Excerpt from A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

When Cordelia was young, she had screamed when she came out of obedience, but this gave her mother a reason to hold her and make soothing noises, so she had learned to stay silent as she swam up into consciousness, out of the waking dream.

The memories of what she had done when she was obedient would still be there, though. They lay in the bottom of her skull like stones.

It was never anything that looked terrible from outside. She could not have explained it to anyone without sounding ridiculous. "She makes me eat. She makes me drink. She makes me go to the bathroom and get undressed and go to bed."

And they would have looked at her and said "So?" and Cordelia would not have been able to explain what it was like, half-sunk in stupor, with her body moving around her.

Being made obedient felt like being a corpse. "My body's dead and it doesn't do what I want," Cordelia had whispered once, to her only friend, their horse Falada. "It only does what she wants. But I'm still in it."

When she was younger, Cordelia would wet herself frequently when she was obedient. Her mother mostly remembered to have Cordelia relieve herself at regular intervals now, but Cordelia had never forgotten the sensation.

She was made obedient less often as she grew older. She thought perhaps that it was more difficult for her mother to do than it had been when she was small—or perhaps it was only that she had learned to avoid the things that made her mother angry. But this time, Cordelia hadn't avoided it.

As the obedience let go, Cordelia swam up out of the twilight, feeling her senses slot themselves back into place.

Her mother patted her shoulder. "There you are. Now, isn't that better?"

Cordelia nodded, not looking at her.

"I'm sure you'll do better next time."

"Yes," said Cordelia, who could not remember what it was that she had been made obedient for. "I will."

When her legs felt steady enough, she went up the stairs to her bedroom and lay on the bed. She did not close the door.

* * *

There were no closed doors in the house she grew up in.

Sometimes, when her mother was gone on an errand, Cordelia would close the door to her bedroom and lean against it, pressing herself flat against the wooden surface, feeling it solid and smooth under her cheek.

The knowledge that she was alone and no one could see her—that she could do anything, say anything, think anything and no one would be the wiser—made her feel fierce and wicked and brave.

She always opened the door again after a minute. Her mother would come home soon and the sight of a closed door would draw her like a lodestone. And then there would be the talk.

If Cordelia's mother was in a good mood, it would be "Silly! You don't have any secrets from me, I'm your mother!"

If she was in a bad mood, it would be the same talk but from the other direction, like a tarot card reversed—"What are you trying to hide?"

Whichever card it was, it always ended the same way: "We don't close doors in this house."

When Cordelia was thirteen and had been half-mad with things happening under her skin, she shot back "Then why are there doors in the house at all?"

Her mother had paused, just for an instant. Her long-jawed face had gone blank and she had looked at Cordelia—really looked, as if she was actually seeing her—and Cordelia knew that she had crossed a line and would pay for it.

"They came with the house," said her mother. "Silly!" She nodded once or twice, to herself, and then walked away.

Cordelia couldn't remember now how long she had been made obedient as punishment. Two or three days, at least.

Because there were no closed doors, Cordelia had learned to have no secrets that could be found. She did not write her thoughts in her daybook.

She kept a daybook because her mother believed that it was something young girls should do, but the things she wrote were exactly correct and completely meaningless. I spilled something on my yellow dress today. I have been out riding Falada. The daffodils bloomed today. It is my birthday today.

Excerpted from A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher. Copyright © 2024 by T. Kingfisher. Excerpted by permission of Tor Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.