“I’m so glad you’re back, Mar! All the ladies wanted Fitzy to tell them about his ’ventures, so I got to hear too!” With that brief greeting, Elsaben leaped right from Martus’s arms to Hal’s, causing Hal to stumble backward slightly from her weight hitting him. “Hal! Are you happy again? I was sad when you felt sick.” She clung to his neck, pressing a kiss to his cheek sweetly.
“Of course. I’m always happy to see my favorite little girl. I’m glad you had a good time with Fitzy while I had to steal your big brother away.” Hal returned Elsaben’s kiss with his own to the top of her head.
“Are you tired, Els? We can take you home if you’d like,” Martus chimed in, leaning his head on Hal’s shoulder to peek at Elsaben.
“No! I want to stay! It’s so fun! They have cakes here, Mar! As many as you want!” Of course that was what Elsaben would care about. She deserved a treat, especially since Martus was going to have to break it to her once they got home that she’d have to take a break from her magick practicing for a little while. He wanted her to be able to defend herself, but the fireball she’d thrown during the fight went a bit beyond that. If she knew how to do that, she didn’t even really need to learn much more.
For the moment, they would all enjoy themselves.
“Martus, could I talk to you for a moment? I have a small favor to ask.” Fitzy gestured toward the pub door. Martus was a little surprised at the request, but he nodded nonetheless, glancing over to Hal.
“Will you take Els to get some more sweets? I’ll just pop out for a minute and be right back.” Martus placed a hand gently on Hal’s arm and, when the other boy smiled and waved him off, leaned in to give both Hal and Elsaben each a quick kiss on the cheek. “All right?” Then he turned back to Fitzy, stepping toward the door.
After everything, Martus couldn’t begin to guess what Fitzy wanted from him as a favor. Hopefully nothing too complicated, since Martus looked forward to spending the next week or two living off the money he’d gotten from Gerdy and resting at home with Hal and his sister.
“So what do you need? Thank you, for passing all the attention off to me, by the way. Although I get a feeling you aren’t quite as much a fan of them as they are of you.” Martus didn’t exactly blame Fitzy. He was sure if he did one simple job and got hailed a hero for it, all his actions put under a microscope, he wouldn’t be particularly thrilled either.
“That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about.” Martus raised his eyebrows, hoping Fitzy wouldn’t be passing the baton off to him.
“If you’re thinking that there’s a new big name in town, I am a lot of things, but a hero isn’t one of them,” Martus told him honestly, laughing a little. Hopefully that wasn’t where this was going.
“Oh no, I wouldn’t dream of inflicting this on someone else. The thing is, I’m not a hero either. I got myself in a dangerous situation and fought my way out of it. It just so happened that a lot of other people wanted the same people I killed dead. The attention that came with it is really not my speed. Mum wants me to be more responsible, drink less, gamble less. It’s very hard when all your drinks are free.” Fitzy looked at Martus like he was supposed to connect the dots, but he had no idea where the man was going with this and just shook his head. “I want to get out of the city. Mel tells me you and your partner live in the woods, but not too far from here. If you have some land, I might like to purchase it from you. To set up a house.”
“Wow. Well, we don’t technically even own our own house, and certainly not the land around it. If you’d like to hire some builders and get a house put up, you’re more than welcome to. It’s free land as far as I’m concerned, and I’m sure no one would try to take it from you even if it wasn’t.” It did seem a bit extreme to Martus. He would love to have lived in the city, himself, but it was too dangerous for Hal. Just in case. Their little house in the woods was nice enough for him, anyway.
“Oh, I’ll do it myself. I was a builder, before all this. I’d have it up as quickly as possible. If you’re sure you don’t mind? I feel I should really pay you for it. And I do mean to work jobs with you. Mel will too. In fact, she’d love to more than me. If you get rid of some of her energy, I’d be very grateful.” Fitzy laughed, shifting from one foot to the other.
“I mean, if you insist on paying me, I wouldn’t say no. You take whatever space you’d like for… ten coins? All right?” Martus did have people to look after, and Fitzy obviously had more than enough money to pay him a few coins to build a house. He’d get Elsaben a new dress with them, or a couple of new maps for Hal. It didn’t really seem like legitimate business, but he had a feeling neither of them was going to complain.
