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Excerpt Reveal: He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker-Chan

May 22, 2023May 17, 2023a cat

The sequel and series conclusion to She Who Became the Sun, the accomplished, poetic debut of war and destiny, sweeping across an epic alternate China. Mulan meets The Song of Achilles.

How much would you give to win the world?

Zhu Yuanzhang, the Radiant King, is riding high after her victory that tore southern China from its Mongol masters. Now she burns with a new desire: to seize the throne and crown herself emperor.

But Zhu isn’t the only one with imperial ambitions. Her neighbor in the south, the courtesan Madam Zhang, wants the throne for her husband—and she’s strong enough to wipe Zhu off the map. To stay in the game, Zhu will have to gamble everything on a risky alliance with an old enemy: the talented but unstable eunuch general Ouyang, who has already sacrificed everything for a chance at revenge on his father’s killer, the Great Khan.

Unbeknownst to the southerners, a new contender is even closer to the throne. The scorned scholar Wang Baoxiang has maneuvered his way into the capital, and his lethal court games threaten to bring the empire to its knees. For Baoxiang also desires revenge: to become the most degenerate Great Khan in history—and in so doing, make a mockery of every value his Mongol warrior family loved more than him.

All the contenders are determined to do whatever it takes to win. But when desire is the size of the world, the price could be too much for even the most ruthless heart to bear…

Please enjoy this free excerpt of He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker-Chan, on sale 8/22/23

Chapter 1

BORDER OF THE KINGDOMS OF ZHU YUANZHANG AND THE ZHANG FAMILY
EIGHTH MONTH, 1356

“Surely it requires no extended consideration,” the woman’s voice said from behind the stirring gauze curtain of the carriage. “Why not give me your answer now, Zhu Yuanzhang, and save us both the time?”

Even here, far from the sea, the plain beneath the carriage’s hilltop vantage point blazed white with salt as though the wealth of the woman’s kingdom overflowed without restraint. The hot tiger tail of the southern summer had vanished the shallow lake that usually lay here on the border between the two territories. Above their armies, quickening flags dashed colored reflections onto the expanse. Yellow, for the rebel army of the Radiant King. Green for the Zhang merchant family, the former loyalists of the Empire of the Great Yuan, who had finally broken with their Mongol rulers that spring and proclaimed their rule over the salt and shipping lanes of the eastern seaboard.

Zhu Yuanzhang, her golden king’s armor and gilded wooden hand matching the color of the grass under her horse’s hooves, saw the generals of the opposing armies walking towards each other with deliberate courtesy. Their small noonday shadows sliced over the shattering crust beneath their boots.

To the casual eye there was little between the two generals to set them apart. Two winged helmets in the Nanren style, two sets of lamellar armor with the dark leather taking in the sun and the metal lion’s-head bosses on their shoulders sending it flashing back like mirror signals. But to Zhu, whose general was her brother in all but blood, their distant shapes were as easily distinguished as two faces. That was Xu Da’s unmonkishly tall frame, his joyful stride that of a young man eager to taste the world. The other, General Zhang, of lesser height and build, but carrying himself with the reserved confidence of a man with the life experience of Zhu and her general put together. Zhu knew just how quickly General Zhang had moved after his family’s separation from the Yuan. In the space of a few months he had taken all the remaining cities along the southern reaches of the Grand Canal and moved the Zhang family’s capital to walled Pingjiang on the eastern shore of Lake Tai. Now all that separated the Zhangs in the east from Zhu’s own kingdom in the west was a stretch of flatlands in the curve of the mighty Yangzi River as it wound its way to the sea.

“Surrender to me,” said the woman behind the curtain. Her voice had a throaty quality, low and flirtatious. It was a voice for a closed room, velveted with suggestion: that though they were strangers who had only just met, perhaps they were moments from becoming as known to each other as two bodies could be. It was one of those tactics that worked only as long as the calculation underneath it remained unseen. Zhu, who not only saw it but also considered herself generally immune to the urges of physical desire, was interested to feel a mild tug in response. As someone lacking in femininity herself, it had never occurred to her that it could be weaponized. The novelty of having it wielded against herself amused and impressed her in almost equal measure.

On the plain the two generals inclined their heads in respect; conveyed and received the formal message of surrender; and withdrew. Their tracks lay bruised blue behind them.

Zhu finally turned to her interlocutor. “Greetings to the esteemed Madam Zhang.”

“I see you refuse my title,” the woman said archly.

“Why shouldn’t I, when you refuse mine?” Zhu returned. The snap of words sent a current of vitality through her. It was the delight of power mixed with play, as thrilling to her as the tang of brine in her nose and the hot wild wind that snapped her banners and sent the grass rushing and leaping down the hillsides. In a tone of matching archness, she added, “Perhaps my surrender is better given to he who holds the true title. Your husband, the king. I would rather be received face-to-face by my equal than by his honorable wife speaking from behind a curtain of propriety.”

The woman gave a manicured laugh. “Don’t worry. Your surrender will be given correctly. My husband’s reputation may precede him, but a weak man, well managed, is a woman’s greatest strength.” A shadow rippled against the gauze, as if the woman had leaned close. Her lowered voice issued an invitation for Zhu to lean down from her horse, to let her ear drift so close to those murmuring lips that she might have felt each syllable on her skin had it not been for the thin barrier between them. “I don’t think you’re a weak man, Zhu Yuanzhang. But your position is weak. What hope can you have against my larger army; against my general who was even hailed as an equal by the Yuan’s own feared General Ouyang?

“Give me your surrender. Bring your forces under my command. Instead of waiting for the Yuan to send their Grand Councilor and that central army of theirs to put us down, we’ll march on Dadu together. We’ll take their capital, and the throne. And when my husband is emperor, he’ll grant you the title of your choosing. Duke, prince? It will be yours.”

Zhu responded dryly, “When the histories are written, such a title will surely commend me to their authors as a great man.”

The men she and Madam Zhang had each brought here were only for show. This was a meeting, not a battle. But Zhu was under no illusions about her situation. Her army, an infantry dominated force built from the former Red Turban rebellion and additional peasant recruits, was barely half the size of the Zhangs’ well-equipped professional army. And with the exception of her capital, Yingtian, none of the dozen cities she held in the south could match even the poorest of the Zhang family’s canal-linked economic centers. It was clear what the outcome of a battle would be. Had their positions been reversed, Zhu would have counted herself the victor and demanded surrender, just as her opponent was doing now.

Madam Zhang murmured, “Is that what you want? To be great?” Her tone was as smooth as the trailing caress of finger tips along skin. “Then accept me, and let me make it happen.”

Greatness. Zhu had wanted it her entire life. With a certainty as crisp as shadow cast across salt, she knew it would always be everything she wanted. She straightened in the saddle and gazed eastwards over the sweep of the Zhang family’s realm. The wind rushing against her from that distant tawny horizon seemed to bring it close; it turned that abstract line into something palpable, something fiercely visceral. Reachable. The thought filled Zhu with sharp joy. Stationary and yet soaring on her hilltop, she had the curious sensation of seeing her entire path to her future stretching before her. From her eagle’s vantage she could see there were no true obstacles on that path—only small bumps that would barely check her as she ran headlong towards her goal.

With a surge of delight, she said to the faceless woman behind the curtain, “I don’t want to be great.”

She savored the pause as Madam Zhang’s mind churned, wondering what she had misunderstood about Zhu’s character, where she had gone wrong with her seduction.

The stump of Zhu’s arm ached inside the too-tight cuff of her wooden hand. But that discomfort, and the daily repercussions of being a one-handed man in a two-handed world, was merely the cost of her desire, and Zhu was strong enough to bear it. She was strong enough to bear anything, or to do anything, for the sake of what she wanted.

“Then—” Madam Zhang began.

“I don’t want to be great,” Zhu repeated. Her desire was the radiance of the sun, an immensity that filled every part of her without exception. Who else understood what it was to feel something of this magnitude; to want something with the entirety of their self, as she did? “I want to be the greatest.”

Sparkling crystalline eddies scrubbed across the bare surface of the plain. Life-sustaining salt that, in such concentration, became life-denying.

“I see,” Madam Zhang said after a moment. Her flirtatiousness had taken on a sheen of disdain, and Zhu had the mental image of the door to a private room slamming in her face. “I forgot how young you are. Young people are always too ambitious. They haven’t yet learned the limits of what’s possible.”

Lacquered fingernails tapped the inner frame of the carriage, signaling the driver. As the carriage moved off, Madam Zhang said, “We’ll meet again. But before we do, let this elder tell you something. Cast your eye upon my general down below. What respect does he lack from the world around him, for his manner, his appearance, his accomplishments? The natural place of a man like that is above others. You would do well to consider your own natural place, Zhu Yuanzhang. If the world can barely stand to let its eye fall upon a man as lacking as you, do you think it would accept you on the throne? Only a fool would risk everything for the impossible.”

Zhu watched the carriage wheel away down the hill. If Madam Zhang had known the true extent of Zhu’s physical lacks-which, as far as matters of masculine anatomy went, included more than broad shoulders or a right hand—no doubt she’d have considered even Zhu’s present accomplishments to have been impossible. But if you were determined to want the impossible, there was a better way to get it. Zhu thought with amused defiance: Change the world, and make it possible.

Pre-order He Who Drowned the World Here:

Excerpts / What's New

Excerpt Reveal: Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher

May 19, 2023April 8, 2024a cat1 Comment

From USA Today bestselling author T. Kingfisher, Thornhedge is the tale of a kind-hearted, toad-shaped heroine, a gentle knight, and a mission gone completely sideways.

A very special hardcover edition, featuring foil stamp on the casing and custom endpapers illustrated by the author.

There’s a princess trapped in a tower. This isn’t her story.

Meet Toadling. On the day of her birth, she was stolen from her family by the fairies, but she grew up safe and loved in the warm waters of faerieland. Once an adult though, the fae ask a favor of Toadling: return to the human world and offer a blessing of protection to a newborn child. Simple, right?

But nothing with fairies is ever simple.

Centuries later, a knight approaches a towering wall of brambles, where the thorns are as thick as your arm and as sharp as swords. He’s heard there’s a curse here that needs breaking, but it’s a curse Toadling will do anything to uphold…

Please enjoy this free excerpt of Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher, on sale 8/15/23

Chapter 1

In the early days, the wall of thorns had been distressingly obvious. There was simply no way to hide a hedge with thorns like sword blades and stems as thick as a man’s thigh. A wall like that invited curiosity and with curiosity came axes, and it was all the fairy could do to keep some of those curious folk from gaining entrance to the tower.

Eventually, though, the brambles had grown up around the edges—blackberry and briar and dog rose, all the weedy opportunists—and that softened the edge of the thorn wall and gave the fairy some breathing room. Roving princes and penniless younger sons had been fascinated by the thorns, which were so obviously there to keep people out. Hardly anybody was interested in a bramble thicket.

It helped, too, that the land around the thorns became inhospitable. It was nothing so obvious as a desert, but wells ran dry practically as soon as they had been dug, and rain passed through the soil as if it were sand instead of loam. That was the fairy’s doing, too, though she regretted the necessity.

The fairy was the greenish-tan color of mushroom stems and her skin bruised blue-black, like mushroom flesh. She had a broad, frog-like face and waterweed hair. She was neither beautiful nor made of malice, as many of the Fair Folk are said to be.

Mostly she was fretful and often tired.

“How do they know?” she asked miserably. “Everyone who knew her should be dead of old age by now—them and their children, too! Their grandchildren should be gray-haired. How do they even remember there’s a tower here?”

She was talking, more or less, to a white wagtail, a little bird that liked short grass and pumped its tail constantly as it walked. Wagtails were not so clever as rooks or jackdaws or carrion crows, but the fairy liked them. They did not make fun of her like the crows would, nor carry tales the way that the rooks did.

The wagtail scurried closer, pumping its tail up and down.

“They must be telling stories,” said the fairy hopelessly. “About a princess in a tower and a hedge of thorns to keep the princes out.”

She wiped her eyes. She knew that her eyelids were turning blue-black in response to the unshed tears.

There was no one to see her except the wagtail, but she pinched the bridge of her nose and tilted her head back anyway. The old habits were still with her.

“I can’t fight stories,” she whispered, and a few tears, dark as ink, ran down her face and tangled in her hair.

But time did pass and perhaps the stories were told less often. Fewer men came to the thorn hedge with axes. The wagtails left, because they preferred open country, and the fairy was sorry to see them go. Jays moved in, flitting through the thorns and blistering the air with their scolds. They were shy and spooked easily, for all their cursing. The fairy recognized kindred spirits, as she still spooked easily herself.

As the years trickled away and the thorns filled with dog roses, her soul grew easier. There were stones inside her heart that would never stop grinding together, but they did not weigh so heavily in the years when no princes came.

The fairy was filled with dread when she heard the ringing of nearby axes. She crouched in the brambles, toad- shaped, motionless, thinking, What will I do if they come nearer?

But they did not come nearer. They cut a road through the woods but gave the brambles a wide swath. The tower had been built on a rocky hill—a good, defensible place for a castle, but not a good place for a road. The axe bearers cut south instead, in a long curve, over what had once been fields held by the plow.

The fairy was afraid for a long time that the coming of the road would mean the coming of more princes and younger sons, but mostly what it brought were merchants and travelers. None seemed interested in forcing their way through a massive bramble thicket, and perhaps none of them made the connection about how much land the brambles covered, or stopped to wonder what such a dense growth might conceal. She watched the travelers with interest, for those were the only human faces—save one—that she saw. They were so very different, in so many different shapes and colors. Pale, fair-haired men striding down from the north and dark- skinned men in beautiful armor riding in on horses from the east. Men in caravans who looked like the old royal family, serfs and peasants in homespun, the Traveling Folk in their wagons—a great cross section of humanity who would pass one another on the road and nod and sometimes stop and speak in unfamiliar languages.

(One of the few kind gifts given to and by the Fair Folk is the ability to speak any of the languages of the earth. The fairy could understand what they were saying, but while the words were familiar, the rest was not. She did not recognize the names of the cities they spoke of, nor the kings nor caliphs, and the details of taxation and trade law were beyond her.)

The tide of people grew and grew, and a trade house went up a few miles away. The fairy could see the smoke of it in the sky. She knotted her fingers together and huddled under the thorn hedge to escape the gnawing fear.

