The gorgeous cover drew me in to read the description. I like the idea of her coming into a secret world of magic but still needing to hide since her magic is different and potentially dangerous. I found myself a little disoriented by the world-building early on. In some ways Quell seems to know things about magic and yet there is a lot left unexplained in the beginning. It was a fast-paced chase for most of this excerpt, and now that Quell is at her grandmother's estate, I find myself surprised that she is not asking more questions herself and that she seemed to plan to disappear in the night, just like her mother did. I wanted to get a little more of her internal thoughts during that conversation, to know what she was feeling and why she was hesitating to commit to the Order. The description implies she stays/joins so I'm curious to see if we get those internal musings once she is alone. Definitely a good setup and interesting world!