Kat, Incorrigible by Stephanie Burgis

first place.” I closed my eyes. There. I had it: the thread of connection I’d found just at the last moment last time, when I’d run from Lady Fotherington and flung myself at the golden wall. I smiled.
    “But my dear young lady—think of your own potential magical powers! If you don’t join us, you’ll be stunted—you’ll never learn how to use them properly, you—”
    Mr. Gregson’s sputtering was the last thing I heard before I landed with a bounce on the green and yellow covers of my bed in Grantham Abbey. Sunlight streamed in through the windows, bright and clear and entirely different from the deep golden glow of the hall I’d stood in only a moment before. The bed was satisfyingly solid and real, there were no signs of whirlwinds or hurricanes in the room around me, and I was wonderfully, perfectly alone.
    The mirror was back in my hand, closed and latched once more. I looked down at it and laughed out loud. Then I tossed it in the air and caught it again.
    I was getting better at this. I was almost certainly safe, too. Mr. Gregson was far too proper to follow me out of the hall and into my own bedroom, no matter how irate he might be. He wouldn’t be able to lecture me or work any magic on me in public, in full view of all the other houseguests, either. As long as I stayed away from the Golden Hall, I was safe.
    Unless … Sudden discomfort coiled in my stomach. Lady Fotherington had stayed in London for the moment, Mr. Gregson had said. But if he gave up on convincing me through self-righteous lectures alone, would he decide to summon her? And then—
    I stood up, closing my fingers tightly around the mirror. Let her come.

    By the time we all went down to dinner, two hours later, I’d patched up the reticule just about well enough to carry with me. Stepmama gave me a definite Look, though, when she saw it looped around my arm with half the beads knocked off. She sighed and shook her head.
    “Thank goodness no one will be looking at you, Kat,” she said. “At least Elissa looks perfect.”
    Elissa really did look beautiful. Even her pale cheeks only set off her deep blue eyes and fair hair, and she was wearing her newest and finest gown, of pure white muslin, with puffy short sleeves, a modest round bodice, and a string of pearls around her neck—Stepmama’s pearls, I realized. I bit down hard on my lower lip at the memory they brought back: Mama’s broken pearls, lying scattered around her cabinet …
    “Do hurry, Kat! We don’t wish to be late, tonight of all nights,” Stepmama snapped, and herded us all down the long corridor and grand flight of stairs.
    As we reached the bottom of the stairs, Elissa’s hand found mine and squeezed. I squeezed it back.
    “Elissa,” I began, in an urgent whisper.
    “Hush,” she said, and smiled at me more wanly and unhappily than ever as she let go of my hand.
    “Now,” Stepmama said, and ushered us, smiling as fiercely as a general, into the crowded Long Gallery.

Nine
    There must have been at least fifty people in the gallery, and at first all I could take in was a confused mass of gowns and coats and far, far too much high, trilling laughter ringing in my ears.
    But Stepmama plowed straight through the crowd toward our goal.
    “Smile, girls,” she hissed through gritted teeth. “And Kat, if you say a single word out of place, I vow I’ll see you locked in the nursery tonight no matter what Rosemary might say.”
    I didn’t bother to grace that with a response. Even if I’d wanted to, I was too busy avoiding the hard male elbows that jutted out from the crowd around us, just asking to be knocked into, and the women’s hands flung out for emphasis, glittering with rings. I’d never been allowed to attend a single dinner party back in our own village, and those parties only ever included six or eight families, all of whom I’d known my entire life. I’d never even seen this number of strangers before, let alone been required to mind my