“Let them not come,” she prayed. She had been told that the Fair Folk were without souls, and probably that applied to her as well, a befuddled creature betwixt and between. Still, just in case, she prayed. “Let them not come here. Let them not clear the thorns. I do not know how many of them I can hold off. Please keep them away. Um. Amen.”

She added the last worriedly, not sure if that made it a prayer or if she was supposed to be doing something else. The royal family’s priest had been reasonably accepting of her presence, but that tolerance had not extended to teaching her how to make a prayer correctly.

Perhaps something heard her prayer. The flow of people slowed to a trickle. The merchants stopped coming. The fairy saw only a few people. There were men in great bird-like masks and dark, tightly fitted clothes that gleamed with wax. They strode by like herons, like birds of prey, and the fairy cowered away from them. There was something about the masks that were too much like the faces of the elder Fair Folk.

Even so, she preferred the bird-men to the screamers. They traveled in groups, half-naked, shrieking like animals. Sometimes they struck themselves with ropes of thorns, howling as the blood flowed, then cackling with laughter. They stank of madness. One ran a little way into the brambles, tearing his skin on the thorns, and then staggered out again.

The fairy, toad-shaped, waited until the rains had come and gone before she came near those brambles again. What- ever madness had infected the screamers, she would not risk contact with it.

After a time, there were neither bird-men nor screamers. There was no one at all. The road filled with weeds.

The fairy, who had been afraid of humans, now began to miss them. Not the screamers or the bird-men, but the others who had come before. They had been company of a sort, even if they did not know she was there.

She slept more and more. The jays stole shiny things from each other’s nests but found no new ones.

The seasons chased one another, and a day came when she heard hoofbeats. Men coming from the east, on their fine-boned horses, riding down the ruined road. They wore no armor. There were two bird-men in their midst, also on horses, and they were riding hard as if afraid.

After that, the floodgates opened. Men and women came streaming from the east, and then back from the west, on horses and on foot, in wagons and caravans. Sometimes they rode with knights carrying banners with red crosses on them.

When they spoke to each other, she heard words like plague and graves and so many dead.

The fairy curled into a ball and wept for the dead, and yet a tiny, nagging voice said, Perhaps the story of the tower will die with them.

It was a terrible thing to be glad that whole cities had died. It must be true, thought the fairy bleakly. I must not have a soul, to be relieved even a little. And she cried even more, until the ground was black with tears.

The weeds were trampled down again, in time, and the traffic became more normal. The style of clothing changed and changed again, and the Traveling Folk came again in their wagons, and still no one ventured into the brambles for a long, long time.

━━ ˖°˖ ☾☆☽ ˖°˖ ━━━━━━━

It was many years later that a knight came up to the edge of the hedge and stood there, gazing inward. The fairy was broadly aware when people came too near the hedge, with a sensation like a mosquito on her skin. This one stung and she crept toward it, first toad-shaped, then woman-shaped, seeking the source.

She found a campfire, and the knight camped beside it. It was not yet full dark, and he stood with his back to the flame, looking at the brambles.

The fairy did not like that look. It had too much behind it. He was actually looking at the thorn hedge and thinking about it, and that might lead to questions about what was on the other side.

Go away, she thought. Go away. Quit looking. They can’t be telling stories, not now. It’s been so long . . .

Eventually he turned back to the fire. The fairy crept closer.

By the make of his equipment, he was a . . . Saracen? Was that the word? She could not quite remember. But she recognized a knight well enough, whatever his faith.

He was not terribly tall, and his armor was clean but well-worn. His horse had good bones, but the tack was nearly scraped through with cleanliness. The curved sword by his side had empty sockets instead of gems.

It all spoke of genteel poverty, a state that she had come to associate with younger sons of nobility. The firelight fell kindly but did nothing to dispel the shadows under his eyes, and a well-trimmed beard could not quite hide the hollowness of his cheekbones. Even so, he was probably vastly wealthy compared to her. Toads had little use for coin, which was just as well, because she didn’t have any. Even in the days when she had lived within the keep with other people, no one would have thought to pay a fairy.

On the other hand, she could eat worms and beetles and sleep under a stone, which humans could not, so perhaps it balanced out.

He’ll leave tomorrow morning, she told herself. He’s search- ing for a place to camp that won’t cost any money—that’s all.

She wrapped her arms around herself. That’s all—

His head lifted, and for a moment, he was gazing directly at her hiding place.

Her first instinct was to go to toad shape, but that would have meant another motion, even a small one, as she dropped to the earth. Instead, she stayed absolutely still, unmoving, not even drawing breath.

The fire crackled. He looked away.

She exhaled, very slowly, through her mouth. When his back is turned, toad shape, she told herself. And then away. I don’t need to see any more. He’ll be gone in the morning.

Eventually he turned to care for his horse, and she dropped to the leaves. The hard, warty toad skin enveloped her, and she hopped slowly away.

━━ ˖°˖ ☾☆☽ ˖°˖ ━━━━━━━

He was not gone in the morning.

She was up at dawn, fretting, waiting for him to move on, and he had the unmitigated gall to sleep in.

“You’re a knight,” she grumbled. “Aren’t you supposed to be off jousting or toppling citadels for some noble purpose or something?”

Apparently, he was getting a late start on the citadel. The morning was half-over before he rose, and it was nearly noon before he had finished mending a stray bit of bridle and finally saddled his horse.

And then he didn’t get on it. He took it by the reins and walked.

She trailed at a distance, waiting for him to head to the road.

He didn’t.

He walked along the edge of the brambles, always looking inward, skirting the areas where the briars grew thickly in the hollows. On one particular rise, where the hedge of brambles was thin, he stopped.

He dropped his horse’s reins over its head, ground tying it, and then prowled in front of the hedge. Looking.

The fairy could have screamed.

She took shelter under a fallen log farther down the slope and watched him watching the wall.

What’s he searching for? Is he trying to find a way in?

She found herself gazing past him at the thorn wall, trying to imagine what he was seeing. Surely there was nothing there to hint at the tower inside—the roof had been pulled off by the briars long ago, and what remained was cloaked in trees. It looked like a tall thicket on a hillside, surrounded by a bramble patch.

If you looked in exactly the right place, you might see a few lines a little too straight to be a tree trunk—but you had to know exactly where to look.

He can’t see that. I can barely see it, and I remember when the tower was new. Oh, why won’t he go away?

He did not go away. He led his horse onward, making a slow circuit of the thorn hedge. The fairy followed.

By the time evening came, he had returned to his original campsite. He set his horse to graze and built up the fire again.

If he doesn’t leave on his own, she thought, I will have to drive him off. Spook his horse. Tie elf-knots in his hair. Something.

He turned and glanced up at the sky, orange light paint- ing the side of his face. He did not look like a man who would be easily driven away by elf-knots.

I could turn into a toad at him. Or . . . um . . .

She raked her hands through her hair. She had so few powers, and the ones she had were mostly tied up inside what was left of the tower. Now . . . well, she could call up fish. Fish would probably not help the situation. She could try to talk a kelpie into helping her, but they were wild, and anyway, she would have to go somewhere that had kelpies, and that would involve leaving the keep unguarded.

I will start with elf-knots, she told herself firmly. Lots and lots of them. It will take him a week to comb his hair.

When he had banked the fire and settled down, when his breathing had become slow and even, she slunk into the open. She would have felt safer in toad shape, but elf-knots required fingers.

The campsite was full of deep-blue shadows. A true fairy—one of the Fair Folk by birth and blood—could have folded themselves into the smallest of those shadows and become as invisible as a spiderweb.

She was not so gifted. She could only go quietly, setting her bare feet where there were no twigs or leaves to give her away.

The knight did not move. His hands were curled neatly beside his head.

She crouched over him, the least likely of predators, and listened to his breathing.

When several minutes had passed without movement, she gave a soundless sigh and her shoulders slumped with relief.

He had thick, curly hair—the perfect sort of thing for elf-knots. The fairy stretched out her fingers and touched a single strand.

It flexed and shivered, slowly teasing away from its companions. She frowned with concentration.

Like an impossibly slender serpent, the hair began to move on its own. It tangled around the lock of hair closest to it, doubled back on itself, tangled again.

She flicked her fingers again and a second hair joined the first, then a third. They snaked in and out, drawing others with them.

Half knot, half braid, the resulting knot grew larger, binding together dozens of individual hairs, then hundreds.

When a section of his hair as thick as her thumb was a solid mat, she sat back on her heels and let out her breath.

It’s been so long. But I always was good at elf-knots—

His hand closed gently over her wrist.

“Are you quite done?” asked the knight.

Pre-order Thornhedge Here:

Excerpts / What's New

Excerpt Reveal: Contrarian by L. E. Modesitt, Jr.

May 15, 2023May 3, 2023a cat

L. E. Modesitt, Jr., bestselling author of Saga of Recluce and the Imager Portfolio, continues his gaslamp political fantasy series which began with Isolate and Councilor. Welcome to the Grand Illusion

In Contrarian, protests against unemployment and poor harvests have become armed riots as the people sink deeper into poverty. They look to a government struggling to emerge from corruption and conspiracy.

Recently elected to the Council of Sixty-Six, Steffan Dekkard is the first Councilor who is an Isolate, a man invulnerable to the emotional manipulations and emotional surveillance of empaths—but not the recent bombing of the Council Office Building by insurrectionists.

His patron, the Premier of the Council, has been assassinated, leaving Dekkard with little first-hand political experience and few political allies.

Not only must Dekkard handle political infighting, and continued assassination attempts, but it appears that someone high up in the government and corporations has supplied arms and explosives to insurrectionists.

Insurrectionists who have succeeded in taking over a naval cruiser that no one can seem to find.

Please enjoy this free excerpt of Contrarian by L. E. Modesitt, Jr., on sale 8/15/23

Chapter 1

Duadi

32 Winterfirst 1267

Dekkard glanced out the carriage window at the ironway station platform, the predawn darkness only dimly lit by the tall gas lamps, then back toward the slender but trimly muscular black-haired woman sitting beside him on the dark blue velvet seat. “Well, Ritten Ysella-Dekkard, how does it feel to embark on the next major event of our life?”

“We’ve had enough major events already, dear,” she replied in the slightly sweet tone that suggested he was edging toward a spoutstorm.

“Buying a house together in Gaarlak will be a major domestic event,” he replied in a tone he hoped was conciliatory, “not a catastrophic one like the shelling of the Council Office Building.” And the assassination of the Premier. The man who had given him the chance to become a councilor— and to meet Avraal. If only . . . but who could have foreseen the method of the Meritorist attack?

Avraal shook her head. “I’d never thought we’d end up where we are.”

“I certainly never expected to be a councilor, or to be married to an empath who’s descended from ancient royalty,” Dekkard replied wryly.

“Everyone’s forgotten about the kings of Aloor . . . except my father and brother.”

The first-class steward, wearing a deep blue uniform trimmed with silver piping, strode down the center corridor, saying, “The express will be leaving immediately.”

Less than a minute later, a steam whistle sounded, and with a slight jolt, the carriage began to move.

Since there was little to see through the wide window, at least not clearly, Dekkard studied, as best he could in the dim light, the wooden paneling, a dark stained cherry, rather than the yellow cedar, or even the older black walnut. “I think the paneling in this carriage is the new cherry, most likely from dowry lands Jareem Saarh sold to Guldoran Ironway.”

“He’ll end up losing everything in the long run, and I wouldn’t care in the slightest, except that it wouldn’t be fair to Maelle.”

“At the Yearend Ball, he did say that she was likely running the lands better than he could.”

“He believed it. I could sense that,” replied Avraal. “For her sake, I hope he was right . . . but he’s been wrong about more than a few things, like getting together with Palafaux and Schmidtz.”

“Exactly, and I have the feeling that that trio has something else planned.”

“No doubt connected to Ulrich and Siincleer Shipbuilding. Speaking of those two . . . do you think Ulrich might have been the one behind that story in the Tribune?”

“Our most honorable former premier, who likely ordered the assassination of his devoted former aide to keep anyone from tying corporacion aid to the New Meritorists? How could you possibly believe that?” Dekkard’s voice dripped with sardonicism.

“I don’t feel that sorry for Jaime Minz, not after the times he tried to get others to kill you, and his funneling explosives to the New Meritorists. But still . . . he did all of Ulrich’s dirty work, and Ulrich or one of his cronies just disposed of him like that, and no one’s even looking at Ulrich.”

“Guard Captain Trujillo is, but there’s no hard evidence,” Dekkard pointed out. “Just like with Lamarr’s and Decaro’s deaths. I still wonder about how much Jens Seigryn was involved with Decaro’s death.” Thinking of the Craft Party political coordinator for the Gaarlak district, Dekkard couldn’t help but shake his head. “I wasn’t the one who schemed to make me councilor instead of him. That was Gretna Haarl, and I didn’t even know about it. Jens had to know that.”

“I’m not sure that will make him any happier. I don’t like it that you had to use him to organize tomorrow’s breakfast meeting with all the guildmeisters.”

“What else could we do? We don’t have much choice, not with so little time, especially since he’s the Advisory Committee’s representative in Gaarlak, in addition to being the Craft Party coordinator.”

“I still wish there had been another way, without involving him.” Avraal frowned. “I’ll be carrying my knives, and so will you.”

“All the time now. I did bring my personal truncheon, in case it appears necessary.” He smiled wryly. “It may be that the safest place I’ll be is at Plainfields on Findi afternoon.”

“It was kind of Emilio and Patriana to invite us for an early dinner.”

“I suspect he wants to hear about the Landor councilors we both know. Patriana may not miss his being a councilor, but I suspect he does at times.”

After a short silence, Avraal said, “How do you think Nincya and Emrelda will get along?”

“Without us there, you mean? They’ll do fine. Nincya respects your sister, and she’s enough of an empath that she can sense if something’s troubling Emrelda, and Emrelda’s direct without being overbearing. If you want to worry about something, worry about whether we can find a decent house in the right place.” Dekkard shook his head. “I just hope that the property legalist that Namoor Desharra recommended understands our particular situation.”

“Our limitations, you mean?”

“I know your parents gave you that personal bond, but . . .” I don’t want you using it all, even if we do have to buy something in Gaarlak because I’m a councilor.

