Chapter 1
My scream implodes inside me. Mother looks back, sees the dagger lying there, grabs it. The thing howls in outrage. She's going to fight it. She's going to be alright. […] In one swift motion, sh...
Chapter 2
A sudden fear takes root […] conversations I've overhead in my father's study—tales […] about the fate of an unescorted woman, overpowered by bad men, her life ruined forever. (2.10)
Chapter 3
"An actress," Tom sneers, "What sort of way is that for a woman to live, without a solid home, husband, children? Running about like she's her own lord and master. She'll certainly never be accepte...
Chapter 4
"Spence has turned out many wonderful young women who've gone on to make very good marriages."
We don't expect much more from you. Please don't embarrass us. (4.52-53)
Chapter 5
"…While we can and will teach you the necessary skills to become England's future wives and mothers, hostesses and bearers of the Empire's feminine traditions, it will be up to you to apply yours...
Chapter 6
"I invite you to sit with us and this is how you repay my kindness? By stealing the ring my father gave to me? I should have expected something like this from a girl like you."We all know what "lik...
Chapter 7
At the smell of roses, I snap my eyes open. The little girl from the ally stands in front of me, shimmering. She beckons me with her hand. "This way." (7. 127-128)
Chapter 8
I'm in up to my shoulder when I feel something solid. It's stuck fast, and I have to pull hard to bring it into the light. It's a leather bound diary. (8.19)
Chapter 9
My breath catches in my throat. A tingle starts in my fingertips. No. I won't be pulled under. Begone. (9.108)
Chapter 10
It's my mother, my mother here in this place, the grain of her dress real on my fingers. She breaks into a smile."Find me if you can," she says, and runs off.Part of her hem catches on a tree branc...
Chapter 11
It means passing up an invitation to Felicity's suddenly open sanctuary in the great hall—thanks to my new status as the keeper of her secrets—but there's only one thought in my mind: there has...
Chapter 12
"[…] They would have been mystics and healers, women who worked with herbs and delivered babies. But it would have made them suspect. Women who have power are always feared," she says sadly. (12....
Chapter 13
"She's lying back and thinking of England!" Pippa shrieks, invoking the phrase that every English mother tells her daughter about carnal acts. We're not supposed to enjoy it. We're just supposed to...
Chapter 15
"I'll start. O great spirits of the Order. We are your daughters. Speak to us now. Tell us your secrets." (15.75)
Chapter 16
My sobs are great gasping hiccups. Miss Moore holds me in her sure arms, which remind me so much of my mother's right now, I can barely stand it. (16.104)
Chapter 17
"We've been reading the diary of a dead girl." Felicity shudders. "There's something terribly creepy about that.""Do you suppose," Ann says, "that any of what Mary wrote could be true? The supernat...
Chapter 18
Felicity ignores us. She walks out toward them, an apparition in white and blue velvet, her head held high as they stare in awe at her, the goddess. I don't yet know what power feels like. But this...
Chapter 19
It's a dream, only a dream. That's what I tell myself when I wake up […] But it felt so real. I put my fingers to my lips. They're not swollen with kissing. I'm still whole. Pure. (19.69-73)
Chapter 21
I don't realize that I'm holding Madame Romanoff's hand with all my strength, because there's a sudden flare of light, like the world opening up, and I'm falling into that tunnel again, my rage pul...
Chapter 22
There are trees dripping leaves of green-gold and red-orange. The sky is a purplish blue on top of a horizon bathed in an orange glow, like a sunset that never fades. Tiny lavender blossoms float b...
Chapter 25
For some reason, the sight of Tom, reliable, snobby, shallow Tom fills me with good cheer. (25.52)
Chapter 26
No one asks how I am or what I am doing. They could not care less. We're all looking glasses, we girls, existing only to reflect their images back to them as they'd like to be seen. Hollow vessels...
Chapter 28
The rhythm of our hearts beating in unison, like the thundering of horses trampling across winter-bleached fields, hope thumping freedom inside us. […] I can't absorb it. It could break me. I nee...
Chapter 32
"Oh, Gemma, how could I tell you what I'd done? That's the curse of mothers, you know. We're never prepared for how much we love our children, for how much we wish we could protect them by being pe...
Chapter 35
"Are you still cross about Miss Moore?""Among other things." I'm cross that we let her down so terribly. I'm cross that my mother is a liar and a murderer. That my father is an addict. That Kartik...
Chapter 38
"Stop! What are you doing?" it shrieks. I smash the third and fourth runes. For a moment, the thing changes shape, becomes my mother, trembling and weak on a patch of strawlike grass."Gemma, please...