matter how hard she tried, she could not stop her bottom lip from trembling. It was wrong to cry, but she put her head in her hands and began to weep.
There were many ways a young lady might stop tears, and she had learned them all at Miss Finch’s Academy for Young Ladies. She could fix her gaze on some distant object; she could press her handkerchief delicately to her nose and think of a field of flowers. She did neither of these things. She sat on the stool and cried loudly because her life was terrible. She cried because since arriving she had washed clothes and swept floors and been shouted at. She cried because her mother had sent her to this horrid little shop. She cried because her dead father hadn’t been a sea captain after all, even though at night her mother had told her stories about his seafaring life. She cried because Miss Henrietta Vine was the meanest relative a girl could ever have and she had just turned into a crow.
She let the tears drip off her nose. She was Miss Finch’s worst nightmare. But she felt better for crying, and gradually the tears lessened. She wiped her cheeks with her hand because she had forgotten her handkerchief. She sat on the stool and swung her legs. It was strange that young ladies should never cry, she thought, when crying actually made them feel better. Crying was considered to be ugly, yet her limbs felt heavy now, pleasantly heavy, and she felt calmer.
She looked at the wand lying on the countertop. Miss Henrietta had called it the Ondona. She touched it rather timidly but, after what had happened with the dresses, did not pick it up. She didn’t want to cause any more trouble. She sighed very loudly and opened Miss Henrietta’s ledger. It smelled peculiar—vinegary—and the pages were heavy and tea-colored. They crackled beneath her fingers. The last entries were for almost three years previous, when Mr. S. Worth had paid his account in full for the purchase of two candles and Lady Pansofia Swift had ordered a new broomstick. They confirmed her theory that no one ever visited the little magic shop. She wondered if Kitty would come again. She wished she would. She was used to having other girls, Isabelle Rutherford especially, not just herself, for company.
Annabel was turning the page when she heard footsteps. She was certain someone had entered the shop, but there was nobody to be seen. She jumped down from the stool and moved from behind the counter.
She heard two more footsteps. Yes, the definite shuffle of feet upon the ground.
“Hello,” she said. “Who’s there?”
A low chuckle.
“Miss Vine has a new girl, I see,” said a voice quite close, so that Annabel jumped back in fright.
“You should make yourself visible!” shouted Annabel. “This instant. It’s rude.”
There was a whoosh of purple satin and black serge, and a man appeared, his dark cloak falling around him. He held a long dark stick in his hand.
Annabel had never seen anyone like him before.
He was very tall and a little crooked at the top. He bent forward halfway up, as though he were bracing himself to walk against the wind. His luxurious black hair fell in waves around his face, and his skin was as white as a funeral orchid, as though he never, ever saw the sun.
“Oh,” she said, even though she knew it was rude. It slipped out. She retreated behind the counter, away from him.
“I am Mr. Angel, wizard,” he said. His voice was slow and deep. “Miss Vine might have mentioned me.”
She hadn’t. Or at least Annabel didn’t think she had. She had mentioned wizards, though. Maybe he’d been mixed in with them all and Annabel hadn’t noticed.
She didn’t like to look at his crookedness, so she looked at his face, which was handsome in a way she couldn’t fathom. He had very dark eyes, which were sad, probably the saddest eyes she had ever seen, with very long lashes. He had a largish nose and a mouth that was rather lopsided, one side sneering, one side melancholy. He had dark shadows in his cheekbones, as though he needed to be fed for weeks and weeks on cream buns and egg custard. Those shadows made her shiver suddenly, and a little dark memory that she couldn’t quite catch flitted across her eye and was gone.
He was sad and lonely-looking.
He was wicked-looking.
As though he would pinch babies when