“Stop feeling guilty. Part of the reason they sent it was because I married a man whom they could brag about, rather than avoid talking about.”

“As in,” Dekkard continued in an archly haughty tone, imitating an arrogant Landor, “‘Avraal did marry a councilor of the Sixty-Six, not quite the same as a Landor heir, but given that she’s an empath, she did quite well’?”

Avraal tried . . . and failed . . . to hide a sardonically amused smile. “You did that rather well . . . almost like Cliven.”

Dekkard winced.

Avraal laughed, then leaned over and kissed his cheek.

━━ ˖°˖ ☾☆☽ ˖°˖ ━━━━━━━

Chapter 2

Just before the first morning bell, Dekkard and Avraal left their second-floor room at the Ritter’s Inn and started down the wide staircase, the heavy maroon carpeting on the steps muffling the sound of their boots.

Dekkard hadn’t slept well after waking up in the middle of the night from another nightmare about the shelling of the Council Office Building. At least the nightmares are getting less frequent. With that thought, he looked out over the lobby, but didn’t yet see Jens Seigryn.

For the coming breakfast meeting, Dekkard wore one of his gray winter suits with the red cravat unofficially suggesting a councilor, while Avraal wore a conservative dark blue suit with trousers and a light blue head-scarf, draped over her shoulders. She also wore a golden lapel pin with a small red stone in the center, a quiet but necessary statement that she was a certified security empath.

Dekkard couldn’t help noticing that the brass lighting fixtures on the wall didn’t seem quite as well-polished as when they had stayed at the inn the previous summer. He also hoped he could put the names he’d studied to the faces of the guildmeisters he and Avraal would shortly encounter, since they’d only met several briefly.

From the staircase, the two walked across the smooth dark gray slate floor, past the small restaurant, already more than half full, toward the private dining room.

Jens Seigryn—short and wiry, with thinning brown hair and a high forehead—waited beside the open door. As he caught sight of the couple, he smiled broadly.

“Steffan, Avraal . . . or should I say Councilor and Ritten?”

“Steffan and Avraal is fine, Jens,” said Dekkard cheerfully. “I appreciate your arranging the breakfast for us, especially on such short notice.”

“That’s what political coordinators do. Everyone wanted to come, and that’s unusual.” Seigryn paused. “Gretna Haarl . . . insisted . . .”

“That she wanted to be seated next to me . . . or Avraal?”

Seigryn looked surprised at Dekkard’s last words. “Avraal . . . you really thought she might want to be next to Avraal?”

“It was a definite possibility. When she wrote to congratulate me, she only had two questions. When was I coming to Gaarlak and was I smart enough to listen to Avraal.” That wasn’t how Haarl had written it, but it was definitely what she’d meant. Then Dekkard looked directly at Seigryn. “I trust you know that I had no idea what Gretna had in mind.”

Seigryn smiled ruefully. “I knew that from the moment she became guildmeister she wouldn’t support anyone either Axel or I proposed. You were the only one of those she proposed that anyone else would accept.” After a moment, he went on, his voice both subdued and slightly cautious.

“Later, when you have a moment, could we talk . . . about Axel?”

“We’d be more than happy to. He always spoke well of you.”

“Thank you.” After a momentary hesitation, Seigryn said, “We’d better go in . . . several of the guildmeisters are already here.”

“Including Gretna?” asked Avraal.

“She was the first.”

Seigryn led the way into the private dining room, just an oblong chamber some eight yards long and six wide. Dark oak paneled the walls below the chair rail, with cream plaster walls above the rail. The maroon carpeting was the same as that on the main stairs, and the crown molding matched the carpet.

Three people stood beside the large round table, set with silver cutlery and a plain white linen cloth. Dekkard immediately picked out the thin, almost frail figure of Gretna Haarl, and the stocky Yorik Haansel of the Stonemasons, but had to mentally struggle a moment to place the other woman before finally coming up with the name of Arleena Desenns, the head of the Weavers Guild.

“Councilor and Ritten Dekkard were a bit early,” announced Seigryn. “We’ll wait a few more minutes before we sit down, but I thought you’d all like a few words.”

Dekkard immediately went to Gretna Haarl, smiled, and said, “I got here at the first opportunity, and, as I wrote you, I’d already taken your counsel in not letting go of Avraal.”

“You’ve been a most pleasant surprise as a councilor, Steffan,” replied Haarl. “You pushed through Security reforms. Myram Plassar tells me you’re pushing reforms for working women.”

“We’re also working on broader pay reform legislation. That might take longer.” Dekkard regretted that Plassar couldn’t have been at the breakfast, but since she was only a regional steward and not a guildmeister, her inclusion would have raised the hackles of the other regional stewards, and including everyone would have made the breakfast too large . . . and too costly for his expense account.

“That’s good to hear.” Haarl looked to Avraal. “How much of that was your idea?”

Avraal smiled. “Steffan came up with it all.”

“Not that she hasn’t been encouraging . . . and kept me from making certain mistakes,” added Dekkard.

“Amazing . . . a man with initiative who also listens.”

“It happens occasionally.” Dekkard gave a slight chuckle, then sobered. “Premier Obreduur did both.”

“Look where it got him,” interjected Yorik Haansel, who then smiled at Dekkard and added, “It’s good to see you here, Councilor.”

“As I said, I came as soon as it was possible.”

“The newssheets said that the Meritorists destroyed your office. How did you escape and Premier Obreduur didn’t?” asked Haansel. “There was some question . . .”

Dekkard managed to maintain a pleasant expression, despite his dismay at the possibility that the Tribune story had reached Gaarlak. “They fired at his office first and at mine last. When I heard and saw the first explosion I got my staff out of the office and into the stone-walled stairwell. The attack didn’t last more than ten minutes.”

“Why did they stop that soon?” asked Haarl.

“Either their makeshift steam cannon or one of their handmade shells exploded as they fired, and that destroyed the cannon, any remaining explosives, and them. Otherwise, it could have been much, much worse.” Dekkard saw two more guildmeisters arrive—Alastan Cleese, of the Farmworkers, and Charlana Boetcher, who had replaced Johan Lamarr as guildmeister of the Crafters.

Jens Seigryn closed the door to the private dining room and walked toward the table. Then he stopped and said, “If you’d find your seats . . . we’ll have the blessing.” Seigryn nodded to Dekkard. “Councilor . . .”

From his time visiting and campaigning with Obreduur, Dekkard knew that the Trinitarian faith was stronger in smaller cities, and that a blessing before a meal was expected. He found the card bearing his name and stood behind the chair while the others sorted themselves out. He did notice that Avraal was across the table from him flanked by Gretna Haarl and Arleena Desenns, while Charlana Boetcher stood on his right and Alastan Cleese on his left.

Dekkard bowed his head slightly, then began. “Almighty and Trinity of Love, Power, and Mercy, in this time of trial and upheaval, we thank you for the solidity you bring to this world. We humbly ask that you grant us the wisdom to see illusions for what they are and to understand that all material goods are fleeting vanities, and that the greatest vanity of all is to seek and hoard power, rather than to share it in doing good. We humbly ask you to bless this gathering and the food we will partake, in the name of the Three in One.”

“The Three in One,” murmured those around the table.

“Good short blessing,” declared Yorik Haansel to no one in particular, as he sat down between Boetcher and Desenns.

Immediately, servers appeared and poured café for everyone, then provided two platters of croissants, and one with ham strips.

“Councilor,” began Cleese, as soon as everyone had served themselves, his tone of voice almost apologetic, “I’m sure you’ve followed the weather . . .”

“It’s been terrible all across Guldor. I’ve been worried about the impact on farmworkers and what will happen to food prices.”

“You say that so easily . . .”

“I’m not casual about it. There have been at least four large disturbances in Machtarn in recent weeks over food prices. One ended in such violence that an entire block burned to the ground, and a score of people died. Girls are selling themselves on the streets in poor neighborhoods to earn marks for food. That doesn’t count events in other cities across Guldor. I imagine similar problems have happened in Gaarlak. That’s one reason we’re here. I need to know what I don’t see and the newssheets don’t cover.”

“You were elected two months ago.”

“Alastan,” said Desenns, “stop being a complete idiot. The councilor is new. Despite that, he did manage to pass reforms to get rid of the Security Ministry. Last year you were complaining about that. Don’t you read the newssheets? He’s been the target of the New Meritorists and the Commercers. His office was destroyed. The Council has been in session the whole time since he was elected. What exactly do you expect?”

“We’ve still got problems here, Arleena. Close to a quarter of my farmworkers don’t have enough marks to feed their families right now.”

“That’s the sort of thing I need to know,” Dekkard said quietly. “I personally read every single letter and petition, but no one has yet written me and told me what you just said. I want to find someone I can put on my staff here in Gaarlak, someone that you can talk to so that I’ll learn about issues sooner.”

“If you do that,” said Desenns, “it’ll be the first time in my life.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” boomed out Haansel. “Why didn’t Raathan do that?”

“I don’t know,” replied Dekkard. “Perhaps he relied on his family.”

“Exactly,” declared Cleese. “All he heard about was Landor problems. Nothing about farmworkers, crafters, millworkers . . . the ones who need to be heard.”

“Don’t forget about the artisans,” said Charlana Boetcher, her voice almost acid.

“You artisans have it easy. You’re not out in the weather all the time.”

“Do we have it easy, Councilor?” asked Boetcher sweetly.

Dekkard was beginning to wish that Jon Eliver, the Farmworkers assistant guildmeister, whom he’d met during his previous visit, had come in place of Cleese, but he replied pleasantly, “The five years I spent as a plasterer’s apprentice were the hardest of my life. Artisans don’t have it easy, but most people who work with their hands and bodies don’t. I’ve never forgotten that.”

“You did that? Nobody told me,” declared Cleese defensively.

Boetcher sighed loudly. “I was there when Jon Eliver told you that. So was Gretna Haarl. That’s why we all wanted Steffan as councilor.”

“I heard it, too,” declared Gretna Haarl loudly.

Cleese looked as if he might dispute it, when Yorik Haansel grinned and said, “Give it up, Alastan. My ears are bad, and I heard it.”

Cleese closed his mouth and shook his head.

For a moment, there was silence, and Dekkard let it draw out for a moment, then said, quietly but firmly, “Both Avraal and I do understand. She understands, partly because she’s an empath and partly because she worked her way up, starting in the prisons as a parole screener.” He paused to let that sink in. “We don’t know all that you and the hardworking people you represent have gone through, and the Council has to do better. I’ll do the best I can. For too long the Council has listened only to corporacion and Landor needs and problems, but the current Council has already made a good start in changing that. To keep that momentum, we need to know specific problems and needs that the Council can address. The Council can’t change the weather, but we can look into and seek change in work practices or freight rates . . . or in safety rules. You know where your problems are. So let me know. But remember, we can’t fix everything at once, just like you can’t craft a desk overnight, or get in a harvest in a few bells.”

“If there even is a harvest,” replied Cleese. “More failed this year than in past years.”

For a moment, Dekkard didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t sound flippant or uncaring, but he finally managed to say, “It’s been a hard year everywhere for growers.”

“The Commercers don’t make it easier,” said Haarl. “Premier Obreduur’s wife won a legal action against Gaarlak Mills. They have to pay women as much as the men for the same jobs, but Lakaan Mills still won’t do it. Their legalists file motion after motion, and each motion costs the guild hundreds of marks.”

Dekkard nodded, then said, “Ritten Obreduur told me that mill owners and others would force legal action for every mill corporacion until and unless the Council made the law specifically adhere to the ruling of the High Justiciary. I’m already working on legislation that will do that, but it’s likely to take a while to get such a law through the Council.”

“There are real problems in the Lakaan Brickworks. Others, too, I’d wager,” declared Haansel. “They’ve got new steam driers, and it’s giving the setters consumption . . . leastwise they call it consumption . . .”

After that, it seemed to Dekkard that every guildmeister had a problem or two, sometimes three, but he listened carefully, then responded, ending with a polite request that they send him a letter with as many details as they could.

By the time Dekkard had heard them all out, it was close to third bell, and he was just grateful that there weren’t any frowns or scowls . . . at least, not that he had seen. He just hoped that Avraal had sensed anyone unhappy so that he could follow up with them, although he also hoped that wouldn’t be necessary.

Dekkard then immediately turned to Alastan Cleese. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize just how bad . . .”

Cleese shook his head. “Not your fault. You’re a fair-minded young fellow trying to do your best . . . unlike some.”

“I am concerned about farmworkers and those who work with their hands. The rest of the winter is going to be hard. I’ll do what I can to improve working conditions, but, as I said earlier, if you have any other specific ideas about what would help, especially on a permanent basis, I’d like to hear from you.”

“Let me think about it. You’ll hear when I have.” Cleese stood.

So did Dekkard, as he said, “Thank you.” Then he turned to Charlana Boetcher as soon as Cleese moved away.

She rose from the table.

Dekkard inclined his head and said, “I trust you won’t mind if I visit some of the crafters’ shops and businesses over the next week.”

“I’d hoped you would.” She smiled and handed him a card. “Come by if you have any questions.”

“Thank you.” Before slipping the card into his suit pocket, Dekkard took a quick look at the name on the card—Boetcher Silver. “Is there any place or area you’d recommend where I might start . . . in addition to yours, of course?”

“It doesn’t really matter where you start, just so long as it’s not with us and that you visit several areas so that people won’t get the impression that you just made a few token appearances.”

“What you’re suggesting, I think,” Dekkard replied wryly, “is that token appearances might be worse than no appearances.”

“I didn’t say that,” Boetcher replied with an amused smile, “but I didn’t have to.”

After Boetcher stepped away, Gretna Haarl appeared. “I had a very good talk with Avraal. Keep listening to her.”

“I’ve never stopped listening to her, and I don’t intend to now.” Especially now.

“Excellent. I look forward to seeing you on Furdi.” “Avraal has the details?”

“She does.” Haarl smiled. “You do well in difficult situations. Until Furdi.”

Dekkard thought she seemed satisfied as she left, although he wondered just what Avraal had committed them to.

Yorik Haansel was the last to come up to Dekkard. “Glad to see you talked to Alastan before he left. I’ll talk to him, too. He’s a good man. He just doesn’t like to admit that his ears aren’t what they used to be.” He paused, then said, “Guldor lost a great man when those idiots killed Axel.”

