity than of malice. Those are my terms.”

    “I don’t know,” Colonel Chase said, troubled. “I was hoping Amelie would find in you a unique confidante who shared her magical abilities.”

    Her lips twisted into a half smile. “There is no such thing as magic, Colonel Chase. Just outré phenomenon and curiosities. And those of us unfortunate enough to be oppressed by them.”

    But Colonel Chase was not ready to give up yet. “I have lived most of my life in exotic places, Mrs. Walcott, and I’ve seen things no proper Englishman would credit.” He leaned forward. “There is magic in the world, my dear.”

    She regarded him pityingly. He wore the same earnest expression as did the visitors to her husband’s salon, and spoke with the same heartbreaking need to believe. The same men and women who were convinced the mouse running over their sleeve was their son’s hand, the brush of a bat’s wing in the still air above the sound of angels, the clatter of the cat in the attic overhead the rapping of their ancestor.

    In the end, he was simply another superstitious old man hoping to find some divine reason for his daughter ’s affliction.

    There was no use arguing with him. “That may be, sir, but this is not India,” she said gently. “No one in London wants to dine with a witch except those looking to entertain their guests with a curiosity. That’s not the life you want for your daughter, is it?”

    “I want her safe and happy. In that order,” he said.
     
    He did, bless him.

    He searched her countenance and, finding nothing there to suggest she would reconsider, sighed. “Well, if those are the only terms under which I can persuade you, so be it. You and I will be the only ones who know you were once Mrs. Francesca Brown.”

    “Or Francesca Burns?”

    “Or Francesca Burns.” He stuck out his hand. “Agreed?”

    But she’d learned caution over the last years, if nothing else. “I’ll meet the girl first.”

    He laughed, lumbering to his feet. “Then our agreement is a fait accompli, m’dear. You won’t be able to resist Amelie.”

    He was right; she couldn’t.

Chapter Four
    Six years later

     
    It was noon in Little Firkin, Scotland. Not a traditional witching hour—midnight being considered more conducive to mayhem and maledictions—but as the townsfolk were always fast asleep by midnight and unwitnessed mayhem was generally acknowledged amongst witchly communities to be a wasted effort, it would have to do.
     
    Besides, every indication suggested that noon was the new midnight. To wit: At exactly twelve o’clock a cock crowed, the bell tower clock struck thirteen times, and a weird sound (which later would be identified by a certain skeptic as the Bristol-Fort George train but right now was pretty much universally recognized as the cry of a soul consigned to hell) echoed mournfully through the tiny hamlet.

    Otherwise it was a perfectly lovely spring day. The sun glimmered on the river dancing along the town’s eastern boundary and shimmered on the snow-capped mountains