Also by Rebecca Chastain
MADISON FOX ADVENTURES
A Fistful of Evil
A Fistful of Fire
A Fistful of Flirtation (a VIP newsletter exclusive)
A Fistful of Frost
NOVELS OF TERRA HAVEN
Gargoyle Guardian Chronicles
Magic of the Gargoyles
Curse of the Gargoyles
Secret of the Gargoyles
Lured (a VIP newsletter exclusive)
Terra Haven Chronicles
Deadlines & Dryads
Leads & Lynxes (forthcoming)
STAND ALONE
Tiny Glitches
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Sneak Peek: Magic of the Gargoyles
With one last twist of a filament of earth magic, I fused together the delicate seams of the quartz tube. Slumping forward, I braced my elbows on the table and rested my cheekbones on my palms, cupping my weary eyes in darkness. Six down, six finicky tubes to go. The specifications of this project taxed my substantial skills with quartz magic, which was the point. This project would launch my business and prove that even though I was only a midlevel earth elemental, my quartz skills were equal to or better than more powerful full-spectrum elementals. These fussy tubes would fund the down payment on the lease for the shop I coveted in the Pinnacle Pentagon Center. I could finally quit my demeaning job at Jones and Sons Quarry, be my own boss, and begin a career creating one-of-a-kind quartz masterpieces I could take pride in.
My entire future rested on these fragile vials, and they were due tomorrow at four.
Dull pain pounded my back muscles. Night had crept over the city while I worked, and my jerky movements as I stood and stretched were reflected in the semicircle of bay windows in front of my worktable. Purple smears of exhaustion beneath my green eyes were exaggerated in the dark windows, and my pale face floated above a dirt-smeared navy shirt. I checked the clock: almost midnight. Sixteen hours until my deadline, and eight of those would be taken up by my Jones and Sons workday. There was no time for a break. If anything, I needed to work faster.
Groaning, I redid my ponytail, tucking shorter wisps of strawberry-blond hair behind my ears before giving my hard wooden chair the stink eye. Mentally chanting, Pinnacle Pentagon, to motivate myself, I reached for another seed crystal.
Frantic tapping shook the glass in the balcony door. I pulled the door open, knowing it was Kylie, my best friend and the tenant who shared my second-floor apartment balcony. “I really can’t talk. I need to finish—”
“Help! Help! They’ve got—”
Something small and hard slammed into my stomach. I staggered backward into my chair and crashed to the floor. A small boulder skipped across the wooden floor and smashed into the wall.
“You’re a human!”
I shrieked. The voice came from inside my room. I twisted, scrambling onto my bed.
Against the wall, the rock moved.
Beautiful blue dumortierite quartz veined with green aventurine twisted into a winged panther no bigger than a house cat. A pissed-off, solid-stone, magical, winged house cat. A gargoyle—no, a baby gargoyle. A hatchling.
Her eyes glowed feverishly. Long polished blue claws gouged into the floor when she launched into the air. Her agile stone wings unfolded with a soft gritty sound.
I lurched backward across the bed until I was pressed against the wall. The mattress shook when the hatchling pounced on the space I’d just vacated. Sharp claws bunched in my yellow bedspread. She raised her muzzle, mouth open, and sniffed the air.
I eased toward the foot of the bed, readying my escape into the hallway.
“It’s you! Your magic smells so good. I thought—”
My magic has a smell?
The gargoyle’s eyes darted to the open door, then back to me. She arched her stone back and hissed at me, the sound dying to a hair-raising growl. The tip of her stone tail slashed back and forth, gouging my wooden headboard.
“I need help.”
“My help?” Gargoyles—even baby gargoyles—didn’t interact with midlevel elementals like me, and they certainly didn’t ask for our help. “There’s a full-spectrum elemental just—” I started to point up the street but froze when she snarled at me.
“No other humans! Before it’s too late.” The gargoyle’s words were smooth coming out of her rock throat, with just a hint of a lisp from her tongue working around enormous teeth.
I stared into her glowing blue eyes, seeing past the bared fangs and agitated movements, reading her fear for the first time. I reached for her, then pulled my hand back when she shied from me.
“Too late for what?”
“You can save him. Hurry!”
“Save him? Save who? If someone is hurt, I can send for a healer.” Where were this gargoyle’s parents?
“No. I need you.” Large blue eyes implored me. “Please!”
A thousand reasons I should find someone else to help the gargoyle crowded my mind, but the hatchling’s urgency was contagious. Someone was injured. I didn’t want to waste time arguing with her, but was I really the best choice? I could work earth, but healing usually took someone talented with all five elements.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to get—” someone stronger? I started to ask, but she cut me off with another sharp “Please!”
