NINE
Bianca settled into a new routine quickly. She woke with the dawn, while her sisters slept on until well past noon. After breaking her fast, she rode or walked to Kun's cottage. On her return, she would walk beside the lake. Some days it was mirror calm, reflecting the sky and birds above as though there were a second world below, if she but had the courage to pierce the surface. On other days, the beach vanished beneath an onslaught of waves blown up by the slightest breeze, and the lake licked at the very foundations of the Summer Palace.
She grew more skilled at making things invisible. She'd managed to vanish most things in Kun's cottage, before making them visible again. Today, Kun had insisted she bespell the cottage roof. Except she was not to make it vanish entirely – oh, n
