I read this when I was rather young and impressionable, but even then this story fell a little bit flat for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the whole "high fantasy hidden in the modern world" wasn't executed especially well and the underlying conspiracy presented wasn't particularly engaging. The magical system also felt contrived, arbitrary, and meaningless, even to my young self. But more pressingly, the whole idea of predestination, natural talents, and so on and so forth were something which made me extremely uncomfortable and self-doubting back then, and really just sort of mad now. Avoid if possible.