by Laura Bickle
A lump rose in her throat. “The Lunaria . . . it worked, didn’t it? It made you whole, but . . . it didn’t have enough power. It made you . . . like them.” She gestured at the men carrying bales of wire to the pickup.
He put the white hat on his head. This hat was new and crisp and completely unlike the old black one he used to own. He turned away from her, as if she was entirely irrelevant to his existence, to pick up a bale of fence wire. His arms jerked a bit as he loaded the bale into the truck. A puppet working with tangled strings.
He left her standing there, dumbfounded, as the Hanged Men loaded up their supplies. They moved around her as if she were no more than a lamppost, climbed back into the truck, and drove away.
She watched them go, unbelieving. Sig, ever the Good Dog, sat down beside her without offering to pee on anything new.
Petra looked up at the sky, blinking back tears, and spotted a raven perched on a telephone wire.
The raven peered down, staring her full in the face. It saw her . . . really saw her . . . and then winged off to join the Hanged Men and their trailing cloud of dust.
Acknowledgments
Much gratitude to my wonderful editor, Rebecca Lucash. Thank you for your boundless enthusiasm, keen eye, and glowing encouragement. Under your wing, this story found its own darkly perfect ending. Thank you for making this book a reality!
Many thanks to my superhero agent, Becca Stumpf, who I am quite certain wears her cape and Wonder Woman boots twenty-four/seven. Thank you for being in my corner with your magic bracelets.
Thank you to Marcella Burnard, for the late-night reading, head-desking, and moral support. Thanks also for the glow-in-the-dark fairy dust and catnip, which are equally magical at my house.
About the Author
Laura Bickle grew up in rural Ohio, reading entirely too many comic books out loud to her favorite Wonder Woman doll. After graduating with an MA in Sociology-Criminology from Ohio State University and an MLIS in Library Science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, she patrolled the stacks at the public library and worked with data systems in criminal justice. She now dreams up stories about the monsters under the stairs. Her work has been included in the ALA’s Amelia Bloomer Project 2013 reading list and the State Library of Ohio’s Choose to Read Ohio reading list for 2015–2016. More information about Laura’s work can be found at www.laurabickle.com.
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Also by Laura Bickle
Embers
Sparks
As Alayna Williams
Dark Oracle
Rogue Oracle
For Young Adult Readers
The Hallowed Ones
The Outside
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
DARK ALCHEMY. Copyright © 2015 by Laura Bickle. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition MARCH 2015 ISBN: 9780062389862
Print Edition ISBN: 9780062404923
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