1. The Night It Got Out The taint came up out of the undercroft on the last night of the war and it has been in the village since M...
2. The Writ The writ is two pages and the Ministry has signed the bottom of both without reading either.
3. The Circle At midnight they stand in the chalk with their hands out and nothing happens for eleven seconds.
4. Insincere On the third night the candles gutter and three of them go out at once and the seal drops like a held breath.
5. Her Room Her room is the smallest one in the school and she has not asked for a better one, which is the first thing...
6. Her List Mione has written a list. It has eleven items and the last four are crossed out and rewritten in a differen...
7. The Test She stands up and takes her dress off in the middle of a sentence, which is how you find out that she has b...
8. Under Instruction She gets on the bed and lies back and waits to be told what to do, and you understand, quite suddenly, that...
9. Two Weeks You tell her. You have wanted her since the fourth year and you have called it several other things since.
10. Afterwards She does not go to sleep and does not get dressed and sits up in the bed with the blanket round her and her...
11. What She Won't Say Afterwards she sits on the edge of the bed with her arms folded and her head down and the pin still on the ...
12. The Wrong Shape Later she is on the floor with her back against the bed frame and a snapped pencil in her hand, and she is ...
13. The Tenth Night It holds for six nights in a row after that, which Corvina says is not the same as it being safe.
14. Her Mouth It starts as a joke about the seal needing three willing people and becomes Mione on her knees on the flags...
15. The Coat Malfoid watches the two of you for a night and then, on the twelfth, takes Mione's wrist in the corridor an...
16. The Circle, Third Night Running On the fourteenth Malfoid does it inside the chalk, deliberately, with the candles lit, because she says th...
17. Fifteenth Fifteen is a bad idea executed well, and it takes them two attempts and a great deal of swearing about whos...
18. The End of the Bed Seventeen is Malfoid bent over the end of a bed with her cheek on the sheet, saying that this is the least ...
19. Face to Face Nineteen is the two of them without you, which neither of them planned and neither of them mentions afterwa...
20. Twenty-First On the twenty-first Malfoid takes you into the hall before midnight and lies down on a folded coat inside t...
21. Twenty-Third Mione asks for it on the twenty-third in the way she asks for everything, which is by producing a list of r...
22. Twenty-Fifth Corvina leaves a locked case outside Mione's door with a note that says only that it was her mother's and t...
23. Twenty-Seventh Twenty-seven is Malfoid on her back on the flagstones with her legs wide and both of them above her and nei...
24. The Twenty-Ninth They stop counting on the twenty-ninth and just stay in the hall, all three of them, on the coats and the b...
25. The Margin Mione reads the writ again on the last morning, all of it, including the margin, which nobody reads.
26. Household Corvina says a household in this country means a bond with three names on it and no ceremonies and no clerg...
27. Three Lines The page is on a stone table in the hall, with a dip pen and nothing else in the world, and three ruled lin...
28. The Thirty-First Night The Ministry party comes through the gate at nine and finds four people in a hall and a seal still holding.
29. Ending — Household Three names go on the page in three different hands and Corvina witnesses it and the seal goes quiet all at...
30. Ending — Every Winter They leave the page blank and the gate opens and the taint stays where it is, and the seal holds for a year...
31. Ending — The Gate You walk out through the gate in the morning with a bag and do not look back, and nobody in the hall says y...