He clicked his tongue. “That was only one of many, Jessica. The smallest, I might add. Which does seem odd knowing the Gateway is here in Golden. I would have expected more of them to stay. But I can reach out to the others. Jessica?”
Leandras gently touched her shoulder, and she smirked.
“Don’t even think about slapping me again. I’m still awake.”
He didn’t remove his hand. “After what I saw today, it’s only too clear how much stronger the Dalu’Rázj has become. Unless you want to spend the rest of your days as Guardian fighting this like you did today, I have to ask—”
“You want me to open the Gateway and let you through so you can play around in a world you left centuries ago. Maybe you’ll actually go get those artifacts. Maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll do the complete opposite of what you’re telling me right now, because I’ll never know the difference. Did I miss anything?”
The fae cleared his throat. “That was an accurate summary of potential outcomes, yes. But you would know, because you would be coming with me.”
Jessica’s eyes flew open, and she met his silver-tinted gaze head-on. “Why the hell would I do that?”
His gaze flickered away from her briefly, and he blinked.
He knew exactly how much she was going to hate whatever he had to say.
“With the first rights relinquished, it’s impossible to cross through the Gateway without the Guardian. I know where to find the items we need.” Leandras returned his gaze to her face, and his small frown made her more wary than anything else he’d said. “But the Guardian is the only one who can safely bring them back through.”
Jessica sat up and turned on the couch to face him.
He couldn’t be serious. This had to be some joke, some test, some way to distract her from her job here in keeping the Gateway closed.
When the fae man raised a slender hand to nervously rub his lips as he stared at her, she knew he wasn’t lying.
“Oh, fuck.”
Will Jessica Open the Gateway?
The Gateway opens. The Laen’aroth lies. And the Guardian’s out of time.
With her deadly magic now restored, Jessica Northwood is finally whole. But the last ruthless fragment of her past still hunts her down to finish what she started, and there’s nowhere left to hide.
Thanks to a warded rune slapped on her neck and the fae man who put it there against her will, Jessica now has complete control. And Leandras still can’t be trusted—even when he’s willing to risk his own life as much as hers.
When the monster from her childhood comes knocking with a vengeance, not even the bank can protect her. The Gateway must be opened, and Leandras’ plan is as shady as he is. If they survive the darkness consuming the dying world behind that door, they can make their final stand against the Dalu’Rázj. But fighting the darkness isn’t so easy now that Jessica has embraced her own with open arms, and it’s impossible to tell which is worse.
Ilona Andrews’ Innkeeper Chronicles meets The Magicians in this snarky, fast-paced Urban Fantasy Adventure from International Bestselling Author Kathrin Hutson.
Click here to get it now!
Acknowledgments
To all the industry professionals who had a part in the creation of this book and in shouting it out to the rooftops, especially Christie Stratos, Mickey Mikkelson, Rebecca Hamilton, Rachel Rawlings, and Christian Bentulan.
A special shout-out this time to Jennifer Laslie, who’s become something of a hero with her incredible formatting skills and working with an author like me who tends to do everything last-minute. I’m still working on improving that.
To all my ARC readers, who have devoured Jessica’s story as quickly and intensely as it has devoured me. Their advanced feedback has become the driving force behind my ability to stay focused on this series and move through it with way more inspiration than I ever expected.
And, as always, I must and forever will thank my husband Henry, who puts up with my one-track writer’s brain and makes it possible for this to be my sole focus. One day, we’ll finally take that vacation.
A Note from the Author
To put it simply, writing this series has been one heck of a crazy ride.
Before the Accessory to Magic series was anything more than the seed of a thought in my mind, I had a hard time understanding exactly how I would bring everything I valued in my own work into an entirely new project, a new genre, a new way of writing. The more I continue down the path of Jessica’s chaotic and irritatingly mystery-filled journey, the more I’m coming to understand how easy it is to inject myself into these pages.
Though I’ve come such a long way since the darkest days of my own life, I still struggle sometimes with keeping that darkness at bay. With choosing to funnel it into the lines of my books and not into my everyday existence. This phrase gets tossed around in recovery groups, well-intentioned and with a deeper message that shows itself in a different light every time I look at it head-on (and if any of you are in recovery or know someone who is, you probably understand this re-discovery): Once an addict, always an addict.
No, I haven’t touched heroin in almost eleven years now, and my life is completely different today than it used to be. Completely whole. And still, there’s that underlying thread of invitation for me to let myself be consumed by something again.
