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Chantress—”
    “You yourself saw the mark, Nat,” Penebrygg said. “And she has the stone.”
    “And very convincing they were too. But marks can be faked, and the ruby could be paste. I wouldn’t put anything past Scargrave, would you?”
    He seemed determined to disbelieve me, but I tried to keep my temper. “I haven’t faked anything—”
    Nat’s knife flashed as he sank it into the wood. “We need more proof.”
    “Proof?”
    “Work some Chantress magic for us,” Nat said. “Right here, right now.”
    To my surprise, Penebrygg chuckled.
    “Spoken like a true man of science, Nat. I have trained you well.” He adjusted his spectacles and looked at me. “I myself am inclined to take you at your word. But Nat is right to be cautious. The stakes are very high, and we ought to do this one last test: Choose what song you will, and demonstrate your powers to us. Though you must sing softly,” he cautioned. “We do not want others to hear you.”
    They wanted me to work magic on demand? Well, perhaps I could, at that. All I needed was a song to sing.
    But what song? At the moment, I could hear nothing but the fire’s crackle and the incessant ticktocking of the clocks.
    Take the stone off.
    That’s how it had worked before, hadn’t it? As I took hold of the stone, it caught the ebbing firelight, flaring red as flame. Help me , I urged it silently. Bring me magic that will amaze them. And I tugged it over my head.
    A chill went over me as the room filled with music. Unfortunately, the notes were as soft and indistinguishable as the murmuring I had heard in the Ravendon House library. I could not make out any particular song, only random notes that faded as soon as I trained my ear on them.
    In the dark recesses of the room, the hidden clocks ticked off the seconds.
    I looked up and saw two faces looking back at me, one full of skepticism, the other alight with faith.
    “We ask for nothing very dramatic, you understand,” Penebrygg said with an encouraging smile. “A small but convincing display is all that is required.”
    I looked helplessly back at him. “I can’t give you one.”
    His genial face turned stern, and I saw something of Nat’s mistrust in his eyes. “You cannot? Or you will not?”
    Miserably aware that I looked not only like a failure but a fraud, I spelled out the problem. “I know nothing about being a Chantress. I am one, truly I am. But I never knew it before today.”
    Nat raised his eyebrows.
    Penebrygg kneaded his bearded chin as if he did not know quite what to think. “Pray tell us more.”
    I briefly recounted my story. It sounded even more fantastical in the telling than it had in the living of it, and I faltered now and again as I caught sight of Nat’s disbelieving face.
    Penebrygg, however, listened to me with utter absorption. “So it was seven years ago that you arrived on the island?” he said at one point. “That would make sense.”
    And when I spoke of how the song had claimed me, and the wind had come for us, he exclaimed, “Extraordinary!”
    When I finished my tale, there was silence. Penebrygg rubbed his spectacles on the edge of his sleeve, then pushed them back on his nose with a sigh. “I would give my eyeteeth to observe such magic. But you have not seen your guardian since you arrived? And you have no idea how to find her?”
    I shook my head. “Do you?”
    “Alas, no. I am only a workaday inventor, with nothing magic about me whatsoever. That said, perhaps we might be able to track her down by ordinary means, if we made discreet inquiries—”
    “Stop,” Nat interrupted. “Don’t you see what she’s doing? Youasked her to show us her powers, and instead she’s spun us a wild story. That doesn’t sound like a Chantress to me. That sounds like a spy.”
    Penebrygg folded his arms across his chest. “What is the first duty of science, Nat?”
    With evident reluctance, Nat answered, “To keep an open mind.”
    Penebrygg nodded. “We must