Barnabas Courtier, a wizard without a dragon of his own, joined the Dragon Liberation Front when he heard of the seizure of a magnificent silver dragon – a dragon who has the power to turn the tide for the DLF. He has made freeing her his personal mission. Barnabas is shocked when he discovers not only has the silver dragon freed herself, but she has disappeared from the Tarakonan dimension. Determined to ensure her safety, his quest leads him to the world of Earth and the town of Magic.
Once in Magic, nothing goes according to Barnabas’s careful plans. Nadia isn’t the beautiful innocent of his dreams . She’s strong, passionate, and determined to resist everything he offers her – even love. How can a wizard convince a silver dragon to return to a world where she’s hunted when she’s found a place where she fits right in? And can he protect her from those who would enslave her once again?
Dimension: Tarakona
Date: About a week ago
Barnabas Courtier knocked three times on the door near the end of the rubbishy alley between Valiant City’s sketchiest purveyor of enchanted marital aids and a tavern of some sort. Loud music and revelry from the tavern indicated that the Night of the Grape celebration was in full swing. After a pause, Barnabas knocked again, examining his gloves to see if the soot-covered door had left a mark. Clearly a fire had raged in this alley at some point, but not long enough to cleanse it.
Clunks and rattles behind the door indicated a response would soon ensue. The door cracked open, and a dirty, hairy face peered out at him. “Whozit?”
“I believe the password is the cow lows at midnight,” he said. “It is the Night of the Grape, and I’m here for Mistress Harcourt.”
“She’s not in,” the elderly man said. “Go away.”
How could she not be in? This was the night—the night toward which he and Mistress Harcourt had been planning for over a year.
“Check again.” He allowed a talisman to fall through the neck of his unbuttoned greatcoat, in hopes of intimidating the man with the sign of his wizard status.
“Don’t have to,” the man said. “Never heard of nobody by that name.”
Everyone in Valiant Province and beyond had heard of Mistress Harcourt. This poor human was addled. Or deceitful. Barnabas was leaning toward deceitful. “You just said she wasn’t in. Therefore it follows that you know someone by that name.”
The man squinted balefully. “Maybe I do and maybe I don’t, but ain’t nobody here but me.”
When the man made as if to close the door, Barnabas placed his gloved hand on it and exerted some of his considerable strength. He might be a wizard and a scholar, but he kept himself in shape. He never knew when he might have to engage a bout of fisticuffs on a mission.
“She also goes by Spymaster,” Barnabas explained, preventing the man from slamming the door in his face, “and I would appreciate it if you could fetch her for me, my good man. We have an appointment.”
The man gave up shoving the door and spat through the crack. It landed next to Barnabas’s shoe. “Ain’t heard of no appointments.”
“Who’s at the door?” a heavily accented feminine voice from inside the building called. “The delivery boy from Mickmack’s?”
The man looked at Barnabas skeptically, starting at his top hat and ending at the leather shoes that would require a great deal of polishing to restore to their proper finish. “Some wizardy ponce asking for a Mistress Harcourt. Reckon he’s lost.”
“Well, shit.” The accent of the woman inside the building changed, from Lower Street to High Court. “Alfred, don’t just stand there. Show the man in.”
The recalcitrant butler, or whatever he was, grudgingly stepped aside, allowing Barnabas access to Mistress Harcourt’s establishment. It was not what Barnabas had been led to expect when he had enlisted her help in achieving a long-standing goal. However, when negotiating with humans, you had to be especially careful not to allow their weaknesses to distract you from their inventiveness.
Humans in a world ruled by wizards and dragons had to be plenty inventive to thrive, and Barnabas did not begrudge them their foibles. He, too, had been human once—as had they all.
He had to stoop to enter Mistress Harcourt’s parlor, the low ceiling liberally festooned with charms, chains, curse dolls, and other paraphernalia. He paused briefly to wonder about the poor soul who’d been stabbed through the head by a nail, but that wasn’t why he was here.