Dekkard lowered his voice and said, “They weren’t idiots; they were corporacion tools out to weaken the Council. Part of that was already proved, but there isn’t evidence to go further.”

Haansel nodded slowly. “Doesn’t surprise me. Seemed unlikely that Meritorists would do that by themselves. You just be careful.” He smiled. “It was a good breakfast.” Then he turned and headed for the door.

In moments, Dekkard and Avraal were alone in the room with Jens Seigryn.

“You sounded like Obreduur . . . a younger Obreduur,” said Seigryn.

“Who do you think I learned it from?” Dekkard paused. “They certainly had a lot of pointed questions.”

“This is the first time in more than a century that guildmeisters here in Gaarlak have a chance to question their own councilor in person. The Landor councilors avoided meeting with them like this.”

“Jens,” said Dekkard, “you wanted to talk about Axel . . .”

For just an instant, Seigryn looked surprised, as if he hadn’t expected Dekkard to bring up Obreduur. “How did it really happen? He was always so careful.”

“The New Meritorists had help building a steam cannon and makeshift shells. Then they hid it inside a canvas-topped stake lorry, drove it down the service road behind the Council Office Building, stopped, and targeted his office from about fifty yards. In less than a sixth they took out five offices. The Justiciary Ministry and the head of the Council Guards suspect the help and expertise came from corporacions, but there was no hard evidence. They captured one low-level corporate officer, and he was immediately assassinated. Officially, it was all his doing.”

“The bastards . . . Axel was the best chance they had of a better life.”

“The Meritorist leaders are fanatics, and the corporate types are very good at manipulation,” replied Dekkard. “You’ve seen more than a little of that.”

“Landors . . . Commercers . . . they’ll never change.”

Dekkard smiled. “Then . . . I guess it’s up to us Crafters.” He paused, then said, “Thank you for arranging the breakfast. We appreciate it.”

“You’re welcome. You paid for it,” said Seigryn with a touch of humor. “Now . . . if you need anything else . . .”

“We’ll let you know. This is just a low-key visit. We need to get more familiar with Gaarlak and look into the possibilities of fashioning a ‘permanent tie to the district’ . . . as the Great Charter phrases it.” Dekkard inclined his head. “Thank you, again. We’ll walk out with you.” He gestured toward the door.

“What are your plans?” asked Seigryn as he walked beside Dekkard.

“First, to sign for a steamer, and then we’ll see. We have some exploring to do.” Dekkard turned and looked to Avraal. “Shall we go?”

Once they saw Seigryn off at the inn’s lobby doors, Dekkard looked to Avraal. “How bad was the damage?”

“From what I sensed, you contained it all.”

“With your help.”

“Jens definitely tried to set you up,” said Avraal quietly. “He must have suggested that they all bring their problems . . . saying something like now that they had a Crafter councilor they should let you know what really needed to be done. Gretna also didn’t request to be seated by me.”

“You sorted that out, I take it.”

Avraal smiled. “We sorted it out. She seemed irritated. So I just asked her if she had any questions for me because Jens had indicated that she wanted to be seated near me. She managed not to explode. After a long moment, she asked if he’d really said that. I told her exactly what you said and Jens’s reply.”

“And?”

“She asked that neither of us do anything unless we heard from her. Right now, it’s probably better that she handles it.”

“I don’t think this is going to turn out well for Jens,” said Dekkard.

“He’s having trouble realizing that Guldor’s changing. That’s another reason why he shouldn’t have been councilor. I promised that you’d show up at Gaarlak Mills, outside the larger building, at fourth bell on Furdi, to meet any millworkers who wanted to see you. After that, Arleena Desenns, Gretna, and I decided that you should do the same thing on Unadi afternoon outside the buildings at Lakaan Mills. Arleena said she’d come up with a banner and have it at Gaarlak Mills tomorrow afternoon.”

“That was kind and helpful of her.”

“She knows that you’re the only kind of Crafter who can hold the Gaarlak district, and that otherwise it would go to the Commercers.”

“I can see that. In the last election, the Commercer candidate, Wheiter, had twice the votes of the Landor candidate, and was less than two thousand votes behind Decaro.” Dekkard paused, then said, “I committed to Charlana that we’d visit craft establishments all around the city while we’re here.”

“Good.”

“How was Alastan Cleese feeling when he left? I tried to smooth that over, and Yorik Haansel said he’d talk to Cleese.”

“He was mainly feeling a little embarrassed when he left.”

“We should find him and drop by in a day or so, or maybe on Findi.” “Findi,” said Avraal. “I already got his home address from Arleena.” “Thank you. It’s going to take both of us to do my job . . . but then, you already knew that.”

“I did.” She smiled warmly. “But it’s nice to hear you say it.”

“I’ll finish the paperwork for the steamer, and we need to go see Namoor.”

“I’ll get our overcoats from the room while you’re doing that.” She paused. “Do you have your cards with you, or do I need to get them?”

“I remembered them, but thank you.”

As Avraal headed for the staircase, Dekkard went to the lobby desk, where he signed for the small Gresynt steamer that he had arranged for, knowing that he and Avraal needed to become more familiar with the city, and they couldn’t do that by being driven around. Having a steamer would allow for much more flexibility, given all that they needed to do in the limited time they had.

“The steamer’s out front, sir,” said the concierge as he handed over the keys. “It’s the dark blue one.”

“Thank you.” Then Dekkard turned to join Avraal near the foot of the staircase, where he donned his overcoat and Avraal eased the headscarf over her hair, before the two walked out to the Gresynt. It was much like Emrelda’s model, but the dark blue paint was more subdued than Emrelda’s brilliant teal.

In minutes, Dekkard headed east just past the center square, and its imposing marble statue of Laureous the Great, before turning north through the few blocks containing banques and office buildings. Most of the façades of the three and four-story buildings looked tired, worn, and grimy. Shortly, he turned left, driving through the North Quarter’s grand houses, some of which had definitely seen better days. He tried to remember the route to the more modest dwelling that had been converted to hold the legal offices of Namoor Desharra. Three turns later—one of them wrong, necessitating the other two—Dekkard brought the Gresynt to a stop in front of the three-story, brownish brick dwelling on West Oak Street with the small sign in front reading desharra & associates.

“That wasn’t too bad from memory.” Dekkard grinned ruefully, then got out, closed his door, and walked around to open the steamer door on Avraal’s side.

They walked up three steps and then another five yards to the door. Dekkard was about to try the bellpull when Avraal pointed to a small sign.

IF THE DOOR IS UNLOCKED, PLEASE ENTER.

Dekkard tried the door. It was unlocked. He opened it and motioned for Avraal to precede him.

Before either of them had taken three steps into the foyer, which had a closed door on the right and one on the left that stood open to an empty sitting room, the gray-haired Namoor Desharra appeared and walked through the sitting room toward them.

“Councilor and Ritten Dekkard, you’re a bit earlier than I expected. Jens said it might be after fourth bell.”

Her words reminded Dekkard that part of Desharra’s legal practice was as the legalist for the Craft Party of Gaarlak. He smiled. “Lately, Jens has been a bit confused, at least where we’ve been concerned. I wouldn’t be surprised if that continued.”

“You did know that he wanted to be councilor?”

“Not until after I’d been sworn in. I could tell that Axel was stunned that I’d been recommended by the Gaarlak Craft Party.”

“I understand that acrimonious would not have been an inappropriate description for the selection meeting, although that might even have understated feelings.” Desharra smiled warmly. “It’s good that you’re here.” She motioned to the sitting room. “We have some time before Kelliera Heimdell will be here.”

“She’s the legalist property agent?” asked Dekkard.

“She’s very good . . . and trustworthy.” Desharra settled into the armchair facing the dark blue couch.

Dekkard and Avraal took the couch, and Avraal eased the scarf off her hair.

“Before we get to that,” Dekkard began, “Gretna Haarl mentioned the legal difficulty with getting Lakaan Mills to comply with the terms the High Justiciary imposed on Gaarlak Mills. Ingrella had mentioned that legal action against each mill corporacion might be necessary . . . unless the Council acted to legislate that change.”

“They’ll try to litigate that as well.” Desharra smiled sardonically.

“Sometime during this session of the Council, I’d thought I’d try to introduce legislation to cut any stalling short. Do you have any suggestions that would reduce the scope of litigation?”

“I like the way you said that, Councilor.”

“Steffan . . . please.”

“I could send you the language of our brief and the language of the High Justiciary affirming the lower justiciary ruling.”

“My legalists would find that incredibly useful, especially since much of their earlier work went up in smoke . . . literally.”

“Ingrella wrote me that your office was one of those destroyed. She thinks highly of you, by the way.”

“I think incredibly highly of her.”

“I’m glad you do. You should.”

“I know I’ve imposed on you, but I’d like your thoughts on another matter.” Dekkard leaned forward. “I really need someone here in Gaarlak whom people can contact and who can relay information and concerns to me. Previous councilors relied on family, I suspect.”

“If they even bothered.” Desharra’s lips curled in contempt.

“I don’t have inherited wealth, and neither does Avraal. That means any pay for an assistant, an office, and any expenses have to come out of my office account, and it’s not exactly capacious.”

Desharra frowned for a moment. “We might be able to help. You could sublet from us. There’s a tiny room on the other side of the foyer. We’ve used it as a storage area, but anyone coming would have direct access.”

“So they wouldn’t be going through your space.”

“Exactly. Let me talk to the others, and we’ll see what would cover the expense. Much as I’d like to, under the law we can’t donate it, even for the official business of a councilor.”

“I can see that . . . and if you know of any young legalists who might like a low-paying position . . .”

Desharra laughed. “That will be the least of your problems. Entry-level legalist or legal clerk positions are hard to come by. Some, if it were legal, would pay you.”

“I need someone honest enough to tell me what is actually happening, whether they think I want to hear it or not.”

“I can think of several possibilities, and you can talk to them later this week.”

“Both of us will talk to them,” said Dekkard. “I thought as much,” replied the legalist.

“Do you have an address where I could reach Myram Plassar? Her contact information vanished in the attack on the office.”

“She mentioned you were looking into expanding the rights to a legalist for working women who weren’t eligible to join the guild. She has a small office west of the central square, on Goldenwood Avenue, as I recall. I’ll get the exact address while you talk to Kelliera.”

The three discussed setting up the office for another third, when a red-haired woman in a gray overcoat walked through the front door, wearing a matching gray headscarf.

“Kelliera . . . come meet the Councilor and Ritten Ysella-Dekkard.”

Dekkard immediately stood as the property legalist entered the sitting room, realizing as he did that Kelliera Heimdell was even shorter than Avraal.

At that point Avraal and Desharra stood as well, and the legalist said, “I’ll leave you in Kelli’s very capable hands. I’ll have the documents ready for your office by tomorrow afternoon, and I’m here most of the time if you need anything else.”

Heimdell smiled pleasantly. “I understand you’re looking for a house. What are your requirements and expectations?”

“It’s not so much expectations as limitations.” Dekkard gestured to the armchair. “We might as well sit down.” Once all three were seated, he went on. “We’re not endowed with inherited wealth. So we’re looking for something modest in a decent neighborhood, preferably with three bedrooms, a sitting room, a dining room, a study, and two bathrooms . . . and a garage. What would something like that in good repair run . . . or is there anything?”

“Houses here are cheaper than in Machtarn. I’d say, based on what I’ve reviewed, you could get all of that in a nice neighborhood for around four thousand marks. Five thousand bordering the North Quarter.”

Dekkard looked to Avraal.

“What would another thousand marks possibly gain us?” asked Avraal. “And what would be the additional fees and taxes?”

“You’d have to make a deposit to cover half the house taxes for the year, and the property legalist fees are included in the house price. Usually the additional costs are less than five percent. Another thousand marks would give you more space or more rooms . . . or a slightly better location. It just depends on the property.” Heimdell shrugged and paused. “It might be better if we took a drive, and I show you houses that are possibilities. If any interest you, I can arrange for you to see them.”

Avraal nodded.

“With one condition,” added Dekkard. “One of us drives. We also need to learn to get around Gaarlak.”

Kelliera Heimdell offered an amused smile. “Of course. Now?”

“Now,” said Avraal firmly, rising to her feet.

Before the three left the office Dekkard turned to accept a card from Namoor Desharra, with the address of Myram Plassar, then hurried to catch up to Avraal.

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Excerpts / What's New

Excerpt Reveal: The Salt-Black Tree by Lilith Saintcrow

May 8, 2023April 26, 2023a cat

What happens when you find a way to save your loved one… but the price might not be worth it—the stunning conclusion to New York Times bestseller Lilith Saintcrow’s The Dead God’s Heart

Nat Drozdova has crossed half the continent in search of the stolen Dead God’s Heart, the only thing powerful enough to trade for her beautiful, voracious, dying mother’s life. Yet now she knows the secret of her own birth—and that she’s been lied to all her young life.

The road to the Heart ends at the Salt-Black Tree, but to find it Nat must pay a deadly price. Pursued by mouthless shadows hungry for the blood of new divinity as well as the razor-wielding god of thieves, Nat is on her own. Her journey leads through a wilderness of gods old and new, across a country as restless as its mortal inhabitants, and it’s too late to back out now.

Blood may not always prevail. Magic might not always work. And the young Drozdova is faced with an impossible choice: Save her mother’s very existence…

…or accept the consequences of her own

Please enjoy this free excerpt of The Salt-Black Tree by Lilith Saintcrow, on sale 8/8/23

Chapter 1

Entirely Different

The ride back to Ranger’s was a bone-jarring gallop, the black horse slipping and sliding, melting into a motorcycle at odd moments, throwing itself across small streams once the desert faded and they were back in rolling winter prairie again. The sun was a low bloody coin disappearing behind distant bruise-shadows of western mountains, and Nat Drozdova was fully occupied clinging to reins or clutching handlebars, her shoulders aching every time the big beast veered. Sparks struck from its iron-clawed shoes sent up tiny acrid puffs—very possibly brimstone, though she’d never smelled it before—and she was sure it was doubling back once or twice, running alongside a deep, swift, cold stream chuckling with sharp menace.

