Page 42 of Snowspelled

...but I ignored them all to grin up at my fiancé with purejoy.

“I do,” I said. “I’ve finally found a new vocation to replace my firstone.”

It wastrue.

Nothing would ever be quite the same as practicing magic myself...but I’d finally realized that there was one moment in the past week, after all, when I’d felt every bit as deep a satisfaction as I ever had when casting a spell...along with that singular feeling that I’d thought I’d lost forever: the certainty thatthiswas what I was meant from birth todo.

Generations were shifting, and not only in my family. It was time for my own goals to shift,too.

“Oh, really?” Wrexham cocked one eyebrow. He’d been watching me ever since we first met, and I’d been watching him, too—so I knew exactly that look of sizzling anticipation in his face. It meant he thought he had puzzled out the answer to a particularly tricky problem before Ihad.

Ha.

His smirk of satisfaction confirmed it. “It’s young Miss Banks,” he said, “isn’t it? You’ve come up with a new strategy to get her into the Great Library, along with all of those other young women likeher.”

“Not anymore.” I shook my head without regret. “Amy was right,” I admitted. “There would besomuch resistance to that from the Great Library, the Boudiccate and more. I would need to spend all of my days playing politics, and it wouldstilltake years for the Great Library to finally fling their doors open. That’s far too long for the girls who need trainingnow...and I was never meant to be apolitician.”

For once, that thought didn’t even make me grimace. I knew exactly who I was, now, and I no longer needed confirmation from anyone else to believeit.

“I am a magician,” I said firmly, “and you were right: losing the ability to practice my magic didn’t take away any of my knowledge from the last twenty years of study. So...” I looked around, including my brother and sister-in-law in my gaze as they stepped up beside us, a warm circle of family and support that I knew I would be able to count onforever.

“What would you all think,” I asked, “if I started a new school of myown?”

Jonathan’s bushy eyebrows shot upward. “A magic school, you mean? For girls? As an alternative to the GreatLibrary?”

Not an alternative,I thought with deep satisfaction.Acompetitor.

If the Great Library wouldn’t hire a woman or train any others...then as much as I’d adored my own time there, it was time to shake them out of their complacency for good. Let them try to ignore a whole generation of fabulous new femalemagicians!

But there was time enough to reveal all the details of my plan later. In the meantime, I smiled at my brother as I pulled out the final card that I knew would convincehim.

“I’d like to add another subject to the curriculum,” I told him. “The Great Library may not require it for their own students, butIthink this adventure has proven quite conclusively that magic alone isn’t enough for a working magician in the field. No,mystudents will need a good understandingof—”

“History!” Jonathan finished in a crow of triumph. “Good God, if you only knew how many times I’d tried to tell hard-headed magicians—oh, and I knowexactlywhere you ought to start! If I canjust...”

I turned to his wife as Jonathan began to rummage through the inner pockets of his coat. “Of course, there is still the question of where to host my school,” I told her. “I could rent a house somewhere, I suppose, if I found somewhere secluded that I could afford,or...”

“Away from us? Don’t be absurd! If you’re going to do this, you’ll need our help. And if you think we’re going to lose you all over again...!” Amy’s brown eyes narrowed. I could almost see the wheels of strategy beginning to turn inside her head as she tapped one finger against her side. “We do have an unused dower house on the estate. That should be large enough at least for the first lot of students...and thenperhaps...”

My sister-in-law’s words trailed off as her pretty face tightened into the look of intense concentration that heralded a perfect political maneuver in the making. Beside her, Jonathan pulled out a commonplace book to start scribbling down notes with a silver pencil, muttering to himself all thewhile.

My family was on my side, as always—and together, we wereunstoppable.

“So?” Keeping my hands wrapped firmly around his shoulders, I looked up challengingly at Wrexham, the only one who hadn’t spoken yet. “What doyouthink of my great plan? Are you still ready and willing to marry me even if I scandalize all of your colleagues and the Boudiccateitself?”

Wrexham’s smile was slow and certain as he pulled me even closer into the warmth of his embrace. “I think, Harwood,” said the love of my life with deep affection, “that you live to scandalize the nation...and I can’t wait to be a part ofit.”

“You always will be,” I promisedhim.

Magic swirled through the air around us as the other magicians’ loud debate turned into a laughing, cheeringcompetition.

Sparks and flares danced in the corner of myvision.

I’d spent so much of my life fighting to win every magical contest that I cameacross...

But now I closed my eyes, smiling, and kissed my fiancé, while grand plans and schemes built themselves in my head and happiness soared irresistibly through mybody.

For the first time in months, I couldn’t wait to see what the future would bringme.