I collapsed in the shade of an acacia tree, panting. My legs still tingled from the countless scratchy beards that had stampeded our direction.
Beside me, Archibald Waverly, renowned safari guide and wild mustache expert, lay flopped on the ground, pith helmet askew. “That was a close one.”
It was a moment
Yesterday, I declared war.
On a bugle.
0600. Time for “Reveille.” Our base commander, Wizard-General Lytton, won’t waste even the newest recruit mage on that duty. A simple spell makes the bugle perpetually hovering by the flagpole sound any required call at the proper time.
Until yesterday. Ten seconds into the silence
Read it now
It’s an honor being a royal hot air balloon maker. But the conversation occurring around me makes me want to float away from my coworkers and hide.
I only have one thing in common with the other three people working in the sunshine outside Princess Amzho’s castle: a love and talent for our craft.
I’ve learned to live with pain.
A copper wilting wasp scuttles up my arm, its stinger poised to strike. I lift my eyes past my rotund master, over the carts of food I’ll never eat, and rest them on distant mountains. I focus on those peaks as the wasp delivers a paralyzing injection. Debilitating
“So, does the bureau know why they sent us here?”
Sal shrugged while cramming fries in his mouth.
Jane waited for him to swallow. “They said a passing centaur reported all the other wilderkind in the area have gone silent.” She slapped his hand before he grabbed another burger. “Aren’t you worried?”
Lily keeps her knife angled down as she runs, just like Papa had shown her.
“Your weapon is your ally, but misuse will make it your enemy.”
He’d said it so many times the words were ingrained in Lily’s memory. Yet now, as she runs through the shadowed forest, fleeing the attack on
Something was coming. Renard raised his hand, calling for a halt. His men stopped instantly, and he cocked his head, listening for the sound of their prey.
Breaking branches and pounding hoofs in full charge approached them through the woods. A large, tusked boar nigh on five hundred pounds burst into view.
If anything merits some Courage Cordial, it’s a job interview.
I stare at the glass bottle on my shelf, one of many elixirs I’ve created. A sip won’t hurt—it’ll just give me a little confidence boost. And I’ve made hundreds of successful potions before, which is why in thirty minutes I’ll be walking under the
Yellow police tape crisscrosses the entrance to Buckbean Asylum. The plastic shines under my headlamp: fresh, unlike the torn, discarded scraps half-buried by shriveled-up oak leaves. Though the asylum closed years ago, the structure remains.
So do the spirits of the patients.
That’s the rumor, at least. I’m here to see if it’s true.
“What if I told you that you could just go home?”
Toby almost believes the words… until he remembers it’s a villain speaking them, and he shakes himself. He forces a laugh, but pain stabs through the wound in his side, and he stops laughing with a gasp.
“Do you think I’m stupid?”
For Zadie, the first ninety-nine steps under the oppressive canopy of nighttime Pennsylvania woods were hard enough. The air was still and stagnant, and only thin shafts of moonlight pierced the darkness. But at the hundredth step, Zadie hesitated and took a deep breath. She had reached the point where she would have
Read it now
What human being, given the Gift of flight, would wish he had another one?
You’re looking at him. Er, reading about him.
Does that even make sense? Zoiks. I’m as clumsy with words as I am with people. And I’m clumsier with flight.
I hate heights. I hate speed. I hate the breathlessness
Recent Comments