Just waiting for her grip to loosen. Just waiting for her to fall. Sheets of icy water thrown up on either side, her tailbone bruised as the beast landed stiff-legged, bolts of pain zipping up her back, her teeth clicking painfully together over and over again—even the worst bus ride was a cakewalk compared to this. No fluid union, no sense of connected togetherness, just an endless rattling, jarring, thumping as her head bobbled and she clamped her knees to elastic, heaving sides.

Finally, the song of hooves rang on concrete instead of dirt and rock; Nat was almost tossed from the saddle as the horse shook himself angrily, shrinking into a motorcycle again. His whinny became a scream of defiance, but Nat’s fingers had cramp-tangled in the reins and her knees, while numb, still stuck like glue to his sides. He rattled over washboard road at a punishing pace, pavement breaking away on either side in great frost-heaved chunks; nobody had driven here for a very long time.

Icy wind roared, stinging her face, and instead of too hot and sweaty in a magical desert, she was now miserably cold. The motorcycle-horse screamed, shaking his head again as his mane whipped, stinging her hands, but Nat held on. There was no other choice.

Finally there was a long rubber-smoking howl as he swelled into horse-shape once more, a jolting as if the entire motorcycle would shake itself to pieces as it shifted back, and a billow of nasty black smoke. The world shuddered to a stop and Nat let out a surprised cry, saved only from a girlish scream by the fact that there was no air left in her lungs to fuel it. Westering orange sunlight escaping under a long low band of snow-bearing clouds filled her eyes, and there was a shout.

“Hi there, you bastard!” It was Ranger in his fringed dun rancher’s jacket; the Black man darted close and grabbed at the horse’s bridle. “Ain’t no way to treat a lady, you just mind yourself now.”

Oh, thank goodness. I’m back. Nat couldn’t make her fingers unclench. The reins swelled and stiffened into handlebars once more; the engine’s choppy growl smoothed out and died with a resentful rumble. Fitful warmth returned, her entire body ached, and she couldn’t wait to have her boots on solid ground again.

But she was no thief, and had forced this thing—whatever it was—to bring her back. As bad as the ride had been, she suspected accepting its offer to show her “shortcuts” would be even worse.

“Get her off,” Ranger snapped. “Oh, you sumbitch, thought you’d take the long way home, did you? None of that now.”

Another tooth-snapping sound cut cold air; Nat flinched. Every girl loves horses, yes, but this thing was only horse-like. The shape didn’t make it as advertised; whatever was trapped in its galloping, restless body wouldn’t have hesitated to shake her free in the middle of a river, or while it galloped across the shimmering surface of a winter pond.

And then, those teeth—not the blunt herbivore-seeming ones, but the other set—would close around whatever mouthful it could grab. Or so her imagination informed her, and Nat Drozdova was very sure whatever she could imagine was far less awful than the truth.

For once.

Ranger made a swift movement, his brown fist pistoning out, a bright golden flashgleam lingering over knuckles. There was a crunch, and the horse’s growl cut off cleanly. “I said mind,” the cowboy continued, mildly enough, but his dove-gray hat was slightly awry, his hazel eyes blazed, and if he ever looked at her like that, Nat’s heart might well stop. “And get her off there, horsethief!”

“Don’t shout at me, kovboyski.” Dmitri Konets sounded just the same, and Nat’s fingers finally creaked open enough to slide free of solid, chilly metal handlebars. The gangster’s hair was a wild mess instead of slicked back, his black eyes burned with carnivorous glee, and even though he might very well murder her sometime in the very near future he was still familiar, and Nat was almost glad to see him. “Eh, zaika moya, have fun? Should’ve let me drive.”

“Th-th-that w-w-wasn’t . . .” Her teeth chattered, chopping every word into bits. That wasn’t part of the deal.

“I know.” He dragged her free of the motorcycle, his lean tanned hands strangely gentle; Ranger had the handlebars now and pulled the resisting hunk of glossy black metal, silver springs, wheels, and still-grumbling engine towards the barn. The porch light of Ranger’s trim blue ranch-style house was on, a golden beacon, and more incandescent light spilled through the half-open barn doors. The cold was even worse now that they’d stopped, which shouldn’t have been possible; the warmth in Nat’s core fought a frigid blanket.

“Breathe.” Dmitri held her up, coiled strength belied by his leanness; Nat’s legs wouldn’t quite work. “That’s it, nice and easy. Take drink.”

There was a chill metallic tap at her chin; the gangster tipped a mouthful from a dull silver hip flask past her lips. Nat spluttered; the liquid burned like vodka and most of it went straight down her throat without so much as a hello, a nova exploding inside her ribs. The heat was amazing, tropical, and very welcome; she decided she liked temperate zones better than desert or this winter prairie bullshit. Going from winter to summer and back again couldn’t be good for your immune system.

Did divinities get colds? Did they need flu shots? There were so many questions, and nobody she could trust to answer them.

Nat went limp, every bone inside her aching flesh quivering at a slightly different rate. Her forehead rested against Dima’s shoulder; the flask vanished, and he dug for something else in his pockets. His arm was a steel bar holding her upright, and that unhealthy, unsteady heat blazed from his jacket and jeans like a gasoline-greased pile of burning tires sending great gouts of black smoke heavenward.

“There,” he crooned, with lunatic calm. “Hush now, little zaika–zaya, krasotka moya.” He was stiff-tense as if ready for a punch or some other violence, but Nat was too tired—and too glad to be stationary—to care much. “Eh, Cowboy? They gathering again.”

“I know.” Ranger sounded grim. “Where the hell did you run to, horse?”

“Silly girl,” the horse replied, its voice full of shrapnel and burning oil. He made a low, shuddering, grinding moan, a motorcycle’s various metal joints resisting. “I offered her shortcuts. Stupid, silly girl.”

“For the love of ” Ranger sighed. There was a creak, another sharp thump—sounded like he’d punched metal. “That girl ain’t no horsethief. You and your mischief; I swear I’m half ready to remake you.”

“Go ahead.” The beast was completely unrepentant. “You’ ll never have a faster horse.”

Ranger muttered a blistering obscenity, and for once didn’t follow it up with a pardon my French. “Curses work both ways.”

Whatever Dima had forced down her throat worked wonders, or maybe Nat was stronger than she thought. In any case, she found her legs would finally work again, pain receded like the tide going out on a pebbled beach, and she pushed ineffectually at the gangster’s disconcertingly broad chest. “I’m all r-r-right.” Even the teeth-chattering was going down.

A dark line showed high on Dmitri’s left cheek. It looked like a knife-cut, but there was no blood, just flesh swiftly sealing itself back together. The sun’s bleary red eye slipped behind distant, serrated mountains, and a crackling-cold wind brushed over Ranger’s house. There was an uneasy mutter from the barn, animals moving; Nat shuddered.

What else did he have in there, next to the big black motorcycle-horse? She found she didn’t want to know; there was a limit to even her curiosity. Go figure, adulthood was 40 percent figuring things out for yourself, with another 40 percent of avoiding knowledge that might drive you crazy.

Not that she had far to go to reach that state. The remaining 20 percent of being grown-up was probably taxes and approaching mortality, though the idea of Uncle Sam pursuing Dmitri Konets for not filing a return was bleakly hilarious.

Was there an Uncle Sam? She’d probably find out, if this kept up.

“You came back.” Dmitri tucked his chin slightly, peering into her face. A flush of effort pinkened his cheeks, and his black suit was a bit rumpled. Had he and Ranger got into a fight?

I don’t care. Nat supposed she looked a little worse for wear, too. I just want to go home.

But that wasn’t quite accurate, Nat discovered. The thought of going back to her mother’s little yellow house, halfway across the continent on South Aurora Avenue in Brooklyn, was even more unappetizing than riding Ranger’s predatory magical horse.

Nat’s backpack, warm and heavy, finally settled against her shoulders like it was relieved to be off the carnival ride as well. It was the closest thing to “home” she had now, smaller and far more bedraggled than a snail’s spiraling domicile.

“I don’t w-want to be a h-h-horsethief,” Nat managed. Her throat was so dry the words were husks of themselves, left propped and forgotten in a field while a faded scarecrow leered from a listing pole.

Dima’s faint flush drained away, and his jaw hardened. “No other way to get what you want, Drozdova. Not when rich bastards sit on it.”

Oh, so you’re a real Robin Hood. Go figure, twenty seconds in his presence again and she was already irritated. The sharp unsteady feeling was a tonic, filling her with fresh strength, and her legs felt more like her own usual bodily possessions now instead of just insensate noodles. “I’m h-happy to s-see you too.”

Ranger reappeared, swinging the barn door closed; Dmitri stepped away from Nat like she was carrying something fatally communicable. She swayed, but the steady fire in her chest poured strength through the rest of her. The sense of deep, inalienable energy filled her again, and she wondered if she looked burningly vital, impossibly real, like the two men.

The two divinities.

“Sorry about that.” Ranger’s iron-toed cowboy boots ground icy gravel as he hurried towards her; he could probably crack a boulder by kicking it. “You did right well, Nat. He just takes some gettin’ used to, that beast.”

So I gathered. And even if she liked the cowboy, even if he said he liked her more than her mother, he still hadn’t warned her that the horse—or whatever it was, trapped in a shapeshifting body—was very strong, not to mention wholly murderous. “It’s all right.” There was nothing else to say.

The Black man’s fringed jacket was torn, too, and Nat was abruptly tired of men and their squabbles. Even if she didn’t agree with Mom on everything, Maria Drozdova’s frequent assertion that males were saved only from being more dangerous by their unending stupidity held a great deal of water.

“No, it ain’t.” Ranger glanced over her shoulder, his sculpted mouth tightening. “Y’all better go. I’ll do what I can, horsethief.” “I could call you something worse,” Dima muttered, and jabbed his left hand at the glossy black muscle car crouched leonine before the ranch house’s stairs. His right, Nat saw with a sinking sensation, was full of that same dull-black gun he’d had before, except with no long silhouette of a silencer. “Come, zaika. Into car we go.”

Wait a second. “I—what happened?” Nat shuddered; the bright white vapor of her breath shivered and plummeted, thin ice breaking on hard ground with a soft musical noise. “What the hell?”

“Oh, naw.” Ranger shrugged, a loose easy motion, and stretched his neck, tilting his head from one side to the other. His lean, capable right hand rested on a revolver butt, slung hip-low on his broad leather belt; the matching gun on his other side gleamed secretively from its well-worn holster. “Hell’s entirely different, ma’am, pardon my French. You go on now. Come back and visit anytime.”

Yeah, not so sure I want to, now. Nat summoned a polite, weary shadow of a smile, and tacked unevenly for the black car. Dmitri walked backward, placing each foot with a cat’s finicky delicacy, and Ranger’s boots made soft stealthy sounds as he set off in a different direction.

Towards the road, not his house. Maybe they hadn’t been fighting each other at all. The wind was knifelike, her breath froze as it left her mouth, and though Nat had quickly grown used to not feeling the weather, she shivered.

“Potoropis”.” Dmitri peered past her, his black eyes narrowed and his lip lifting slightly. Strong white teeth gleamed, and though his snarl wasn’t directed at her, it still sent a shudder down her back. “Quickly, devotchka. Not many left, but always more come.”

Well, that’s not terrifying or anything. Nat’s boots were almost too heavy to lift; her backpack now weighed a ton. Even the stealthy, hidden glow of the Cup and the black-bladed Knife in its depths wasn’t comforting. “More what?” The starving things, of course. Great. Fantastic.

“You didn’t tell her?” Ranger laughed, every scrap of warmth gone and his voice cold as the gangster’s. “’Course not, why am I surprised? Get gone, I’ll keep your trail clear as I can.”

Dima swore, lifting the gun. Its muzzle pointed past Nat, carefully not at her, but she still hurried, not liking how big and bottomless the hole at the end seemed.

Like the Well, only without the quicksilver glitter in its throat. She skirted the black car; its engine throbbed into life and she flinched, letting out a small hurt sound. Suddenly its interior seemed like an old friend she couldn’t wait to meet again, but she paused at the open passenger door, the dome light sending a distorted golden rectangle onto the pavement, touching the edge of the porch’s wooden stairs.

There was very little twilight on the prairie in winter; day ended like a descending guillotine blade out here. Glimmering stars, peeking through dusk’s veil, were snuffed behind a lowering sky pregnant with fresh snow. Nat tasted the penny-metal of approaching precipitation, and a tiny, cold flake kissed her cheek.

Dark shapes, gleaming slightly, clustered a fair ways from Ranger; behind them, the driveway warped like the glimmer over hot pavement on a blinding summer day. Nat’s breath froze again, thin ice falling down the front of her peacoat; she stared, almost unable to believe her own eyes for the hundredth—or thousandth—time since walking into the Morrer-Pessel Tower to negotiate for her mother’s life.

She will eat you, Drozdova. After you bring her what she wants, so she can bargain with Baba Yaga to allow the theft of a native-born child.

She wanted to call what the metal horse had said a lie. She wanted to call all of this a hallucination, a cruel practical joke, a forgiving insanity.

Anything other than truth.

The shadowy things tumbled over each other, sharp cheesecloth-veils of utter negation swallowing even the faint ambient glow of winter night in the Dakotas. A few more tiny white spatters of snow drifted down, and Nat was suddenly very sure an iron-haired woman was bending over a glossy desk top high in a Manhattan skyscraper’s penthouse, her red-painted mouth pursed as her coal-hot gaze somehow pierced the intervening distance and came to rest upon a girl she called granddaughter.

So Baba was watching. The image was so clear, so crisp, Nat could take no refuge in tattered, comfortable disbelief.

“Get in the car,” Dima snarled. There was a sharp report and a brilliant flash. One of the muffled, razor-edged shapes imploded; Nat could swear she saw the bullet as it streaked free, an improbable gleam.

Silver. Well, that doesn’t surprise me.

Nat clambered into the car; its hood ornament, a beast caught somewhere between snarling wolf and slump-shouldered bear, glittered angrily. She slammed the door, her teeth chattering afresh even though whatever he’d given her to drink still burned behind her breastbone and the vivid bright warmth of divinity poured strength through her, a steady reassuring glow.

Did her mother feel a corresponding weakness each time that flood filled her daughter’s body? Did it hurt?