If I were to be addicted to anything today, it would be my writing. Sure, that might sound cliché, but it’s common knowledge (at least among my family) that if I don’t sit down and write something every single day, I get itchy. Irritated. Not all that fun to be around. My husband has graciously reminded me for years to just sit down for an hour on the weekends to get in my “writing fix” so I can then recharge and rejoin my family with my usual upbeat, optimistic self intact. I couldn’t be more grateful for that.
And I realized as I was writing some of the most intense parts of Jessica Northwood’s story—in this book specifically—just how intrinsically tied to her journey I am. We all have both darkness and light inside of us. Some find it easier to balance them than others, or maybe it’s an ability to ignore that darkness that makes it feel like balance. I don’t have that ability, so maybe I’ll never really know.
But Jessica can’t ignore hers. She has to make a choice—a sacrifice—in order to restore herself to everything she knows she can be so she can do what she was created to do for Winthrop & Dirledge, the witching vault, the Gateway, and two completely different worlds. Allowing ourselves to be fully ourselves—the good, the bad, and the worse—is so hard. For me personally, it was terrifying. For Jessica, it almost got her killed. And yet, I still find so much hope within the act of making ourselves whole again, no matter how afraid we are of ourselves. No matter how likely it is that we’ll fail, or that we’ll be consumed by what we tried to keep at bay, or that others will see us for who we truly are.
If nothing else, moving through Jessica’s transformation in this book will absolutely give you a closer glimpse into what I struggled with when trying to “reinvent” myself after so many bad choices and my own brushes with death. And I hope, beyond that, that you find yourselves reading this story of hers and seeing all the light that still exists within impossible situations. The hope. The chances for redemption at most and for acceptance at the very least.
If I’ve learned anything through my own rollercoaster of experiences, it’s that my greatest obstacle—my greatest adversary—has been and always will be myself.
Nobody can do what you can do. Nobody can be who you are. On the off-chance that you identify with Jessica Northwood or even see parts of yourself in her, I want you to remember that nothing is ever as impossible as it seems. I’m living proof of that, in a way.
We all are.
And I can’t tell you enough how much it means that you’re on this journey with me.
—Kathrin Hutson (February 2021)
Connect with Kathrin
Visit KathrinHutsonFiction.com for new and updates on more
Urban Fantasy, LGBTQ+ Speculative Fiction, Dark Fantasy, and Dystopian Sci-Fi. You can also sign up for Kathrin’s newsletter, where you get some exclusive dark surprises not seen anywhere else.
Check out Kathrin Hutson’s Other Series
Accessory to Magic (Dark Urban Fantasy)
The Witching Vault
The Cursed Fae
The Secret Coin
The Poisoned Veil
Do you like Dark Fantasy?
Check out Kathrin Hutson’s other series:
The Unclaimed Trilogy (NA Dark Fantasy):
Sanctuary of Dehlyn
Secret of Dehlyn
Sacrament of Dehlyn
Gyenona’s Children Duology
(Grimdark Fantasy)
“The Jungle Meets Kill Bill… with dragons!”
Daughter of the Drackan
Mother of the Drackan
And don’t miss the International Bestselling LGBTQ Dystopian Sci-Fi series, Blue Helix
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo meets X-Men.”
Sleepwater Beat
Sleepwater Static
About the Author
International Bestselling Author Kathrin Hutson has been writing Dark Fantasy, Sci-Fi, and LGBTQ Speculative Fiction since 2000. With her wildly messed-up heroes, excruciating circumstances, impossible decisions, and Happily Never Afters, she’s a firm believer in piling on the intense action, showing a little character skin, and never skimping on violent means to bloody ends. In addition to writing her own dark and enchanting fiction, Kathrin spends the other half of her time as a fiction ghostwriter of almost every genre, as Fiction Co-Editor for Burlington’s Mud Season Review, and as Director of TopShelf Interviews for TopShelf Magazine. She is a member of both the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and the Horror Writers Association. Kathrin lives in Colorado with her husband, their young daughter, and their two dogs, Sadie and Brucewillis. For updates on new releases, exclusive deals, and dark surprises you won’t find anywhere else, sign up to Kathrin’s newsletter at kathrinhutsonfiction.com/newsletter.
[email protected]
kathrinhutsonfiction.com
The Secret Coin (Accessory to Magic Book 3) Page 29
