[HareBrain]

Oog. Now, I liked this, it was engaging and had a good feel for character and family. There were some rough edges, as you know, and some of the roughness was due to matters of punctuation etc that I've pointed out in your earlier piece, so I won't do so again. I assume there's something more than pure clockwork going on with Nana Fleura? Also, I liked the French feel.

But (oh no, a but, how predictable) it reads as though it centres around, and exists purely to introduce, the backstory concept of the thirteen bad guys. And I wonder if you really want to introduce this concept so soon. Granted, it is a hook, since it's an interesting idea. I've been struggling with a similar dilemma in my own stuff - how soon to introduce the truth-behind-the-world. Isn't it more exciting for the reader to not know anything about this coven of magicians at the beginning, and only discover them along with the characters? Although you've set up a mystery here, you've also prevented yourself creating an even more intriguing one (but maybe you've thought this through better than I've given you credit for, in which case apologies).