He was here to rescue the silver dragon—at last.
Barnabas removed his silk top hat and bowed deeply to the Spymaster of Valiant Province. “Mistress Harcourt, I am here to enact the final stage of the operation. Freedom be to you, and to all.”
The woman rose from her upholstered recliner and adjusted her headscarf. Large earrings dangled from her ears, and curls of grey hair escaped from the wrapped cloth. Her garments, a simple tunic and trousers, glistened with gold thread. Mistress Harcourt’s lodgings were in the dingiest part of the city, but she had spared no expense in her clothing.
“The Honorable Barnabas Courtier,” the woman said, inclining her head. Multiple doors indicated that this rat’s nest had many escape routes, many ways for Mistress Harcourt’s network to deliver their reports. “At last, we meet. Do you have the final payment?”
“Of course.” Barnabas removed a pouch of coins from a greatcoat pocket and handed it over. Excitement such as he rarely experienced buzzed through him now that the climax of his mission approached. He felt positively invigorated—almost as if he could do magic on his own. “Are the players in motion?”
When Barnabas had been a young wizard, newly come into his variant, his parents had been ecstatic. They had been human variants, and most parents hoped for their offspring to morph into wizards. All children, no matter their parentage, were human until puberty, at which point they became one of three variants. Wizards in Tarakona had the most power—socially, hierarchically, and literally. A wizard in the family meant an easier life for everyone.
A dragon in the family meant something else altogether. Something darker and less savory. Something that Barnabas, a wizard scholar by trade, and the Dragon Liberation Front—the DLF—were devoting themselves to upending.
He was also, personally, devoting himself to the rescue of the singular silver dragon, whose magic allotted her wizard too much supremacy. Silver dragons, the rarest of all dragons, conferred upon a wizard the power of prophecy. Her Grace Victoria the Valiant, the governor of Province Valiant, was not using that power to do good.
Mistress Harcourt opened the pouch and shook a few coins into her hand, checking them for authenticity. The coins danced over her knuckles before disappearing. “You’ll be wanting to know about the girl.”
“The dragon,” he corrected. “Nadia Silver. Victoria can no longer be allowed to abuse the power of the silver dragon to—”
“To make our province the richest and most influential in all of Tarakona? It’s a crime, I tell you,” Mistress Harcourt said. “But you have paid me well, Your Honor, and I owe you an explanation.”
Barnabas straightened to his full height. Without a dragon, a wizard had no more power than a human, unless he had talismans. And what wizard would walk into a literal den of thieves without at least a talisman? “Explanation? You owe me a dragon rescue. Where is the girl?”
For over a year, he and Mistress Harcourt had formulated an intricate plan to use her network of humans in Castle Valiant to rescue Nadia Silver from Governor Victoria. Some wizards engaged a single dragon, while others collected various types if they could afford it.
Nadia had been part of Victoria’s prodigious stable since she had morphed into a dragon. Several years ago, the governor had begun to abuse the girl’s power of prophecy to harry other provinces, jeopardizing Tarakona’s stability.
But tonight, the culmination of Harvest Week, was the night Barnabas had worked toward for so long. Security in the palace would be at its most lax, and drunkenness would be would be at its most flagrant.
�
�About that.” Mistress Harcourt fingered one of her large shiny earrings and wouldn’t meet his eyes. “It appears the girl has already flown the coop.”
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How about things that go bump in the night, like reapers and guardian spirits?
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About the Author
Award-winning author D.B. Sieders was born and raised in East Tennessee and spent her childhood hiking in the Great Smoky Mountains and chasing salamanders, fish, and frogs. She loved to tell stories while sitting around the campfire.
She is a working scientist by day, but never lost her love of telling stories. Now, she’s a purveyor of unconventional fantasy romance featuring strong heroines and the heroes who strive to match them. Her heroes and heroines face a healthy dose of angst as they strive for redemption and a happily ever after, which everyone deserves.
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