The Magician’s Daughter

She was a half-wild thing of ink and grass and sea breezes, raised by books and rabbits and fairy lore, and that was all she cared to be.

This wasn't like the hardship in books. It wasn't just that characters in books weren't real and Anna and the children were - that part of it was obvious and expected. It was that the hardship in books was written. It had purpose. It was part of a story, and however bleak it looked for the people inside the pages, that only meant there were more pages left before the end - unless it was a tragedy, or something Russian. Even then, things would work out the way they ought. It wasn't true here. Pain was simply pain, and there was nothing to do about it except refuse to let it break you.

It was just that whenever she had thought of seeing the world, she had never realized what it would be like to have the world see her back

Death isn't a habit you develop, you know, like tobacco or whiskey. It only takes once.

In every fairy tale ever told, it's a bad idea to tangle with a magician's daughter." Nobody, not Hutch, not Rowan, not even herself, had ever referred to her in those terms before. And yet hearing it made her relationship with Rowan so clear and so bright that it hurt. She still didn't know who he was, or why he had done so many of the things he had done. But she knew who he had raised her to be. If he wasn't her father, then she at least was his daughter.

Understanding a person wasn’t always the same as forgiving them.

Magic needed conviction. It asked for your whole heart, and promised nothing back.

Men are easily impressed by other men.

That’s because I’m dead on my feet. It’s been a long night as well as a wasted one. Speaking of which, you should get up to bed.” “Oh, because you’re tired? Shouldn’t you go to bed?” “Who taught you to answer back to your elders and betters?” His eyebrows raised, but his eyes were twinkling. “Someone who also told me that just because someone is your elder doesn’t mean they’re your better.” “It can’t be me, then. I’m your elder, and I think I’m wonderful.

She had tried when she turned sixteen to think of herself as a woman, like Jane Eyre or Elizabeth Bennet or the multitudes of heroines who lived in her books, but in her head she wasn't there. They were all older than her, and had all, even Jane, seen more of life. And yet she was too old to be Sara Crewe or Alice or Wendy Darling either. She was a liminal person, trapped between a world she'd grown out of and another that wouldn't let her in. It was one reason why she wanted to leave the island so badly--- the hope that leaving the place she'd grown up would help her leave her childhood behind. Not forever, not yet. But for a visit, to see what it was like.

It was what Rowan called a raid-the-kitchen dinner, and what Hutch more sniffily called eating scraps.

Rowan’s idea of perfect tea was strong enough to melt half a spoon and keep the other half awake for weeks.

But she was learning through the confusion of her own feelings that love didn't mean you saw a person clearly.

Mirrors show what’s there,” Rowan had told her once. It was after she’d read Dracula and wanted to know if it was true that vampires didn’t have reflections. “I’ve never heard of anything not showing in one. More likely if a vampire looked in a mirror, he’d see himself as he truly was, fangs, wrinkles and whatever else. More’s the pity. It would be nice if mirrors lied when you look in them.” “You think you look wonderful in mirrors,” Biddy had said to him sternly. He laughed. “Only because I hardly ever look in them.

She was a liminal person, trapped between a world she'd grown out of and another that wouldn't let her in. It was one reason why she wanted to leave the island so badly - the hope that leaving the place she'd grown up would help her leave her childhood behind. Not forever, not yet. But for a visit, to see what it was like.

If you’re out in the world for any length of time, there are going to be people who will accuse you of using sex as a weapon just because they’re afraid it would work on them if you did. It is a weapon, if you want to use it. But it isn’t the best or the only one you have, and you shouldn’t ever let them make you feel it is.

Once on the island she had watched a mouse building a nest, picking up and sifting through dried grass, rejecting what it couldn’t use, stealing what it could, all at lightning speed. Her brain seemed to be doing the same thing now with questions and thoughts and half-formed plans, only it could find nothing of any use.

She breathed in, trying to draw her thoughts about her. Rowan would tell her to stop and think. He always did when she was scared. As a little girl, she’d often freeze halfway up the trees he was teaching her to climb, frightened by the stirring of the branches in the wind. You’re all right, he would say, lightly, confidently, as if it was an indisputable fact and not a reassurance. Just think of what to do next. Don’t worry about what might happen to you. What are you going to do next?

The wind whispered through the leaves, bringing with it the bite of late autumn. Biddy laid her hand on the branch beneath her. It seemed to her she could feel the thrum of the world's magic easier here, where the breeze from the sea made the air a living thing. It was her imagination, probably, but never mind. That was a kind of magic too. So was what waited for her on the mainland, messy and wild and glorious, waiting for her to fall into it.

As a child, she was curious about the world beyond the sea, but in a vague, half-sketched way, as she was curious about a lot of things she read in books. London and Treasure Island and horses and dragons were all equally imagined to her. She thought she would probably see them one day, when she was old. In the meantime, the island was hers to explore, and it took up more time than she could ever imagine having. There were books to read, thousands of them in the castle library, and Rowan brought back more all the time. There were trees to climb, caves along the beach to get lost in, traces of the fair folk who had once lived on the island to find and bring home. There was work to be done: Food needed to be grown and harvested; the livable parts of the castle, the parts that weren't a crumbling ruin, needed to be combed for useful things when the tide went out. She was a half-wild thing of ink and grass and sea breezes, raised by books and rabbits and fairy lore, and that was all she cared to be.

Nobody, not Hutch, not Rowan, not even herself, had ever referred to her in those terms before. And yet hearing it made her relationship with Rowan so clear and so bright that it hurt. She still didn’t know who he was, or why he had done so many of the things he had done. But she knew who he had raised her to be. If he wasn’t her father, then she at least was his daughter.

Pain was simply pain, and there was nothing to about it except refuse to let it break you.

It was that the hardship in books was written. It had purpose. It was part of a story, and however bleak it looked for the people inside the pages, that only meant there were more pages left before the end—unless it was a tragedy, or something Russian.

Sleep tended to be something that needed to catch Rowan off guard, to slip beneath his defenses once they had been lowered by sun or sea breezes or very dull spellbooks.

Whitechapel at night was not a kind place.

Just there to be used?” Rowan shook his head. “You lot really do think the world exists for your benefit don’t you?

This wasn’t like the hardship in books. It wasn’t just that characters in books weren’t real and Anna and the children were—that part of it was obvious and expected. It was that the hardship in books was written. It had purpose. It was part of a story, and however bleak it looked for the people inside the pages, that only meant there were more pages left before the end—unless it was a tragedy, or something Russian. Even then, things would work out the way they ought. It wasn’t true here. Pain was simply pain, and there was nothing to do about it except refuse to let it break you.

The silence stretched. Was that all right, or should she be talking? Biddy had wanted to meet new people all her life. Now, though, she seemed to be outside her own body, looking at herself through a stranger’s eyes standing awkward and uncertain in ill-fitting clothes. She couldn’t find a way to get back into herself, and had no idea what she would say if she did.

Everything was too close and too sharp, as if seen through a spyglass suddenly inverted, and she felt the curious eyes of the workers on her like a physical touch. It made her fidget and huddle deeper into her coat. She didn’t want to be scared. She had wanted to come here all her life. Now that she had, she wanted to be fearless and strong and meet all that came with shoulders squared and head held high, the way Rowan did. It was just that whenever she had thought of seeing the world, she had never realized what it would be like to have the world see her back.