“We must blame the accursed Howard Mickelmas, my dear girl. He’s the one who thought it such fun to rip a hole in time and space, to summon those evil Ancients from some far, distant world. He’s to blame, along with that witch, that Mary Willoughby. They ruined it for the rest of us.” He sighed. “Did you know that magicians flourished back in the Golden Age, when good Queen Elizabeth was alive? We were the most learned, the most ambitious. We were the future.”
