The next few hours pass quickly, which is a relief; it means I can let myself be swept up by the events happening around me instead of having too much time to think. After paging through the papers Electra left, my dad and I decide that despite her probable bias the Royal Academy is likely the best option.

She’s also left a list of the classes it offers: Spells, Enchantments, Transformations and Conjurations, Alchemy, Basic Magical Theory, Magical Law and Culture, Astronomy… those are just the compulsory classes needed to qualify as a magician. You don’t get to take any electives or more advanced classes before qualifying, but they do offer a partnership with a mundane school in Ryk that lets you take the Certificate of Education in the same year.

“It’s academically intense,” my dad says. “Not recommended for those unused to intense workloads.”

“I am used to intense workloads,” I inform him. “And besides I’ll only take the minimum six subjects. Rasina Language and Literature, Mathematics, Sirgalese, Biology and History.”

“Not Law?”

“I – “ I hadn’t considered it for a second; there’s only one subject that can be chosen freely in the Certificate of Education’s minimum six and I couldn’t imagine not taking History. “I could manage seven – or specialise in magical law, I’m sure the Academy’s Law and Culture course would count for something if that’s – “

“Tallulah. It’s okay. You don’t – it’s not – something like this would change anyone’s career plans. Simon’s eldest is going into the profession, anyway, Roberts and Bryant will survive into the next generation regardless of what you end up doing.”

Simon Bryant is my dad’s business partner. I’ve met him a few times; he’s a loud and cheerful man, always whistling a tune as he walks. Quite the contrast to my dad, who’s quiet and professional. I’ve often wondered how they manage to work together.

“I know, but I don’t want to – “ disappoint you or Mother, I’m about to say, and then I realise it hardly matters. I’ve already disappointed them more than not becoming a lawyer ever would.

“Don’t worry about it. Just focus on becoming a – a magician.”

“I’ll try.”

I’m discharged from hospital a short while later, having been reassured that my burns will heal in time as long as I get plenty of rest and that there shouldn’t be any further side effects of the episode. I have to choke back a bitter laugh at that last point. My dad leaves instructions with the receptionist to pass our address onto Electra when she arrives, if she doesn’t already know it.

I was a little nervous about how my tired and burnt body would fare on the walk home, but it’s actually quite refreshing to move my limbs and feel the warmth of the sun. The weather is disconcertingly bright; it doesn’t suit my dull grey mood at all.

It takes me until we’re only a few streets away to ask the question that’s been bothering me for the whole walk: “Is Mother…”

“She’s at work,” Dad replies.

Mother is the secretary of a rich merchant. Thankfully his oldest daughter is only eight, because if she were five years older she’d probably be attending Genford. And that I would rather not have to deal with.

I won’t have to deal with any of it any more, I remind myself. Things still don’t feel quite real. Maybe it’s the emotional damping lingering, or maybe this is just how you feel when your life changes forever in only a couple of days.

“Well,” says my dad, “best start packing, then.”

My stomach grumbles loudly. “Uh. Sorry. Could we eat first? It’s been over a day since I last had a meal.”

Packing gives me something to focus on, so the afternoon goes quickly. My trunk is a small one, though, and between clothes and textbooks for the non-magical courses I’ll be taking there’s barely any room to spare. I squeeze in a wash-kit, the set of beads Grandma sent me the last Holy Days (much to Mother’s disdain, since they’re hopelessly out of fashion; I’ve never worn them) and my battered copy of A History of the Kings of Rasin.

Or, well, I try to pack the book; I’ve never had much self-discipline with touching it without reading. I’ve missed a history lesson, I tell myself, I’m allowed to read this instead. It makes me feel a little better to read the section covering the First Civil War, since that’s what we would have been discussing in class.

I’ve just reached the single page which discusses the reign of Alexandra the Snow King when I hear the front door creak open. Have I lost that much time? I snatch my bookmark from the table beside the bed and slip it into the book, set it down neatly on the table and sprint into the hallway in time to greet Mother –

Oh.

I stop in my tracks, just barely managing not to run into her. “Sorry,” I say quickly, “I thought you were – “

A strange mix of emotions flickers across her face, finally settling on sternness. “How many times have I told you not to run in the house, girl?”

The truthful answer is none, because this isn’t the kind of house that you’d run in and I’m not the sort of girl who runs indoors. But she won’t much appreciate that. “Sorry,” I repeat instead, straightening up. I don’t quite dare meet her eyes.

Deceitful, ungrateful brat and no daughter of hers.

“Don’t you have work to catch up on?” she asks.

I cringe internally, and it’s an effort not to cringe externally as well. I don’t bother dragging it out. “I’m not going back to Genford.”

“Why not?” Mother never shouts or snaps when she’s angry. She always just sounds perfectly calm and reasonable. But I know the signs well enough.

