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

Cordelia had never ridden any horse but Falada, so it was from Ellen—and from watching Ellen's pony—that she learned that most horses were not so calm as Falada, nor so safe. When she was very young and the open doors in their house became too much, when she couldn't stand being in that house for one more second, she would creep to Falada's stall and sleep curled up there, with his four white legs like pillars around her. Apparently most people did not do this, for fear the horse would step on them. Cordelia had not known to be afraid of such a thing.

"Oh, Penny! What's gotten into you? It's just Falada." Ellen rolled her eyes at Cordelia, as if they shared a joke, which was one of the reasons that Cordelia liked her.

"Penny's a good pony," Cordelia said. She liked it when Ellen complimented Falada, so perhaps Ellen would like it when she complimented Penny. Cordelia talked to other people so rarely now that she always had to feel her way through these conversations, and she was not always good at them.

"She is," said Ellen happily. "She's not brave, but she's sweet."

Ellen carried the conversation mostly by herself, talking freely about her home, her family, the servants, and the other people in town. There was no malice in it, so far as Cordelia could tell. She let it wash over her, and pretended that she had a right to listen and nod as if she knew what was going on.

Cordelia was not sure why Ellen rode out to meet her so often, when she could say so little, but she was glad for the company. Ellen was kind, but more than that, she was ordinary. Talking to her gave Cordelia a window into what was normal and what wasn't. She could ask a question and Ellen would answer it without asking any awkward questions of her own. Most of the time, anyway.

It had occurred to her, some years prior, that not all parents could make their children obedient the same way that her mother made her, but when she tried to ask Ellen about it, to see if she was right, the words came out so wrong and so distressing that she stopped.

Something about today—the memory of the obedience or the fly or maybe just the way the light fell across the leaves and Falada's mane—made her want to ask again.

"Ellen?" she asked abruptly. "Do you close the door to your room?"

Ellen had been patiently holding up both ends of the conversation and looked up, puzzled. "Eh? Yes? I mean, the servants go in and out of my dressing room, but I always lock the door to the water closet when I'm in it, because you don't want servants around for that, do you?"

Cordelia stared at her hands on the reins. They were not wealthy enough to have servants, and there was an outhouse beside the stable, not a water closet. She pressed on.

"Does your family think you're keeping secrets when you do?"

The silence went on long enough that Cordelia looked up, and realized that Ellen was giving her a very penetrating look. She had a pink, pleasant face and a kind manner, and it was unsettling to suddenly remember that kind did not mean stupid and Ellen had been talking to her for a long time.

"Oh, Cordelia…" said Ellen finally.

She reached out to touch Cordelia's arm, but Falada sidled at that moment, and Penny took a step to give him room, so they did not touch after all.

"Sorry," said Cordelia gruffly. She wanted to say Please don't think I'm strange, that was a strange question, I can tell, please don't stop talking to me, but she knew that would make it all even worse, so she didn't.

"It's all right," said Ellen. And then "It will be all right," which Cordelia knew wasn't the same thing at all.

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.