Gran read the notification out and then Jessica started to speak, but I was already heading out the back door. Arran grabbed at my arm, saying, “We’ll get permission, Nathan. We will.”

I couldn’t be bothered arguing with him, and I pushed him away. There was an ax by the pile of wood in the garden and I hacked and hacked and hacked until I couldn’t lift the ax any more.

Deborah came to sit with me among all the broken bits of wood. She put her head on my shoulder, resting her cheek on it. I always liked it when she did that.

She said, “You’ll find a way, Nathan. Gran will help you, and so will I, and so will Arran.”

I ripped at the blisters on my hand. “How?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“You shouldn’t help me. You’d be working against the Council. They’ll lock you up.”

“But—”

I jolted her off my shoulder and stood up. “I don’t want your help, Deborah. Don’t you get it? You’re so bloody clever, but you still don’t understand, do you?”

And I left her there.

And now Deborah has received her three gifts and Gran’s blood, and in three years Arran will go through the same ceremony, but for me . . . I know the Council won’t let it happen. They are afraid of what I’ll become. And if I don’t become a witch I’ll die. I know it.

I have to be given three gifts and drink the blood of my ancestors, the blood of my parents or grandparents. But apart from Gran there is only one person who can give me three gifts, only one person who can defy the Council, only one person whose blood will turn me from whet to witch.

The woods are silent. It feels like they are waiting and watching. And suddenly I know that my father wants to help me. I know the truth of it so well. My father wants to give me three gifts and let me drink his blood. I know it like I know how to breathe.

I know he’ll come to me.

I wait and I wait.

The silence of the woods goes on and on.

He doesn’t come.

But I realize that it’s too dangerous for him to come to me and take me away. So I must go to him.

I must go and find my father.

I’m eleven. Eleven is a long way off seventeen. And I have no idea how to find Marcus. I don’t have a clue how to begin to find him. But at least now I know what I have to do.

Notification of the Resolution of the Council of White Witches of England, Scotland, and Wales.

Any contact between Half Codes (W 0.5/B 0.5) and White Whets and White Witches is to be reported to the Council by all concerned. Failure by the Half Code to notify the Council of contact is punishable by removing all contact.

Contact is deemed to have been made if the Half Code is in the same room as a White Whet or White Witch or otherwise within a close enough distance that they are able to speak to each other.

“Shall I go and lock myself in the cellar now?” I ask.

Deborah takes the parchment and reads it again. “Removing all contact? What does that mean?”

Gran looks uncertain.

“They can’t mean removing contact with us?” Deborah looks from Gran to Arran. “Can they?”

I’m amazed at Deborah; she still doesn’t get it. It can mean whatever the Council want it to mean.

“I’ll just make sure that we keep a list of witches Nathan has contact with. It’s easy enough. Nathan hardly meets anyone and certainly not many White Witches.”

“When he starts at Thomas Dawes school, there’ll be the O’Briens,” Arran reminds her.

“Yes, but that’s all. It’ll be a small list. We just have to make sure we follow the rules.”

Gran is right; the list is small. The only witches I come into contact with are my direct family and those I meet at the Council Offices when I go for assessment. I never go to any festivals, parties, or weddings, as my name is always missing from the invitations that arrive on our doormat. Gran stays at home with me and sends Jessica, and, when they are old enough, Deborah and Arran as well. I hear about the celebrations from the others, but I never go.

White Witches from anywhere in the world are welcomed into witches’ homes, but visitors to our house are thin on the ground. When anyone does stay with us for a night or two they treat me as either a curiosity or a leper, and I quickly learn to keep out of sight.

When Gran and I traveled to London for my first assessment, we turned up late in the evening on the doorstep of a family near Wimbledon, and I was left staring at the red paint of the front door while Gran was taken inside. When she reappeared a minute later, white in the face and shaking with anger, she grabbed my hand and dragged me away, saying, “We’ll stay in a hotel.” I was more relieved than angry.

Before going to Thomas Dawes Secondary School, I attend the small village school. I’m the slow, dumb kid at the back, the one with no friends. Like most fains the world over, the kids and teachers there don’t believe in witches; they don’t understand that we live among them. They don’t see me as special—just especially slow. I can barely read or write and am not quick enough to fool Gran when I skip school. The only thing I learn is that sitting in class bored stiff is better than sitting anywhere else with the effects of Gran’s punishment potions. From the start of each day, all I do is wait until it’s over. I suspect secondary school is not going to be any better.

I’m right. On my first day at Thomas Dawes I’m wearing Arran’s cast-off too-long gray trousers, a white shirt with a frayed collar, a stained blue-gold-black striped tie, and a dark blue blazer that is absurdly oversized, although Gran has shortened the arms. The one item I have been given that is not a cast-off is a cheap phone. I have it “in case.” Arran has only just been allowed one, so I know that Gran expects there will be an “in case” situation.

I put the phone to my ear and my head is filled with static. Just carrying it around makes me irritable. Before I leave for school, I put the phone behind the TV in the lounge, which seems a good place, as that too has recently started to set off a faint hissing in my head.

Arran and Deborah make the journey to school and back bearable. Thankfully Jessica has left home to train as a Hunter. Hunters are the elite group of White Witches employed by the Council to hunt down Black Witches in Britain. Gran says they are employed by other Councils in Europe more and more as there are so few Blacks left in Britain. Hunters are mainly women, but include a few talented male witches. They are all ruthless and efficient, which means Jessica is bound to fit right in.

Jessica’s departure means I can relax at home for the first time in my life, but now I have secondary school to worry about. I plead with Gran that I shouldn’t go, that it is bound to be a disaster. She says that witches must “blend in” to fain society and should “learn how to conform,” and it is important for me to do the same, and that I “will be fine.” None of those phrases seem to describe my life.

Phrases that come to mind, phrases that I’m expecting to hear, to describe me are “nasty and dirty,” “pond life,” and the old favorite “dumb ass.” I’m prepared to be teased about being stupid, dirty, or poor, and some idiot is bound to pick on me because I’m small, but I don’t mind too much. They’ll only ever do it once.

I’m prepared for all that, but what I’m not prepared for is the noise. The school bus is a cauldron of shouting and jeering, simmering with the hiss of mobile phones. The classroom isn’t much better, as it is lined with computers, all emitting a high-pitched whistle that gets into my skull and is not reduced one bit by sticking my fingers in my ears.

The other problem, and by far the biggest, is that Annalise is in my class.