THE LOCK-EATER

An orphan is—quelle surprise—an extremely special magical girl with a mysterious past.

Melanie thinks she’s being escorted from the Merrytrails Orphanage for Girls by gearling Traveler, a clockwork magical construct, in order to become a witch’s apprentice. But as he explains to her once they’ve left the city, that story was a bit of a fib. Traveler, who awoke in a destroyed laboratory with no memory of his own life, needs a human chaperone in order to remain under the radar, as a “thaumaturgically animated clockwork retainer” is not supposed to be a thinking person. Melanie, excited to disguise herself as the “stupendous magical prodigy Lady Porta the Periwinkle,” agrees to the plan. It’s a thrill to learn magic, to enchant her cloak into a donkey, and to get a gorgeous new wizard’s outfit from a crushworthy girl tailor. But an imperial aldermage hijacks Melanie into his own nefarious journey. (On top of having clearly villainous ends, the aldermage continually harasses her for wearing a boy’s coat instead of “gender-appropriate clothing,” though many others praise Melanie’s fashion.) Although the orphanage girls, including Melanie’s best friend who has light brown skin, are racially diverse, Melanie and almost all nonorphan humans seem to be White.

A charming entry in the magical foundling genre that satisfies without standing out.