“I can’t. They don’t take – Malaina.” It’s an effort to say that last word.

“But you’re different. You’re not like one of those abused or homeless kids. You won’t hurt anyone. It will be fine once I explain it to them.”

I have no words. I’ve known for a while that Mother didn’t understand me, but this –

How –

It’s not going to be fine. I can’t carry on as normal, even if I wanted to.

I don’t want to.

“Mother, you don’t understand – “ The emotional damping has faded now, but I wish it was still here. Then I wouldn’t have to deal with the dread running through me. I wouldn’t have to deal with the consequences of her being this angry.

“I understand,” she says, “that you decided that the best way to deal with whatever little troubles you had was to start a fire on the school property and land yourself in the hospital for a day. And now you have the nerve to tear up your neatly-planned life and decide you don’t want it any more?”

“I didn’t choose this – “

“Of course you did, girl! Just because you can’t cope with – “

There’s a knock at the door.

I thank the stars, and then immediately curse them again, because I don’t want Electra to see this. Before Mother has time to say otherwise, I slip past her and open the door.

This time it is Electra. “Tallulah,” she says. “May I come in?”

“No, you may not!” Mother snaps. Electra looks like just the kind of person she hates and complains about whenever she gets the chance, so seeing her now when she’s already angry must make it even worse. “Not until you explain who in stars’ names you are and how you know my daughter.”

She must be really furious. I’ve only heard her invoke the stars twice before, and neither of those memories are pleasant ones.

Electra shrugs. “I suppose we can conduct our business on the doorstep, then. You’ve made a decision?”

“I – yes. I’d like to attend your Academy, if I can.”

“Attend what Academy, precisely?”

“You have the papers in order?”

“I – yes – my dad has them – “

“Oh, he’s involved in this, is he?”

“Yes, Louise. I am.” My dad steps into the hall. I wonder how long he’s been listening. “I’m doing what’s best for our daughter. Tallulah, the papers are on the kitchen table, everything should be ready.” He jerks his head towards the door he entered from.

I nod and step around my parents, escaping from the awful tension that hangs over the hallway. My parents move closer to each other and begin to talk in urgent whispers:

“Oh, you think this is what’s best, do you?” Mother asks.

“Yes. I’ve researched Malaina…”

They’re quiet enough that I don’t hear the rest, although I’m barely more than a few steps away. Even this angry, both of them have the pride and self-control to not want Electra hearing their argument.

I hate it when they argue. Especially when it’s about me.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

The papers are where my dad said they would be, everything in order, but I hesitate a second before returning. But I can’t hide in here.

“The opportunities for a qualified magician are incredible,” my dad is saying when I get back.

“Yes, but what makes you think the girl can qualify? Given what just happened – “

Stars. No. Stop saying that, Mother, please. I focus on just walking from one end of the hallway to the other, one step at a time.

“Here you are,” I say when I’ve made it, holding the papers out to Electra.

“Thank you,” she says, taking them and tucking them into her robes. “How soon can you be ready?”

I want to leave now. I’ll never be ready to leave. I don’t know if I can do this. “It’ll take me a couple of minutes to finish packing.”

“I can wait that long, I suppose.”

It’s less than that, really. All I need to do is slip A History of the Kings of Rasin in at the top, and –

Moving without thinking, I tug the bookmark out, but then I have to find my page again, and the Snow King is thus named because of the bitter weather of the winter of 205 to 206, which killed more men and women than the battles. Though she was crowned that Esteral in the Abbey Royal, she was never widely supported beyond the walls of the City. Her reign was doomed before it began.

I replace the bookmark and snap the book shut, then place it on top of the stack of textbooks in my trunk. My hand rests on the cover and I give it a longing glance. But none of what’s waiting for me in the hallway is going to wait for me to finish reading about Alexandra.

I jerk my hand away from the book guiltily at the sound of footsteps: my dad. “Can I come in?” he asks.

“Of course. I didn’t shut the door, did I?”

He steps into my bedroom and sits down on the edge of my bed beside where I’m leaning over the trunk. “Sorry about your mother,” he says. “I didn’t think she’d be home that early. I do think she’ll come round. Really.”

The look on my face must be a sceptical one, because he says “You don’t know her like I do. She… she loves you. I promise she does. And so do I.”

“I know,” I make myself say. “I love you too.”

“And I’ll miss you. I know we never saw much of each other, but it’ll be different without you around. Will you write to me?” he asks suddenly.

“Yes. Yes, of course I will.”

He holds out his arms for a hug; I take a step towards him and let him wrap his arms around me. It’s been a long time since I was last hugged. I’ve forgotten how soothing it can be to know that there’s someone who will hold you and comfort you, no matter how awful you feel.

After a long moment, he releases me. “Well,” he says. “Are you packed?”

