A Meddle of Wizards

by Alexandra Rushe

Mimsie lifted her slender shoulders. “I get around.”

  Raine swallowed the lump of misery in her throat. “Did you hear Bree? I’m a pawn.”

  “You can bet your bottom dollar he puts himself in the same category,” Mimsie said. “What was it he told you in the beginning? There are more lives at stake than your own. Staying here was the right thing to do. Your friends need your help.” She paused. “They are your friends, aren’t they?”

  Raine was silent, the memories washing over her: Mauric, his blue eyes brimming with laughter, Tiny waving a forlorn good-bye as the barge drifted down the river, Gertie, her ugly face transformed by tenderness as she bent over the wounded Mauric, Bree taking a swan dive off a mountain before turning into a hawk and soaring into the sun. Chaz and Braxx had stolen pieces of her heart, too. How could she let them battle the Dark Wizard alone?

  Raven’s deep voice drew Raine’s gaze to the bow. He had his back to her, his muscular legs spread for balance as the ship rode the waves. A bank of angry clouds, remnants of the storm, hid the two moons. The clouds shifted and a sliver of the broken moon Petrarr peeked forth, shy as a maiden. Moonlight glittered on the black water. As if sensing her perusal, Raven glanced back at her. It was the scene in her bedroom mirror, a lifetime ago.

  Raven had saved her from the sea monster. She owed him, too.

  “Well?” Mimsie said. “Are you sorry you stayed?”

  “No. I’ve got a score to settle with Glonoff.”

  “Me, too.” Mimsie folded her hands in her lap. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”

  Something in the ghost’s tone, a mixture of eagerness and dread, sent a thrill of alarm through Raine. She sat up straight. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  Mimsie looked down at her hands. “Remember when you summoned Trudy and Kipp to speak with Bree?”

  “It’s not something I’m likely to forget.” Raine recalled Xai’s scabrous hands reaching for her from the mist, and shivered.

  “You brought someone else across the divide. My sister Allison. We’ve been talking.”

  “Allison?” Raine murmured, bewildered now and concerned. Allison Carlisle had been Mimsie’s younger sister. Crazy Ali, the townsfolk had called her, and with good reason. Allison had died in a sanitarium, a subject so painful that Mimsie refused to speak of it, or her sister.

  “Allison married a man named William Stewart and they had a boy named Jack.”

  “I know who Jack Stewart was, Mims. He adopted me. He was my father.”

  “Wrong. Jack was your uncle.”

  Raine waved her arms at the ghost. “Hello? Not from Earth, remember?”

  “Stop talking, and listen, baby girl,” Mimsie said. “Twelve years after Jack was born, Allison and William had a healthy baby girl,” she said. “Mysteriously, the baby died less than a week later. Crib death, the doctor said, but Allison wouldn’t accept it. She insisted the baby they buried was a changeling. Claimed a demon came in the night and took her baby. Of course, no one believed her.” Mimsie sighed. “Ali was never the same after that. Her marriage fell apart and she ended up in Bryce Hospital.”

  Raine’s heart was thumping so hard that she felt sick.

  “It was Glonoff, wasn’t it?” she whispered. “He sent a demon to take the baby. But why?”

  “Allison was born with a funny splotch on her left wrist. Her baby girl had the same birthmark.” Mimsie looked Raine in the eye. “As do you. You’re Allison’s granddaughter, Mary Raine. I knew it the moment I laid eyes on you. Saw the mark on your tiny little arm when Jack unwrapped you . . . and I knew.”

  “We’re family, real family, and you didn’t tell me. Why?”

  “Love makes a family, Raine, not blood. Plenty of people in the world are related and hate one another.”

  “Whatever. You still should have told me.”

  “I know.” Mimsie sighed. “I was a coward. I was terrified people would think I was crazy, like my baby sister. I saw a woman in a cloak vanish into thin air. Who’d believe that?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this before? In the cave, I mean, when Kron offered to send me back.”

  “I didn’t want to influence your decision. The choice was yours, to go or stay.” Mimsie’s eyes blazed like headlamps. “But, now that you’ve decided to stay in Tandara, it’s important you know the truth. Glonoff killed my sister, Raine, same as if took a knife to her. He stole her life when he stole her baby. He killed Jack and Sylvia, and he’s done his damndest to kill you.”

  “I know,” Raine said, thinking of Trudy and Kipp. She clenched her fists. “I won’t forget. It’s on.”

  Mimsie nodded in approval. “That’s my girl. Knew you wouldn’t take his guff lying down. You always have been a fighter.”

  She disappeared.

  Raine wandered to the rail and looked out to sea. Glonoff would come for her again. She felt it in her bones. The question was where and when.

  Didn’t matter.

  Bring it, you twisted son of a bitch. She opened her mind to the hum and sent the thought flying across the water to the Dark Wizard. I’ll be waiting.

  A Muddle of Magic

  Don’t miss the second novel in the Fledgling Magic series!

  The magic deepens and the web of danger tightens as Raine flees the Dark Wizard on a ship bound north. She narrowly avoids death at the hands of a demonic golem sent by her enemy to dispatch her, and finds sanctuary in Finlara, a snow-capped nation of warriors.

  In Finlara, to Raine’s delight, she is reunited with her dear friend, Tiny Bartog, a frost giant, and unearths a magic mirror, a dread curse, and a tragic, ill-fated love affair.

  But safety is an illusion. Magog’s Eye is still missing and war looms over Tandara. As Raine encounters vicious rock trolls, sly and unpredictable stone fairies, and greedy mercenaries bent on her capture, she finds she must still struggle to survive.

  Meet the Author

  Alexandra Rushe was born in South Alabama, and grew up climbing trees, searching for sprites and fairies in the nearby woods, and dreaming of other worlds. The daughter of an English teacher and a small-town judge, Rushe developed a love of reading early on, and haunted the school and local libraries, devouring fairy tales, myths, and tales of adventure. In the seventh grade, she stumbled across a worn copy of The Hobbit, and was forever changed. She loves fantasy and paranormal, but only between the pages of a book—the flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz give her the creeps, and she eschews horror movies. A psychic friend once proclaimed the linen closet in Rushe’s bedroom a portal to another dimension, and she hasn’t slept well since. Rushe is a world-class chicken.

  Please visit her at www.alexandrarushe.com.