Margaret Rogerson

The grief, when it came, struck her like a punch to the gut. She doubled over and sank to the floor, her breath coming in strangled gasps. She was not made of air or light. She was weakly, devastatingly human, and she did feel pain, more than she could bear.

This was worse than using the scrying mirror. Worse even than stealing from the Royal Library. On the first day of her apprenticeship, Elisabeth had vowed to protect the kingdom from demonic influences. If she participated in a summoning, and a rumor somehow got out, even a whisper of speculation, every Great Library would be closed to her. No warden would speak to her. She would become an outcast from the only world in which she had ever belonged.

But her oaths meant nothing if they asked her to forsake people she cared about in their greatest moment of need. If that was what being a warden required of her, then she wasn’t meant to become one. She would have to decide for herself what was right and what was wrong.