The Ravenscroft Group under Cosima did not become soft; it became honest, which is a much harder and more frightening thing for the people who had thrived on it not being.

She had not set out to be a reformer.

She had simply spent ten years as the victim of a system built on making a person doubt herself, and she found she could not, now that the power was finally hers, bear to run one.

Chapter 17 — Proof of Survival

On a warm autumn evening some months on, Cosima and Caspian walked through the quiet gardens of Thornevale.

She wore a simple sleeveless dress.