“Ah, good man! You really are doing me a huge favor. You know, in addition to saving me from dying and all of that. I owe you quite a lot of favors. I should get on that.” Fitzy chuckled, a big belly laugh that made Martus smile too. Even if he did drink and gamble, he seemed an all right fellow. And Martus really wasn’t the one to judge others on their bad habits.
“Well, now that’s settled, should we return to the crowds?”
“I think I may just go home, actually. I could use a nice, long nap and some time to sit in bed and finish up a book or two. You have a good time, though. At least have a good meal on them. I’ll see you in a few days.” Fitzy laid a hand on Martus’s shoulder, grinning down at him.
“You deserve the rest. Have a good time reading your book.” Martus returned the look, nodding to Fitzy before he ducked back inside the pub.
As soon as he was in, a wall of sound hit him full force. It was hotter inside, more crowded. It was chaos, but a happy chaos. And he managed to push his way through it, shaking hands with a few people and nodding to them when they said something he couldn’t hear over the noise filling every corner of the pub. Finally, he was entirely through the crowd and to a table in the very back where Hal was sitting with Elsaben, a huge plate in front of each of them and an extra one on the end for Martus. Mel had even joined them.
“Let me tell you,” she began, her voice just slightly slurred, “about the time my brother and I fought a bear. They say he did it by himself, but that’s not true. So we were out having a swim in the lake—”
Martus took a large drink of ale. As tipsy as Mel sounded, he’d need to work hard to catch up. Then he exchanged a smile and a small laugh with Hal as she continued with how the bear had caught them with their trousers down, quite literally.
With his family around him, and Mel entertaining them with stories, money in his pocket and a plate of food in front of him, Martus felt like life was good.
Under that, however, was a brewing storm. Something deep in his gut told him the chaos of the crowd wasn’t the last he’d be dealing with in the coming months.
More from Aurora Peppermint
The Knowledge Effect: Book One
A desperate quest forces a young man to question all he knows about truth and loyalty.
Fifteen-year-old orphan Martus is struggling to provide for his magically gifted sister, Elsaben. Stealing and working shady jobs might feed them, but it doesn’t bring in enough for the arcane books and training she sorely needs, and he knows he can’t keep it up forever. His reputation as a troublemaker is starting to put him in danger.
When Elsaben is carried off by a dragon who attacks their village and burns it to the ground, Martus swears revenge, expecting to either die or return a hero. He isn’t prepared for what he discovers in a cave in the mountains.
If he can put aside his prejudices, he might find a chance for a better life, a faithful new friend, and the opportunity to help someone more like himself than he realizes. His adventure could change everything—even the beliefs he’s always taken for granted.
AURORA PEPPERMINT is a teenage girl with a real passion for spaceships. For a long time, she wanted to be the people on the spaceships, and she still does, but now she’s thinking it isn’t so bad to be the one making them. Her dream job is Ghostbuster, and her second
dream job is what she’s doing right now. She is a huge fan of anything involving or centered around the word “chocolate,” and you can usually find her baking something somewhere in New York.
She has a small, tight-knit group of crime fighters who read her books and slap some sense into her when she’s been up for more than twenty-four hours. Most of the time she’s at a concert or convention or something else that begins with “con,” but when she isn’t seeing the world, you can find her bouncing between Central Pennsylvania and Staten Island.
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By Aurora Peppermint
THE KNOWLEDGE EFFECT
Beneath the Scales
Behind the Tales
Published by HARMONY INK PRESS
www.harmonyinkpress.com
Published by
HARMONY INK PRESS
5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886 USA
[email protected] • harmonyinkpress.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Behind the Tales
© 2017 Aurora Peppermint.
Cover Art
© 2017 Anne Cain.
[email protected]
Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.
All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Harmony Ink Press, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA, or [email protected].
ISBN: 978-1-63533-710-5
Digital ISBN: 978-1-63533-711-2
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017905602
Published September 2017
v. 1.0
Printed in the United States of America
Behind the Tales Page 14
