Book excerpt: Can a straitlaced engineer, three psychic children, and a lonely witch find love? The daughter of an earl, Lady Phoebe Malcolm Duncan has the ability to talk to animals. She longs to be a veterinarian, but education requires more coin than she possesses. When the walls of her home come tumbling down, she has to take two steps back—to servitude. Inventor Andrew Blair keeps his nose to the grindstone, knowing his friends and family depend on his talent for turning machines into money. He is about to embark on his biggest investment yet—rebuilding crumbling tenements in Old Town Edinburgh— until his beleaguered cousin begs him to hide his precocious children from a killer. When the School of Malcolms sends Lady Phoebe as governess for his wards, Drew’s well-ordered beliefs are upended. Ladies don’t live in slum housing like the one he’s about to tear down, nor do they command ravens or encourage children to talk to dead mothers. It might take a vengeful ghost to show the disparate pair how to join forces, fight their fears and their enemies, and reveal a path to love.