“I wish you wouldn’t talk that way about your magic,” said Colin. “It’s demeaning. It’s absolutely wonderful the way you can control fire and food supply and all, I think.”
She looked at him curiously. “You really think so?”
“I do—it may not seem like much when you’re safe and sound in your own castle, but Rowan says it’s an enormous tactical asset.”
“Rowan—the king—said that?”
Colin nodded. “He called you our secret weapon. Of course, from him, being called a weapon is a compliment. He said a siege would never take a castle with you in it. And look how you provided for us on the road and kept us comfortable in all that bad weather, not to mention holding off Grimley ’til Rowan could arrive with Neddy.”
“I had a little help,” she reminded him.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It’s just that it’s so everlastingly dull up there, Colin, with the winters so long and everyone at me to do this and that.”
“Well,” Colin said slyly. “You’ll have help with all that at least.”
“He’s a bit small. We can’t even talk together yet.”
“But we can, dear Maggie,” said a familiar voice in the back of her mind.
“Moonshine?” she asked.
Colin smiled. “He’s been waiting here outside the rowan trees for six months, ever since he followed us back from Dragon Bay. He’s followed everywhere you’ve gone, always within the woods. But he can’t stand the rowans either, bewitching creature that he is. The shepherdesses saw him and…”
He broke off, for she was no longer there. She was running to the edge of the woods, where the brush parted to show what seemed to be a bit of pearly morning sky.
Colin thought that nothing would be quite ordinary, ever again, for any of them.
About the Author
Elizabeth Ann Scarborough is the author of more than 25 solo fantasy and science fiction novels, including the 1989 Nebula award winning Healer’s War, loosely based on her service as an Army Nurse in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. She has collaborated on 16 novels with Anne McCaffrey, six in the bestselling Petaybee series and eight in the YA bestselling Acorna series, and most recently, the Tales of the Barque Cat series, Catalyst and Catacombs (from Del Rey). Recently she has converted all of her previously published solo novels to eBooks with the assistance of Gypsy Shadow Publishing, under her own Fortune imprint. Spam Vs. the Vampire was her first exclusive novel for eBook and print on demand publication, followed by Father Christmas (a Spam the Cat Christmas novella) and The Tour Bus of Doom. Redundant Dragons is her newest exclusive novel in The Seashell Archives series and follows The Dragon, the Witch, and the Railroad.
WEBSITE: http://www. eascarborough.com
DEDICATED BOOK SITE: http://scarbor9.wix.com/beadtime-stories
BLOG: http://spamslitterature.wordpress.com/
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/KBDundee
FACEBOOK: http://www.facebook.com/elizabeth.a.scarborough
OTHER: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4811383.K_
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