Gargoyles were creatures without guile, and this baby was obviously terrified for someone’s life. If she thought I could help, I had to try. I took a deep breath. “Okay. Let’s go.”
The gargoyle whirled and launched for the open doorway, moving with the silent fluidity of a flesh-and-blood panther.
“I’ll take the stairs,” I said. I snatched up my shoes and coat and raced to the door.
My studio apartment was one of four on the upper floor of a converted Victorian house. At midnight, everyone else in the house was asleep, just the way my landlady Ms. Josephine Zuberrie liked it.
As I sprinted down the stairs as quietly as possible, shoes in hand, I reviewed everything I knew about gargoyles. It wasn’t much. Gargoyles favored those strongest in magic—full-spectrum pentacle potential, or FSPP, elementals. When they chose, they could enhance a person’s magic, but I’d only heard of them doing so during large-scale rituals conducted by five FSPPs. Despite being creatures of earth, they were not partial to any particular elemental magic; instead, they were attracted to a person’s strength of earth, wood, air, water, or fire magic.
Which is why, as a midlevel earth elemental, this was the first time I’d spoken with a gargoyle.
I eased the front door shut and dropped my shoes to the porch, wiggled my feet into them, and yanked the laces tight. When I spun around, the gargoyle dropped from the roof to the porch railing, almost clipping my head with a heavy rock wing. I swallowed a startled scream.
“Hurry,” she trilled. With a squeal of protesting wood, followed by the crack of stone smashing into stone, the gargoyle leapt from the balcony to the sidewalk ten feet below. Wincing, I raced down the porch steps after her, praying to be out of sight before Ms. Zuberrie investigated the racket.
By the time I reached the sidewalk, the gargoyle had almost a block lead on me, moving unexpectedly fast for such a small creature made of stone. In wing-assisted leaps, she bounded into the darkness. I sprinted headlong down the center of the deserted street, chasing the sporadic glimpses of panther-shaped dumortierite in the puddles of lamplight. The baby gargoyle kept me in sight, but only just. My lungs and legs burned after the first five blocks. My vision tunneled to the broken asphalt and gargoyle in front of me. I didn’t notice when the lamps ended, only that the dark blue gargoyle was harder to see, and by the time I did take in my surroundings, we were deep in the blight and I was lost.
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Acknowledgments
> This book has been a long time coming, and while I wrestled with it, I greatly appreciated your gentle but insistent requests for Madison’s next adventure. Thank you, dear readers, for caring, for wanting more, and for being persistent and patient!
I am blessed with very thoughtful, perceptive beta readers, who all noted different plot and character inconsistencies I managed to overlook in the umpteen times I wrote, rewrote, and edited this book. For their wisdom and for ultimately strengthening this story, thank you to Sarah Gibson, Renea Kania, Scott Ferguson, Diana Blick, Crystal Jeffs, Pam Morarre, Joanne Rimmer, Liz Perez, Rebecca Moore, and Barbara Hamm.
For the final polish, I am grateful A Fistful of Frost passed through the hands of my very talented editing team, Carrie Andrews and Amanda Zeier. No matter how many times I edit a book, they always catch errors I miss.
Thank you, Mom, for all the lunchtime visits and for all the dinners and desserts you provided so I could spend more time writing. You and I both know home-cooked meals are a novelty around here. Anytime you want to become this author’s live-in chef, you’re more than welcome!
For making sure I have space to write and dream, nature outings to keep me sane, and laughter each and every day, thank you, Cody. With you by my side, I can do anything.
Finally, this book and the entire Madison Fox series would not exist without Zenzo, Dame Zilla’s real-life counterpart. Zenzo gave me the original idea for soul-sight, though I developed it into something more. She sprawled across my lap through countless hours of writing and editing, and interrupted just as often with demands for me to turn on the bathtub tap or to play chase up and down the hall. For every novel I’ve ever written, she has been my companion, but now I have to figure out how to do this without her.
Zenzo, wherever you go in the next life, I hope you know you carry a substantial piece of my heart with you. You will be missed beyond measure.
About the Author
REBECCA CHASTAIN is the USA Today bestselling author of the Madison Fox urban fantasy series and the Gargoyle Guardian Chronicles fantasy trilogy, among other works. Inside her novels, you’ll find spellbinding adventures packed with supernatural creatures, thrilling action, heartwarming characters (human and otherwise), and more than a little humor. She lives in Northern California with her wonderful husband and bossy cats.
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