The Other Merlin

Robyn Schneider grew up in Southern California, where she spent her childhood reading fantasy novels and searching for secret passages. She s a graduate of Columbia University, where she studied creative writing, and the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, where she earned a Masters of Bioethics. Robyn is the bestselling author of The Beginning of Everything, Extraordinary Means, Invisible Ghosts, and You Don t Live Here. Her work is available across the world in over a dozen languages. She lives in Los Angeles with her TV producer husband, their tiny puppy, and far too many books.
 

Everything was going to be fine.
Emry Merlin staggered out the back door of the theater and gulped down the warm summer air. It wasn t much cooler outside than backstage, but at least it didn t stink of unwashed armpits. She hunched forward, hands on her knees, willing her heart to stop pounding.
There was no reason to be nervous. She d filled in for a missing player plenty of times before. Besides, Pell s was a small part. A few lines, a skirmish of swords, a quick death halfway through the first act. And it was only the town theater it wasn t as though they were performing for their patron, the Earl of Brocelande, at his manor.
And yet, it was dangerous. There was nothing wrong with employing a girl to help with the special effects so long as Emry stayed backstage. But the theater troupe would be in trouble if anyone discovered she was also their understudy.
At eighteen, she was tall and skinny enough to play a boy s part, provided she flattened her chest and tucked her long black hair under a cap. Thankfully, most people assumed it was her twin brother onstage, a mistake Emmett was all too willing to encourage especially when the mistaken party was a pretty girl.
A bead of sweat ran down her temple, and Emry wiped it away with the back of her hand. It was a scorching afternoon in June, and any sensible person would be indoors, wearing as few layers of clothing as possible.
Unfortunately, Emry wasn t sensible.
Smart as spades, but foolish as hearts, her father used to say. Whenever he d turn up, which wasn t often, he d give Emry a pretty ribbon for her hair and take Emmett out to the woods to learn magic. Emry found this arrangement enormously unfair, and campaigned to be included.
When Father refused, Emry made her twin teach her everything he d learned. The next time their father had shown up, Emry had tucked her hair under a cap and switched places with her brother. Their father quickly realized he had the wrong twin, because Emry learned twice as fast.
She was included in the lessons from then on, although Father never failed to remind her that she was learning things she could never use, which was both impractical and foolish.
Emry didn t care. She just wanted a chance to prove herself before being told no. She couldn t help being a girl any more than she could help having magic, but she d be damned if she sat home with a box of hair ribbons, letting boys have all the adventures.
It was the same with the theater. At sixteen, she d bullied the property master into letting her handle their special effects. Flammable powders and pig s blood were expensive, messy, and no longer necessary. Not if he hired her to conjure illusions of fire and blood. Even better, illusions wouldn t need to be scrubbed out of the costumes between performances. Marion, the dresser, had insisted her father hire Emry immediately, and the two girls had become fast friends. When one of the players was struck ill, it was Marion who had pointed out that Emry would fit into his costume, and Emry who had promptly lowered her voice and reeled off his dialogue with a devilish grin.
Screw being sensible, Emry thought. Being trouble is so much more fun.
Still, she could have done without Pell s coat, which was not only far too warm, but stunk of flop sweat.
That, at least, was something she could fix.
Emry closed her eyes and focused. Rosemary, she decided. With a hint of lemon. She didn t have her wand, but no matter. She pictured the wretched coat, mentally