More flashes, and faraway popping noises. Nat twisted and craned, trying to look out every window at once; the driver’s door opened and Dmitri dropped into his seat. He didn’t bother reaching for his seatbelt, just twisted the wheel-yoke and popped the brake; the black car jolted and shot forward, but not along the driveway.

He steered them for the far side of Ranger’s house, and Nat found her lips moving silently.

Of all the useless things to do, she was praying.

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Video / What's New

Travis Baldree on Legends & Lattes and Writing

May 6, 2023May 17, 2024a cat

Legends & Lattes is a novel of high fantasy and low stakes, the perfect comfort read to grab a warm mug of coffee and curl up on your couch with. Today, we’re giving you the opportunity to learn more about the mind behind the masterpiece, Travis Baldree! Check out our sit down here.

What Inspired You to Write Legends & Lattes?

Who Was Your Favorite Character to Write?

Have You Sample Any of the Snacks from Your Book?

Any Advice for Authors Looking to Self-publish?

Rapid Q&A

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eBook Deals / What's New

Download a Free Digital Preview of Ebony Gate

May 2, 2023May 2, 2023a cat

Julia Vee and Ken Bebelle’s Ebony Gate is a female John Wick story with dragon magic set in contemporary San Francisco’s Chinatown. Download a FREE sneak peek today!

Emiko Soong belongs to one of the eight premier magical families of the world. But Emiko never needed any magic. Because she is the Blade of the Soong Clan. Or was. Until she’s drenched in blood in the middle of a market in China, surrounded by bodies and the scent of blood and human waste as a lethal perfume.

The Butcher of Beijing now lives a quiet life in San Francisco, importing antiques. But when a shinigami, a god of death itself, calls in a family blood debt, Emiko must recover the Ebony Gate that holds back the hungry ghosts of the Yomi underworld. Or forfeit her soul as the anchor.

What’s a retired assassin to do but save the City By The Bay from an army of the dead?

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Excerpts / What's New

Excerpt Reveal: Cassiel’s Servant by Jacqueline Carey

May 1, 2023April 27, 2023a cat2 Comments

The lush epic fantasy that inspired a generation with a single precept: “Love As Thou Wilt.”

Returning to the realm of Terre d’Ange which captured an entire generation of fantasy readers, New York Times bestselling author Jacqueline Carey brings us a hero’s journey for a new era.

In Kushiel’s Dart, a daring young courtesan uncovered a plot to destroy her beloved homeland. But hers is only half the tale. Now see the other half of the heart that lived it.

Cassiel’s Servant is a retelling of cult favorite Kushiel’s Dart from the point of view of Joscelin, Cassiline warrior-priest and protector of Phèdre nó Delaunay. He’s sworn to celibacy and the blade as surely as she’s pledged to pleasure, but the gods they serve have bound them together. When both are betrayed, they must rely on each other to survive.

From his earliest training to captivity amongst their enemies, his journey with Phèdre to avert the conquest of Terre D’Ange shatters body and mind… and brings him an impossible love that he will do anything to keep.

Even if it means breaking all vows and losing his soul.

Please enjoy this free excerpt of Cassiel’s Servant by Jacqueline Carey, on sale 8/1/23

Chapter 3

As we descended at last from the Siovalese mountains, the air became thicker, warmer, and damper.

I missed the heights.

I missed my family, although I did my best not to think on it.

I missed fresh-baked bread, my mother and brothers and sisters, my father’s stern affection, the warmth of the great hall and the genial chaos of milling hounds.

At the same time, it was my first visit to a city, and I could not help but be excited. The city of Bergeroche spilled down the foothills of the Siovalese mountains along the course of a tumultuous river, broadening at the base where the river slowed and widened. All the streets were paved with cobblestones and bustling with activity. There was a market in the square at the city’s center with vendors selling various preserved goods and cellared root vegetables, as well as early spring crops like peas and sallet greens.

Although we arrived in the city with hours of daylight to spare, our mounts were weary from the long journey and our stores were low. In a spate of magnanimity, Master Jacobe determined that we would pass the night in a genteel inn where we might enjoy a hot meal and a decent pallet and our horses would be well tended.

The inn was called the Shepherd’s Sweetheart; it is peculiar, sometimes, the details that one recalls.

There was a brief silence that fell as we entered, which did not seem strange to me—I was a lord’s son, I was accustomed to people assuming a respectful silence in my father’s presence and it seemed to me that a pair of Cassiline Brothers were no less deserving. But I had also learned to listen to different kinds of silences in the past weeks; this one held a certain curiosity, too.

I learned why soon enough.

My younger brother Mahieu loved to build dams in a creek that flowed from a small mountain spring into Lake Verre, endlessly fascinated by the way the patterns of water changed with each branch or twig he placed. I could not help but think of that when the lone woman entered the inn’s common room, her presence preceded by the ripples of attention it sent through the place.

I thought nothing of it at first; she was a pretty dark-haired lady, not young but not old, either. She greeted a number of the inn’s patrons with a variety of familiar pleasantries—a gracious smile, a pleased nod, a lingering touch. She acknowledged those who struck me as fellow travellers with sidelong glances of warmth and welcome, a hint of merriment and promise lurking in the upturned corners of her mouth. The barkeep poured her a brimming cup of cordial unbidden, and it wasn’t until she turned to accept it that I saw the finial of the marque inked at the nape of her neck below her upswept hair and realized that she was a Servant of Naamah.

At ten years of age and pledged to the Cassilines, even I knew what that meant.

This is what I understood of the history and founding of Terre d’Ange: A thousand and a half years ago, the One God begat a divine son on a mortal woman and that son was Yeshua ben Yosef, who was revered for his wisdom by the people of his ancestors. But Yeshua and his teachings caused trouble and strife in the Tiberian Empire, and so the Imperator had his soldiers execute him by nailing him to a wooden cross like a criminal, taunting him and piercing his side with a spear. But they did not know that Yeshua was divine. As he hung dying, the woman who loved him best in the world, as much and more as his mother even, knelt at the foot of the cross and wept, covering her eyes with her hair. Her name was Mary of Magdala and my sister Jehane always insisted on taking her role when we staged a tableau. Of course, Luc was Yeshua, sagging dramatically on a wooden ladder, his head hanging and arms outflung, while I had to content myself with being a Tiberian soldier poking him in the ribs with a broom handle.

But a thousand and more years ago, Yeshua’s dripping blood mingled with the Magdelene’s falling tears in the soil, and there Blessed Elua was engendered and nourished in the womb of Earth.

As our own mother explained, the Earth is the Mother of us all, not just the ground upon which we walk. As the sun of the One God in his Heaven shines upon her, she brings forth all things: the wheat we grind into flour, the grapes we press into wine, the grass on which our flocks graze, the trees we hew into timber.

And she brought forth Blessed Elua.

Blessed Elua burst from the womb of Earth fully formed, laughing and singing; but the people of Tiberium reviled him as the scion of an enemy and the people of his ancestors regarded him as an abomination, for his birth seemed unnatural to them.

So Elua wandered the world, exploring it with no plan or purpose, simply rejoicing in its existence.

Our father had a great fondness for maps and he took considerable pleasure in charting Elua’s journey for us. “From here to here,” he would say, tracing a course with a hovering forefinger on a faded vellum map. “Elua wandered barefoot and alone, leaving a trail of flowers blooming in the wake of his footsteps. And thence to ancient Persis ” He would look up at his attentive children with a bright, expectant gaze. “And of course, you know what happened there, do you not?”

There was always a clamor as all of us older children begged to be the one to tell how the King of Persis threw Blessed Elua into prison and the tale of the One God’s wayward grandson reaching Heaven at last. And while the One God turned his face away, still grieving for the earthly suffering and death of his rightfully begotten son Yeshua, there were eight members of the angelic hierarchy who were moved by Elua’s plight and descended from on high to attend to him.

Those were Elua’s Companions, and they were Shemhazai—the ancestor of my family’s line—Camael, Azza, Eisheth, Kushiel, Anael, Cassiel, and Naamah.

It was Naamah who beguiled the King of Persis into freeing Blessed Elua from his prison, and there were many adventures that followed until Elua and his Companions found their way to Terre d’Ange, where the people received them with open arms, and they knew that they were home.

Although I was bound for a life of celibacy, I was not above surreptitiously skimming the pleasure-books that Luc found on the high shelves in the library at Verreuil, so I understood to some extent what it meant that Naamah lay with the King of Persis to secure Blessed Elua’s freedom or that she lay with strangers on their journey to procure money for food, for Elua was half-mortal and unlike angels, must needs eat. I understood enough.

And there in Terre d’Ange, Elua founded the city that bears his name. His Companions divided the land amongst themselves into seven provinces and shared their gifts with the people. During their time on mortal soil, they begot a great many children—all save Cassiel, who claimed no province for his own and lay with no woman nor any man.

Those chosen to serve Cassiel followed in his footsteps.

Those who chose to serve Naamah followed in hers.

In the Shepherd’s Sweetheart, the dark-haired woman’s gaze alighted on our small party, seated at the far end of one of the long tables. Her eyes widened in curiosity at the sight of a pair of Cassiline Brothers. Léon blushed furiously and stared down at his trencher as she crossed toward us, gliding with a practiced elegance that would have turned my older sister green with envy.

Master Jacobe sighed.

“Messires Cassiline.” The dark-haired woman lifted her cup in salute. “Welcome to Bergeroche. Pray tell, what brings you?” Her gaze shifted to me. “Are you their ward, young messire?” The curve of her mouth deepened. “A royal heir in disguise, mayhap? You look as though you’re on an adventure.”

There was only warmth and no unkindness in her teasing, but it angered me nonetheless. I didn’t care to be treated like a playacting child and I didn’t like the way her presence turned Léon from a dazzling warrior to a blushing youth.

I stood and bowed with cold precision, relishing the thump of my crossed forearms. “I am Joscelin Verreuil, second-born son of my House,” I informed her. “And I am pledged to serve Cassiel.”

That wasn’t true in a strict sense, since nine years of training and a series of vows lay between me and the goal of becoming a Cassiline Brother, but it was true enough and it took the dark-haired woman aback. She looked at me in a brief moment of surprise, lips parted, then gave her head a rueful shake.

“Well then, may Elua bless and keep you, young messire,” she said to me.

“’Tis a challenging course you’ve set for yourself.” She cocked her head and angled her gaze at Master Jacobe, who returned it impassively. “I daresay you understand the full cost of the sacrifice you’re asking the boy to make even if he doesn’t yet,” she mused. “Is that why you begin training them so young?”

He didn’t deign to reply, but Léon jerked his chin up, eyes blazing. “It takes a fair bit more skill to become a warrior than a whore!”

This time, she didn’t flinch, only looked amused. “Oh, does it?”

“My lady.” Master Jacobe cleared his throat. “Forgive my students’ uncouth behavior. We did not come here to provoke.” He grimaced and kneaded his bad knee. “There may be fundamental disagreements of philosophy between the Servants of Naamah and Cassiel, but we are all D’Angelines, are we not?”

There were murmurs of agreement from the dozens of patrons eavesdropping on the entire encounter. I sat down, feeling chastened.

“Ah, old man.” The dark-haired woman’s tone softened. “Yes, and I hear the admonishment you are too courteous to say aloud. You are right, it was unbecoming of me to bait your young students.” She studied him. “Though you’re not so old, are you? It’s only that your body has known no mercy, no tenderness.” Reaching down, she laid a gentle hand upon his knee. “I studied with an adept of Balm House in my younger days. Let me make amends and ease your pain.”

I was fairly sure wagers were laid on the outcome of his response.

“No.” Politely but firmly, Master Jacobe removed her hand from his knee. “Be assured, my lady, that I do believe your offer was made in good faith. But please understand that it does not accord with my faith.”

Behind me, I heard the discreet clink of coins being exchanged. Wagers had definitely been laid.

She straightened. “I spoke only of comfort.”

A muscle in his jaw twitched. “Nonetheless, it is a luxury I cannot afford.”

The dark-haired woman inclined her head, her gaze filled with regret. “As you will, messire.”

To that, Master Jacobe made no reply.

When my thoughts chanced across that encounter many years later, I wondered if my mentor truly understood what was offered and refused that evening; and mayhap he did, for he was a man who thought and felt deeply in his own quiet way. I think it is likely, however, that he did not.

As for me, there was no way my ten-year-old self could have known the encounter for a harbinger of events not yet set in motion.

That was likely for the best.

Pre-order Cassiel’s Servant Here:

Extras / Video / What's New

TJ Talks Puppets & Wolves

April 30, 2023May 17, 2024a cat

Hey! Wanna see something cool?

TJ Klune dropped by our office *in person* to talk about robots, werewolves, and books!

Check it out!

TJ Talks In the Lives of Puppets – What Drew You to Pinocchio

**TJ Talks In the Lives of Puppets –** Can You Describe Vic & Hap’s Relationship?

**TJ Talks In the Lives of Puppets –** What is Your Favorite Nurse Ratchet One-liner?

TJ Talks Wolfsong – How Would You Describe the Green Creek Series in a Sentence?

TJ Talks Wolfsong – What Motivated You to Write the Green Creek Series?

TJ Talks – Rapid Q&A

Order In the Lives of Puppets Here:

Pre-order Wolfsong Here:

Excerpts / What's New

Excerpt Reveal: Masters of Death by Olivie Blake

April 28, 2023April 9, 2024a cat

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Atlas Six comes Masters of Death, a story about vampires, ghosts, and death itself.

Now newly revised and edited with additional content, this hardcover edition will include new interior illustrations from Little Chmura and special illustrated endpapers from artist Polarts.

There is a game that the immortals play.

There is only one rule: Don’t lose.

Viola Marek is a struggling real estate agent, and a vampire. But her biggest problem currently is that the house she needs to sell is haunted. The ghost haunting the mansion has been murdered, and until he can solve the mystery of how he died, he refuses to move on.

Fox D’Mora is a medium, and though he is also most-definitely a shameless fraud, he isn’t entirely without his uses—seeing as he’s actually the godson of Death.When Viola seeks out Fox to help her with the ghost infestation, he becomes inextricably involved in a quest that neither he nor Vi expects (or wants). But with the help of an unruly poltergeist, a demonic personal trainer, a sharp-voiced angel, a love-stricken reaper, and a few mindfulness-practicing creatures, Vi and Fox soon discover the difference between a mysterious lost love and an annoying dead body isn’t nearly as distinct as they thought.

