Chapter 4The Second Sorceress’s office took up the space of two large airy rooms in the north-east corner of the School, with doors and windows to the inner gardens and reflecting pool as well as outside, near the road. Like everywhere else, the walls shimmered in clean white marble, with carved shelves for books and scrolls. Her desk was large, a pale sweet-scented wood Talis didn’t recognize; the general effect was that of a vastly literate, crystalline, intimidating snowflake.
She was talking to Jeryn, who stood like an unshakeable leonine sunbeam in front of her desk; she swung around when Maggie and Talis came in. “Maggie—and you—” That meant Talis. “What on earth have you been up to?”
The Second Sorceress of the Middle Lands must have been a hundred years old, but did not look it;
