About the book: year / Learning how to curtsy properly is one thing, and learning how to throw a dagger while curtsying properly is another. Welcome to the Institute of Excellence. Sophronia at the age of fourteen, she was an outright scourge of her mother’s existence: after all, it is much more interesting to disassemble clock mechanisms and climb trees than to adhere to etiquette while drinking tea. And, God, protect anyone who ever saw her ugly curtsey. Mrs. Rag-devil no longer expected that her daughter would become a real lady, so she decided to send her to Mademoiselle Geraldine’s Institute for the Perfection of Noble Maidens. It is unlikely that Sophronia and her mother knew that at that school, resourceful young maidens were honed to a different kind of perfection. Of course, at Mademoiselle Geraldine’s institution, pupils were taught the art of dance, elegant dressing and etiquette. But the young ladies were also improved in other skills: the art of death, deception, espionage and the use of modern weapons. And so it turned out that Sophronia and her friends had an amazing first school year.