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for one of disgust. “In fact, if I may be so bold, Ma, I think she looks mighty better.”
    She was right and Ma Dane could see that. Once you recovered from the shock of the thing, its large violet-colored eyes and pearly silver skin could almost be endearing. It was also chewing on the nail of its right thumb in a way that reminded her painfully of Asha.
    “Anyway, I must resign, Ma,” carried on the wet nurse, taking Ma Dane’s silence as indifference. “I think the child will need a nanny and . . . I am not sure how much longer she will stay in the nursery, Ma. She is a curious little thing.”
    “Yes, you must go,” said Ma Dane at last. “I had not realized that she had grown so much.”
    “Babies have a tendency to grow, Ma.”
    Ma Dane ignored this impertinence.
    “Has there been anything . . . I mean, have you noticed . . .”
    “Magic Blood?”
    Ma Dane shivered.
    “No, Ma. I believe she is just a quirk of nature.”
    “Sometimes it is slow to come,” Ma Dane whispered, but the wet nurse did not hear her.
    “I will inquire into a nanny immediately and you may leave when she arrives.”
    The wet nurse nodded before pressing her left hand to her chest in the sign of respect. She scooped the child into her arms and walked out of the room.
    The little girl peeped over her shoulder, watching the large woman behind the desk stare at her before they disappeared down the hall.

    A few weeks later, a nanny was hired and the wet nurse was permitted to leave. She had managed to secure a good place in a wealthy household, discovering that families were tripping over themselvesto hire the ex-wet nurse of Ma Dane Herm-se-Hollis. Still, she knew that she would miss her amethyst-eyed baby.
    The morning before she left, the wet nurse brought the child onto her lap and stared hard into its violet-colored eyes.
    “I am confused,” she admitted. “I thought you would have dropped your strange looks by now.”
    The child said nothing, but continued to chew on her thumb. The wet nurse had been looking for signs of Magic Blood for the last sixteen seasons, but there had been no troublesome dreams, no twitching objects, and no wind tunnels. The child was as quiet and self-controlled as ever, playing with her hand-me-down toys, but otherwise doing little else.
    “Perhaps it will come later . . .”
    She said her tearful goodbyes to the child and then left Rose Herm. In the seasons to come, she would always listen for gossip and news of her amethyst-eyed baby, though for a long time there would be none.

C HAPTER F OUR
    The Nanny
    A s a baby and toddler, the nameless little girl was shy and sweet, but this changed with the arrival of the nanny.
    Ma Dane had been struck by the glimpse of the eerie being in her study that day with the wet nurse. She had not expected the child to look so much like Asha. The resemblance was uncanny despite the freakish, silver coloring, and it led her to assume that her temperament would be similar—difficult. She decided that the child would need a firm hand or else her fate would also be the same. What would become of Ma Dane’s reputation then? The standing she had bought, fought for, and dreamt of. The child would need a firm hand or else she would ruin everything.
    And so the nanny arrived. Her résumé promised harsh discipline and her last place was in the house of one of the State Leaders who had five young, jostling boys, which made her seem the perfect person to control the child. Ma Dane sent for her immediately and the woman arrived two days after the wet nurse departed and perhaps if it had been just a day, or if there had been a crossoverperiod, then things might have been different. But it was not and it could not be helped.
    The amethyst-eyed baby had not spent a night away from her wet nurse since she could remember. The sudden separation upset and confused her and she cried to herself all the dark, warm night, curled in a corner of the lonely nursery. A long,