I nod and push the lid of the trunk down, then fasten its latches. “I’m as ready as I’m going to get.” Which is to say not at all.

“Shall I take your trunk through?”

I can carry it myself – at least, I hope I can – but that’s not the point. “Yeah. Thanks.”

Mother is nowhere to be seen when we return to the hallway, but Electra is still leaning against the wall outside; she seems to be filing her nails.

My dad carries the trunk down the hallway and gently sets it down just outside the door.

“Are you ready?” asks Electra, slipping her nail file into her robes.

I make myself nod and step over the threshold, then bend to pick up the trunk.

Electra shakes her head and picks it up herself without apparent effort, then adjusts her grip so it rests on top of her arms. With one hand stabilising the trunk, her other is free to hold out to me. “We’re about to teleport,” she says. “Your first time?”

“I – yes.” I bite my lip to refrain from asking why she’d think otherwise.

“It can be… disorienting. I suggest closing your eyes. Take my hand when you’re ready.”

I hesitate. “Goodbye,” I say. It feels hopelessly inadequate, but I’m not sure there are words that can tell my dad everything I want to say.

“Goodbye,” he replies in a tone that suggests he feels the same way. “I suppose I’ll see you for Holy Days?”

“Assuming I’m still alive and sane by then, yes.” I’m joking, but the fear is very real. “Bye.” I reach out and take Electra’s hand. For some reason I expected it to be cold, but her skin is as warm as mine. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to imprint the memory of home and my dad into my mind.

Then my mind can’t hold anything beyond what’s happening make it stop. I can’t feel the ground beneath my feet, but I’m not falling or floating. The air is eerily still, the silence is absolute and the feeling that I shouldn’t be here is inescapable. I cling to Electra’s hand desperately.

It only takes a few seconds, and then I can feel the sun on my skin and a gentle breeze and my feet land on solid ground. I stumble, and my eyes snap open as I correct my footing just in time to not fall.

We’re standing in a square in the centre of a city; the buildings are taller and grander than those you’d find elsewhere, built from stone and painted a creamy-white. Market stalls in a dozen bright colours are set out across the square, all unoccupied since it’s not the weekend, and in front of us is a small round building of white marble, with a domed ceiling, set apart from the rest of the square by a few steps; a queue of carts and wagons stretches out from the other side of it, where the ramp for goods is.

I know this place, and it isn’t anywhere in the capital.

“You took that rather well,” Electra says. “I vomited the first time I teleported.”

She doesn’t look like it now; she’s standing in the same position as if this was nothing more than a stroll through the city streets.

“This is Portal Square,” I say. “In Crelt.”

“So it is. The wards in Ryk are such that it is impossible to teleport from within the City to without, or from without to within. I find it’s educational to take the portal to just outside the City gates.”

“Educational,” I repeat. “The toll is two King’s Silvers. I don’t have that much money with me.” My dad wouldn’t earn that much in an average month.

There are twelve divisions of coin: Lords’, Dukes’, Princes’ and King’s copper, silver and gold. Each is worth five of the denomination below. Most working people will go their entire lives without laying hands on a gold coin, and rumour has it there are less than a dozen King’s Gold coins in existence.

“It’s a good thing you’re with me, then. I have an exemption for frequent travel in the King’s service, which applies to anyone I travel with on business. Shall we?”

I nod and climb the steps, but the money isn’t my only concern about travelling by portal. The Portal Network has connected Ryk, Crelt, Ridgeton, Lyrinn and Morsbury, the five greatest cities in the kingdom, for fifty years. Forty-five years ago, an attempt was made to add a sixth city, Greyford, to the network.

That attempt is why Greyford no longer stands among the great cities of the kingdom, and why its population currently numbers zero.

The Royal Magicians at the time guaranteed that the existing network was perfectly safe and that there would be no repeat of the disaster. I’ve never found that very reassuring, considering that they were the ones who caused it in the first place, but not a thing has gone wrong with the network since.

I still don’t like the idea of travelling through it.

Electra somehow manages to hold the door at the top open for me even with her arms wrapped around my trunk. I step inside. I was expecting to step straight into the Portal, but no: it’s a small antechamber decorated in bright white (except through the ceiling, which depicts the night sky and its constellations), empty except for a bored-looking guard sitting at a desk next to the door opposite, staring at a scroll of parchment.

“Papers,” he says as we approach. Electra produces them from the pockets of her robes, and he glances over them. “You magicians?”

“Yes, both of us.”

“Schools?”

“Arsinth.”

“Malaina.”

I add that piece to the puzzle which is Electra. Arsinth is the one School of Magic that anyone can in theory access – but it requires a complex, tightly-regulated and expensive ritual. Someone, somewhere along the line, decided to invest a lot in making her a magician.

