They told her Lesser Magic was lesser. She's starting to think that was the point.
Her magic can silence a room, shatter glass, and cancel out a fireball. At Solmere Academy, they call that lesser.
Nessa Halloway's sound magic has been a problem her whole life. Unpredictable, unwanted, whispered about in the village she grew up in. It's something worse here: a liability. For the first time, she has a chance to belong somewhere if she can keep her head down.
Except the rules make less sense the longer she watches noble students train while she's taught to disappear. So she stops asking permission.
The better she gets, the louder the objections from people who were never supposed to notice her at all. The problem is that not all of them object. Some of them want to know exactly how far she can go, and Nessa's starting to think their interest is the more dangerous problem.
Somewhere between late-night training sessions and the girl who watches her like she's something worth studying, Nessa stops thinking about fitting in. She starts thinking about what she actually wants—from her magic, from Solmere, and from her roommate Maiya.