Please enjoy this free excerpt of Masters of Death by Olivie Blake, on sale 8/8/23

Chapter 1

Tales of Old

Hello, children. It’s time for Death.

Oh, you didn’t think I spoke? I do. I’m fantastically verbose, and transcendently literate, and quite frankly, I’m disappointed you would think otherwise. I’ve seen all the greats, you know, and learned from them—taken bits and pieces here and there—and everything that humanity has known, I have known, too. In fact, I’m responsible for most of history’s adoration—nothing defines a career quite like an untimely visit from me. You’d think I’d be more widely beloved for my part in humanity’s reverence, but again, you’d be mistaken. I’m rather an unpopular party guest.

Popularity aside, though, I have to confess that humanity’s fixation with me is astonishing. Flattering, to be sure, but alarming, and relentless, and generally diabolical, and if it did not manifest so often in spectacular failure I would make more of an effort to combat it— but, as it is, people spend the duration of their time on earth trying to skirt me only to end up chasing me instead.

The funny thing is how simple it all actually is. Do you know what it really takes to make someone immortal? Rid them of fear. If they no longer fear pain, they no longer fear death, and before long they fear nothing, and in their minds they live eternal—but I’m told my philosophizing does little to ease the mind.

Not many who meet me are given the privilege to tell about it. There are some exceptions, of course, yourself included—though this is an anomaly. In general, as your kind would have it, there are two things a person can be: human (and thus, susceptible to the pitfalls of my profession), or deity (and thus, a thorn in my side).

This is, however, not entirely accurate, as there are actually three things a person can be, as far as I’m concerned.

There are those I can take (the mortals);

Those I can’t take (the immortals);

And those who cheat (everyone else).

Let me explain.

The job is fairly straightforward. In essence, I’m like a bike messenger without a bicycle. There’s a time and a place for pickup and delivery, but the route I take to get there is deliciously up to me. (I suppose I could employ a bicycle if I wanted, and I certainly have in the past, but let’s not dip our toes into the swampy details of my variants of execution quite yet, shall we?)

First of all, it is important to grasp that there is such a thing as to be not dead, but not alive; an in-between. (Requisite terminology takes countless incarnations, all of which may vary as widely from culture to culture as do colors of eyes and hair and skin, but the term un-dead seems to serve as an acceptable catchall.) These are the cheaters, the ones with shoddy timing, who cling to life so ferociously that I—by some sliver of an initial flaw that widens like the birth of the universe itself to a gaping, logic-defying chasm of supernatural mutation—simply commune with them. I exist beside them, but I can neither aid nor destroy them.

In truth, I find they often destroy themselves; but that story, like many others, is not the story at hand.

Before you say anything, I should be certain we’re both clear that this is not a vanity project. Are we in agreement? This is not my story. This is a story, and a worthy one, but it doesn’t belong to me.

For one thing, you should know that this all starts with another story entirely, and one that people tell about me. It’s stupid (and quite frankly libelous), but it’s important—so here it is, with as little disdain as I can manage.

Once upon a time, there was a couple in poor health, cursed by poverty, who were fool enough to have a child. Now, knowing that neither husband nor wife had much time on earth left to spare—and rather than simply enjoy it—whatever enjoyment is to be taken from mortality, that is—I’ve never been totally clear on the details—the husband took the baby from his ailing wife’s arms and began to travel the nearby path through the woods, searching for someone who might care for his child.

A boy, by the way. A total snot of one, too, but we’ll get to that later.

After walking several miles, the man encountered an angel. He thought at first to ask her to care for his child, but upon remembering that she, as a messenger of God, condoned the poverty with which the poor man and his wife had been stricken, he ultimately declined.

Then he encountered a reaper, a foot soldier of Lucifer, and considered it again, but found himself discouraged by the knowledge that the devil might lead his son astray—

(which he most certainly would have, by the way, and he’d have laughed doing it. Frankly, I could go on at length about God, too, but I won’t, as it’s quite rude to gossip.)

(Where was I?)

(Ah, yes.)

(Me.)

So then the man found me, or so the stories say. That’s actually not at all what happened, and it also makes it sound like I have the sort of freedom with which to wander about being found, which I don’t have and don’t appreciate. In reality, the situation was this: The man was dying, so for obvious reasons and no paternal motivations, there I was, unexpectedly burdened with a baby. They say the man asked me to be the child’s godfather; more accurately, he gargled up some incoherent nonsense (dehydration, it’s murder on the vocal cords) and then, before I knew it, I was holding a baby, and when I went to take it back home (as any responsible courier would do), the mother had died, too.

Okay, again, I was there to take her, but let’s not get caught up in semantics.

This is the story mortals tell about a man who was the godson of Death, who they say eventually learned my secrets and came to control me, and who still walks the earth today, eternally youthful, as he keeps Death close at his side, a golden lasso tied around my neck with which to prevent me, cunningly and valiantly, from taking ownership of his soul.

Which is so very rude, and I’m still deeply unhappy with Fox for not putting a stop to it (“never complain, never explain” he chants to me in the voice of someone I presume to be the queen). Fond as I am of him, he does chronically suffer from a touch of motherfucker—a general loucheness, or rakery, if you will—so I suppose I’ll just have all of eternity to deal with it.

And anyway, this is my point, isn’t it? That this isn’t my story—not at all, really.

It’s Fox’s story. I just happen to be the one who raised him.

Why did I name him Fox? Well, I’m slightly out of touch with popular culture, but I’ve always liked a good fairy tale, and out of all the things he might have been (like dutiful or attentive, or polite or principled or even the slightest bit punctual), like an idiot I merely wanted him to be clever. Foxes are clever, after all, and he had the tiniest nose; and so he was Fox, and just as clever as I’d hoped, though not nearly as industrious as I ought to have requested. He’s spent the last two hundred years or so doing . . . well, again, that’s not my story, so I’ll not go into detail, but suffice it to say Fox is . . .

Well, he’s a mortal, put it that way. And not one I would recommend as a friend, or a counselor, or a lover, or basically anything of consequence unless you wish to rob a bank, or commit a heist.

I love him, but he’s a right little shit, and unfortunately, this is the story of how he bested me.

The real story.

Unfortunately.

Chapter 2

Communion

The sign outside the little rented space on Damen Street reads, simply, medium. The building is old, but the street is trustworthy and near the Blue Line stop, meaning that although this is an odd part of town, it’s safe enough to travel freely, and finicky mothers mostly worry about imaginary dangers, like tattoos and the ghosts of old Ukrainians. The street is populated with taco stands and trendy doughnuts (yes, doughnuts) and thrift shops, all which contain old eighties fringe and leather boots; and then, scarcely noticeable amid the others, there is a building above one such shop, and if you took the time to look up at its peeling, black-framed windows, you would see the sign.

medium.

The label on the building’s buzzer system is peeling slightly from use, but the intercom works well enough, and were you to buzz the unit marked d’mora, you would likely hear his voice, oddly soothing, as it stretches through the air between you.

“Hello?” he’d say. “This is Fox.”

“Hello,” you’d reply, or perhaps “good afternoon,” were you in a mood to be both friendly and cognizant of Time’s relentless clutches; and then you’d pause, as many do.

“I’m looking to commune with the dead,” you would eventually confess.

And you wouldn’t see it, but upstairs, Fox D’Mora would smile a rather cutting smile, and then he would adjust the tarnished silver signet ring on his right pinky, coughing delicately to clear the mirth from his throat.

“Excellent,” he’d say over the intercom, and then he’d promptly buzz you up.

Fox D’Mora isn’t the only spiritual medium in Bucktown, and certainly not in all of Chicago, but he is the best one, largely because he is a master of disguise. You, apprehensive—as no doubt you are—might enter the unit from which he provides his services expecting to see dusty curtains, flickering tapered candles, perhaps even a glowing crystal ball; but Fox has none of those things, and thus, upon entering the mediumship of a strange man with a strange name and even stranger reputation, you might feel something you’d eventually come to realize is relief.

Because what Fox does have, surprisingly enough, is a state-of-the-art kitchen, and cold brew on tap, and being quite the genial host, he’d likely offer you a glass before leading you to an empty seat in his living room, whereupon he would gracefully place himself across from you, peering at you through unreadable hazel eyes. (Gray around the edges, amber in the center, a sunburst through a hazy wash of sepia. Reminiscent of pressed leaves in autumn, love letters rounding at the corners, other such things of the past.)

“Okay,” Fox would begin. “So. Who is it?”

If you still had doubts before coming here, they would likely have begun to dissipate by now. For one thing, Fox is quite well-dressed, though not so well-dressed as to arouse suspicion. His hands, in particular—expressive, and in constant service to hospitality, pulling out chairs and fetching drinks, adjusting the blinds to your liking—are welcoming, the nails trimmed and clean. His watch is old and slightly battered, but it has a rather nice leather band and looks like it might have been worth something, once. You might consider it an heirloom.

Continuing your perusal of the man before you—this man, with such an odd name, and such an incongruous image, who can (so they say) so easily bridge worlds—you would notice that Fox himself, tall and lean but not too tall, nor too lean, sports a recently trimmed head of dark waves worn fashionably parted to one side, and that in general, he is given to smiling.

Fox is a man who smiles, and undoubtedly, this would relax you.

When he asks with whom you’ve come to speak, you might say your grandmother or your father, or perhaps you are even less fortunate and have lost someone very close to you too soon, like your husband or your child. Fox, hearing this, would gladly sympathize. He would sympathize with a softened look in his sepia-toned eyes, a gentle curving of his mouth, and you would feel that he understands you.

And he does, really. Fox has lost many people in his life and has felt the sting of it sharply enough; and anyway, perhaps it wouldn’t matter to you in the moment that Fox D’Mora has not grown close to another human being in the last two hundred years or so, because whoever he is, and whomever his loyalty belongs to, he sympathizes so deeply, so humanly with your loss.

And more importantly, he is present, and he is here to help.

“Let me call him,” Fox says—or her, or them, or whatever the identity may be of whomsoever it is that you have requested—and then his eyes close, and his hand slips ever so carefully to the silver signet ring adorning his right pinky finger.

“Now,” he murmurs. “What would you like to say?”

The words, once buried in your soul, dance temptingly on your tongue.

You lean forward.

This is communion.

This particular instance of summoning belonged to an unremarkable day of an inauspicious week amid an unimpressive year, no thanks to the economy. The studio—or well-camouflaged den of iniquity, such as it was—was in its usual state of hastily obscured bachelordom (the take-out containers successfully masked with ambrosial Febreze, laundry sitting patiently for the third straight week below the bed, which was itself concealed cleverly behind two bookcases, one stolen, and a decorative tapestry currently unaccounted for by the Metropolitan Museum of Art) when Death materialized with an inaudible pop to stand beside Fox’s covetable Eames chair, which was not stolen. (Having been purchased at an estate sale for which no other buyers had arrived, it was, however, a steal.)

Across from Fox’s usual chair—his long legs crossed, right over left, in irritating service to Fox’s sockless fetish and the loafers he had no doubt plundered from some unsuspecting professorial type—was the usual love seat; vintage, tufted upholstery, exquisitely selected, curated no doubt to set off the subtle undertones of green in Fox’s eyes, because he was many things, vain occasionally among them, but never careless, never unintentional. Never dull.

And on the love seat, of course, was a woman. Very much to Fox’s taste, which as far as Death could tell began and ended with a pulse. Well, that wasn’t entirely true—the odds of an undead paramour given Fox’s proclivities were low, but never zero. So perhaps instead it was the element of wrongdoing that was so unmissably Fox upon Death’s arrival to the scene.

“Well,” Death sighed, surveying the placement of his godson, the woman on his godson’s love seat, and the hovering spirit lowing mournfully between them. One glance was all it took to determine the whole thing to be—what was the word? Dickery. “I see it’s more of the same.”

“Hush,” Fox sighed under his breath, cracking one eye to smile cheekily, as one might do to a favorite spinster aunt. “Is he here, then?”

“Yes, yes,” Death muttered, tutting softly as he inspected the supplicant on Fox’s sofa (pretty, certainly, very pretty for those who enjoyed such things, and of a variety that Death, certainly not an enjoyer, could only describe as fusion, like the sushi burritos from the truck nearby on which Fox so profligately overspent) before sparing a glance at the spirit still hovering between them. The supplicant, the woman, was frozen temporarily, unable to see or sense Death aside from a stray shiver, perhaps a tingle of déjà vu like a half-remembered dream, or the fleeting sense of having forgotten to turn off the oven. Always best, in Death’s opinion, to remain politely outside the realm of observation. “Let me guess. This is her husband?”

“Fiancé,” Fox corrected in a blandly guiltless tone. “He passed just before they could be wed.”

“How fucking convenient,” Death remarked with a sensation he often experienced but had not felt prior to Fox’s guardianship. It was a mix of things. Not anger, exactly. More like disappointment.

“Papa,” Fox warned, arching a brow in expectation. “What did we say about the cursing?”

Death lifted a hand, dutifully snapping the rubber band he wore on his wrist for the reward (if such a thing could be said) of Fox’s indulgent smirk. “I still don’t see why this is necessary,” Death growled under his breath. “What does it matter what I say when nobody aside from you can hear me?”

“You’re the one who insisted on a New Year’s resolution,” Fox reminded him with—for fuck’s sake—a twinkle in his eye.

“I meant for that to inconvenience you, not me,” said Death gruffly. “And when is the resolution supposed to end? It’s been at least a century.”

“Nonsense, you’ve just lost track of time,” said Fox, who was almost certainly lying despite the essence of beatitude that graced the fine features of his face. “And anyway, all that cursing is bad for your health. Didn’t you read that mindfulness book I gave you?”

Death, being a creature of near omniscience and mostly unquestioned venerability, surmised that he was being mocked, which was itself the branch of a more perennial suspicion that he’d erred somewhat critically during the formative years of his recalcitrant ward. In lieu of pressing the issue, however, Death turned again to the woman who sat curled in around herself on the love seat, waiting patiently for Fox to have called upon her Bradley.

“Well,” Death sighed, “what does she want to know?”