I’m quickly distracted by the scowl on the guard’s face when he hears the word Malaina, and the way he seems just a little tenser, his chair just a little closer to the wall. “Malaina are not permitted to travel in the Portal Network unless – “

“Unless they have the authorisation of a person suitably qualified with whom they are travelling, who agrees to take full responsibility for any consequences of their journey, which Miss Roberts does, as you would have seen if you’d bothered to look at the last document I gave you.”

The guard’s eyes dart from me to Electra and back, and then he nods. “Well, I suppose that’s all in order, then.” He takes a quill from his inkwell (which contains three) and scribbles a note on his parchment. “Carrying any enchanted items?”

Electra shakes her head.

“There’s a self-inking quill in that trunk,” I inform him.

He scribbles another note.

“Out of curiosity,” Electra asks, “does your checklist include a question about curses?”

The guard pales visibly at that, and doesn’t bother to hide his chair scooting back another step. “I – no, ma’am. Do you mean to say – “

“That I’m cursed? Yes. It’s perfectly contained, though. I’ve been examined by magical scientists who all testify that there’s no possibility of magical leakage and my travelling by portal will cause no danger.”

I’m with the guard on this one. Cursing someone is highly, highly illegal, punishable by death. And curses aren’t things that can be perfectly contained. Every one I’ve heard of has involved a slow and painful death for its victim and sometimes their entire bloodline.

“I – “ stutters the guard, before launching into a speech that’s clearly been much practised: “You must not cast any magic while in the Portal, in particular anything involving transportation, teleportation or summoning. You must not activate any enchantments, or – do anything that may exacerbate any curses you may be under. You are fully liable for the consequences of any breach of these rules. Is that clear?”

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

He stands and opens the door. “Then you may enter.”

I flinch back from the other side of the door: there’s no floor, no ceiling, no walls. Just an endless grey emptiness, except – there’s a larger door opposite, and as I watch it opens and a pair of brown horses trot through, pulling a cart behind them and turning sharply right, directed by an old woman who sits at the front of the cart holding their reins. They don’t seem spooked by their surroundings.

If the horses can deal with it, so can I. I set one foot down just inside the door, half-expecting to not find any footing. I don’t, not as such, but my foot stays more or less level with the room outside and any effort to push further down meets a strange resistance with a feeling of wrongness that reminds me of the teleportation.

“Try not to think about it too hard,” says Electra. “I’ll let you ask some of the questions you must have to distract you.”

How are you cursed? What happened? “Why aren’t Malaina allowed to travel by portal?” I step fully into the portal and don’t look down at my feet resting on nothing. Then I start walking forwards.

“Part of the security measures. If a Malaina were to have an active episode in hyperspace, the consequences could be disastrous. I don’t really think it’s necessary, though. If you can’t manage a one-minute journey without having an active episode – unless hyperspace is a particular trigger – then you might as well be mala sia, and that would be clear a long time before you reached the portal.”

“Hyperspace,” I repeat. “Is that what we’re in now? What exactly is it?”

The narrow corridor we were in – I wonder briefly how I realised it was a corridor without any walls – opens out suddenly into a large pentagonal room. The cart has moved just ahead of us now, and it swings right to travel in a wide arc.

“Yes. It’s a space that exists independently of our reality, that can only be reached by magic. It distorts our usual notions of distance; in hyperspace everywhere is in the same place. Magicians pass through it while teleporting, but for proper transportation it has to be… stabilised. That’s what the Portal Network does, in a manner of speaking. It means this particular pocket of hyperspace – this way – “ she leads me around what I instinctively know is the edge of the room, to the right of where the cart just passed – “exists in synchrony with reality, and can sustain travel.”

We pass by another corridor just like the one we used to reach this room. It must lead to another city.

“I should make this very clear,” she says. “There are a lot of spells or whole areas of magic that you will be told not to meddle with. In general you should follow that advice unless you are convinced you know what you are doing. When it comes to hyperspace, it does not matter how convinced you are. You do not attempt to create a pocket of stabilised hyperspace, or carry out any experiments with an existing one, unless you are prepared to cause a second Greyford disaster.”

“You think I’d – “

“No. But if there’s one thing fifteen years of teaching magicians has taught me, it’s never to underestimate the power of sheer human stupidity.”

Electra turns sharply as we reach a vertex of the pentagon, leaving me trailing in her wake. Ironically, thinking about why hyperspace is so dangerous and why I shouldn’t be meddling in it does a good job of distracting me from the fact I’m walking through it. Before I know it we’re turning down the next corridor and then standing in front of a small door much like the one we entered through, labelled Ryk in elaborate black writing just above my head.

I stumble as we step out, not expecting the solidness of the ground beneath my feet, and then laugh to myself in relief. This room is also much like the one we left in Crelt, except that the guard this time is an earnest young woman who studies our papers in much more detail before letting us pass.

Electra opens the door and holds it for me. “Welcome,” she says, “to Ryk.”