In the same moment that Death was experiencing the usual blow of agonized fondness (and its eternal counterpart where it came to Fox—forbearing remorse), Fox was having two simultaneous thoughts. One was what could best be described as a lurid sort of daydream. The other, critically, was the faint recollection that he

had yet to pay the electric bill. So he cleared his throat, leaning forward to address the woman who’d sought his counsel.

“Eva,” he murmured, and at the sound of her name, that afternoon’s supplicant looked up, blinking herself free of his godfather’s usual chill. Fox, who had a very keen sense of when a client’s love language was touch, offered his hands, summoning a smile when she placed hers delicately in his. “What would you like to tell Brad?”

“Bradley,” Death corrected from Fox’s right shoulder, smothering a yawn.

“Bradley,” Fox dutifully amended, kicking himself as a moment of doubt flickered across Eva’s face. “Apologies. I know he dislikes the diminutive.”

The present tense was very purposeful, though Fox, of course, could not see Bradley where he hovered in the room. (The comparison would not have helped Fox’s already troubling ego.)

“He does,” Eva whispered, and blinked, moisture suddenly drawing to the corners of her eyes. “You can see him?”

“I can,” Fox confirmed with a nod, glancing into a random distant corner of the flat. He ignored the rude gesture from his godfather in his periphery, presumably intended to indicate his showmanship was incorrect. “Band,” murmured Fox before adding to Eva, “What would you like to say to Bradley?”

She bit her lip, considering it. (Death gave his wrist a perfunctory thwap, then flicked the back of Fox’s head.)

“Tell him,” she began at a murmur, and then swallowed, overcome by emotion in much the way supplicants usually were. Which, Fox reminded himself, was very much the purpose at hand, along with paying the electricity and come to think of it the Wi-Fi (his neighbors had recently changed their password; disappointingly, Death was not so helpful there), more so than the looks she’d been holding overlong. (His imagination, surely, except Fox’s imagination was not so much overactive as it was aspirational. The difference, one might suppose, between an artist envisioning an underpainting and the more common sin of pure delusion.) “Tell him that I love him, and I miss him,” said Eva to what Fox could have sworn was his mouth, “and that I hope everything is going well—”

“It isn’t,” Death cut in sharply, looking sour. “Bradley committed several different kinds of tax fraud and is currently floating around in the Styx. Oh,” he added flippantly, “and he cheated on her.” A pause. “Twice. Though, to be fair—and these are his words, not mine—he was torn up about it.” The last bit Death delivered with a mostly straight face before adding privately to Fox, “Not torn enough to pull out, one assumes—”

“He misses you, too,” Fox assured Eva, running his thumb comfortingly across her knuckles as she bowed her head, fighting tears. “He wishes you all the sweetness life has to offer—”

“Nope, wrong,” Death said. “Relatedly, do mortals still gym, tan, laundry?”

“not in those words, of course,” Fox corrected smoothly when Eva looked up, a crease of confusion between her manicured brows. “But Bradley never did find the words to tell you how much he loved you,” he added on a whim, increasingly certain her posture had shifted in quite a promising way, “and he’s asked me to give you the poetry he always thought you deserved.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Death muttered as Eva’s full lips parted in earnest. The love seat was ever so slightly higher than the chair in which Fox presently sat, a shift in elevation that afforded a rousing sense of escalating stakes when Eva uncrossed her legs, leaning forward to close what little space remained between them.

“What else does he say?” Eva asked, fascinatingly breathless. (Fox’s two thoughts had by then suffered a slight rearrangement of priorities. Passwords were guessable, and even if not, the internet was mostly the newest rendition of grand-scale collective shame.)

“What does who say? Bradley? Nothing,” Death helpfully supplied. “He says ‘Eva who’?”

“He says,” Fox began, matching Eva inch for inch, “that you were the only woman who ever understood him. Who could read him with a look, and who could fill him with joy in the same breath, and who made of him someone of consequence—of worth,” he murmured, squeezing lightly against her hands. “He says he would look into your eyes and know the value of his own soul, and that he is grateful to you for that; and he tells me that because you were in his life in his final moments, he can rest eternally in peace, knowing that you—” and here, a slight moistening of one poet’s lips “—will go on to be . . . happy.”

Eva’s gaze softened, her pupils dilating slightly.

“Happy?” she echoed, her breath suspended.

“Happy,” Fox repeated. “And he says that he knows you will go on to make someone else as happy as he was with you, and that although it’s time for him to move on and find rest, he wishes you all the blessings of heaven and earth.”

“Oh,” Eva whispered, letting out a breath, as beside Fox, Death announced, “Oh, FUCK.”

“Hush,” Fox muttered out of the side of his mouth, flicking a glance admonishingly to where his godfather stood. “That’s a rubber band for sure, Papa.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Death said with a theatrical snap of the band, and then another, presumably as a form of preemptive strike. “You’re going to sleep with her now, aren’t you?”

Fox, who did not believe in pointing out the obvious, ignored him, turning Eva’s hands over in his to draw his fingers gently over the creases in her palm. “You know, you have such a beautiful heart line,” he told her, tracing it as it ran across the top of her palm and danced off, disappearing between her fingers. “There’s so much love you have yet to give, Eva.”

“You think?” she asked him, and he smiled.

“I know,” he said softly, and she gazed at him with wonder.

“Do you think that I was meant to find you?” she asked. She wore a beguiling perfume, something botanical but not too nauseating. A bit like a walk in the woods, branches snapping underfoot. The call of a bird on the wind somewhere, like the thrill of a promise kept.

“I genuinely hope,” Death sniffed, breaking Fox’s momentary reverie, “that she gives you a terrible Yelp review.”

He doubted it. As a practitioner, even a fraudulent one, Fox had something of a satisfaction guarantee, though not always so mutually beneficial.

“I believe Bradley guided you to me,” Fox confirmed for Eva, and Death let out a groan.

“I’m leaving,” he announced. “Wear a condom, you twat.”

“Band,” Fox muttered to him, and Death gave a long-suffering scowl before once again giving Fox the finger, enigmatically (and with, quite frankly, the usual unnecessary theatrics) disappearing into time and space.

“Bradley’s gone now,” Fox offered comfortingly to Eva with a rehearsed look of regret. “He’s passed into the next stage of existence, but he’s happy, and y—”

He broke off as Eva leaned forward, catching his lips with hers.

“Eva,” he gasped, feigning breathless astonishment. “I mean—Miss—”

“Fox,” she whimpered into his mouth, half-clambering onto his lap in a fit of epiphany, or possibly acceptance, akin to running the five stages of grief in one fell swoop. (Fox D’Mora, a credit to his vocation!) “This,” Eva murmured, speaking between kisses as she slid his top buttons undone with an admirable dexterity, “this is—this has to mean something—”

“I’m—” Fox paused, glancing down as she ripped the remainder of his shirt from his torso “—quite sure it does,” he continued, casting about for something that a moderately… What was the word? Moral, ethical, something implying a modicum of restraint? Memory, as ever, failed him—man would say, “but still, you’re vulnerable, and you’ve suffered a loss, and so perhaps we shouldn’t—”

“Oh, but we should,” she very reasonably insisted, grinding her hips against his and tossing her head back as Fox, finding her argument logically sound, brought his mouth to the bit of skin beneath the parted neckline of her blouse. “Bradley, he—he would have wanted me to—”

There was a soft pop from somewhere over Fox’s right shoulder.

“I forgot to mention,” Death announced, and then promptly covered his eyes, making a face. “Oh, Fox. Fox.”

“What?” Fox mumbled impatiently as Eva, effervescing with brilliance, shoved his hands under her skirt. “I’m busy, you know,” he pointed out, gesturing to the grieving (albeit faultlessly sensible!) woman in his lap, and Death rolled his eyes.

“You know what? Never mind,” Death told him. “I’m sure you’ll find out soon enough.”

“Find out what?” Fox asked, and then grunted incoherently as Eva’s fingers (nimble! inventive! worthy of—and he could not stress this enough—great and profound celebration!) made their way to the clasp of his trousers. “Fuck, just—” Fox groaned. “Tell me later, Papa, would you?”

“Band,” Death said with prodigious smuggery (begging the question of where, indeed, Fox had learned it) before disappearing, leaving Eva to slide between Fox’s legs, positioning herself between Fox’s parted knees.

“Shall we?” she asked, teasing her hand under the lip of his boxers.

Fox D’Mora, man of prizeworthy restraint and probable feminist hero, slithered down the chair’s leather upholstery, hoisting her up to fit his shoulders snugly between the curves of her enviable thighs.

“One second,” he whispered to the satin-softness of her skin, shifting to snap the rubber band on his left wrist (in service, of course, to the New Year’s resolution some epochs ago that had bought him one or two alternative sins). “Okay,” Fox permitted, nuzzling what he was delighted to find was silk, “now we shall.”

And when, eventually, Eva What’s-Her-Name’s luxuriant heart line—and the rest of her palm—closed virtuosically around him, Fox closed his eyes with a sense of philanthropic satisfaction, reminding himself to give her a 10 percent discount for his services.

Pre-order Masters of Death Here:

Excerpts / What's New

Excerpt Reveal: Ravensong by TJ Klune

April 24, 2023April 6, 2023a cat

The beloved fantasy romance sensation by New York Times bestselling author TJ Klune, about love, loyalty, betrayal, and joy. The Bennett family has a secret: They’re not just a family, they’re a pack. Ravensong is Gordo Livingstone’s story.

Gordo Livingstone never forgot the lessons carved into his skin. Hardened by the betrayal of a pack who left him behind, he sought solace in the garage in his tiny mountain town, vowing never again to involve himself in the affairs of wolves. It should have been enough. And it was, until the wolves came back, and with them, Mark Bennett. In the end, they faced the beast together as a pack… and won.

Now, a year later, Gordo has found himself once again the witch of the Bennett pack. Green Creek has settled after the death of Richard Collins, and Gordo constantly struggles to ignore Mark and the song that howls between them. But time is running out. Something is coming. And this time, it’s crawling from within. Some bonds, no matter how strong, were made to be broken.

The Green Creek Series is for adult readers.

Please enjoy this free excerpt of Ravensong by TJ Klune, on sale 8/1/23

Chapter 1

He stood out on the porch, staring off into nothing, hands clasped behind his back. Once he’d been a boy with pretty blue eyes like ice, the brother to a future king. Now he was a man, hardened by the rough edges of the world. His brother was gone. His Alpha was leaving. There was blood in the air, death on the wind.

Mark Bennett said, “Is she all right?”

Because of course he knew I was there. Wolves always did. Especially when it came to their—“No.”

“Are you?”

“No.”

He didn’t turn. The porch light gleamed dully of his shaved head. He took in a deep breath, broad shoulders rising and falling. The skin of my palms itched. “It’s strange, don’t you think?”

Always the enigmatic asshole. “What is?”

“You left once. And here you are, leaving again.” I bristled at that. “You left me first.”

“And I came back as often as I could.”

“It wasn’t enough.” But that wasn’t quite right, was it? Not even close. Even though my mother was long gone, her poison had still dripped into my ears: the wolves did this, the wolves took everything, they always will because it is in their nature to do so. They lied, she told me. They always lied.

He let it slide. “I know.”

“This isn’t—I’m not trying to start anything here.” I could hear the smile in his voice. “You never are.”

“Mark.”

“Gordo.”

“Fuck you.”

He finally turned, still as handsome as he was the day I’d met him, though I’d been a child and hadn’t known what it meant. He was big and strong, and his eyes were that icy blue they’d always been, clever and all-knowing. I had no doubt he could feel the anger and despair that swirled within me, no matter how hard I tried to block them. The bonds between us were broken and had been for a long time, but there was still something there, no matter how much I’d tried to bury it.

He scrubbed a hand over his face, his fingers disappearing into that full beard. I remembered when he’d first started growing it at seventeen, a patchy thing I’d given him endless shit over. I felt a pang in my chest, but I was used to it by now. It didn’t mean anything. Not anymore.

I was almost convinced.

He dropped his hand and said, “Take care of yourself, okay?” He smiled a brittle smile and then moved toward the door to the Bennett house.

And I was going to let him go. I was going to let him pass right on by. That would be it. I wouldn’t see him again until . . . until. He would stay here, and I would leave, a reversal of the way it’d once been.

I was going to let him go because it would be easier that way. For all the days ahead.

But I’d always been stupid when it came to Mark Bennett.

I reached out and grabbed his arm before he could leave me.

He stopped.

We stood shoulder to shoulder. I faced the road ahead. He faced all that we would leave behind.

He waited.

We breathed.

“This isn’t—I can’t….. ”

“No,” he whispered. “I don’t suppose you can.”

“Mark,” I choked out, struggling for something, anything that I could say. “I’m coming—we’re coming back. Okay? We’re—”

“Is that a promise?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t believe your promises anymore,” he said. “I haven’t for a very long time. Watch yourself, Gordo. Take care of my nephews.”

And then he was in the house, the door closing behind.

I stepped off the porch and didn’t look back.

Chapter 1

BORDER OF THE KINGDOMS OF ZHU YUANZHANG AND THE ZHANG FAMILY EIGHTH MONTH, 1356

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Chapter 1

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Chapter 1

Duadi

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Chapter 2

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Chapter 1

Entirely Different

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What Inspired You to Write Legends & Lattes?

Who Was Your Favorite Character to Write?

Have You Sample Any of the Snacks from Your Book?

Any Advice for Authors Looking to Self-publish?

Rapid Q&A

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Chapter 3

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TJ Talks In the Lives of Puppets – What Drew You to Pinocchio

TJ Talks In the Lives of Puppets – Can You Describe Vic & Hap’s Relationship?

TJ Talks In the Lives of Puppets – What is Your Favorite Nurse Ratchet One-liner?

TJ Talks Wolfsong – How Would You Describe the Green Creek Series in a Sentence?

TJ Talks Wolfsong – What Motivated You to Write the Green Creek Series?

TJ Talks – Rapid Q&A

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Chapter 1

Tales of Old

Chapter 2

Communion

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Chapter 1

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BORDER OF THE KINGDOMS OF ZHU YUANZHANG AND THE ZHANG FAMILY
EIGHTH MONTH, 1356

**TJ Talks In the Lives of Puppets –** Can You Describe Vic & Hap’s Relationship?

**TJ Talks In the Lives of Puppets –** What is Your Favorite Nurse Ratchet One-liner?