The Heartwood Chronicles

The first thing Amber felt was the defensive spells on the outside going up in flames.

The second thing was the roof of the warehouse exploding in a shower of debris, leaving a gaping hole open to the sky.

The third thing was the mages—suns blazing—who came leaping through the hole.

Amber gaped as the first touched down on light feet, riding a wave of hot air. His magical nodes glowed hot and strong to her mage-sight. His magic was so powerful that he brought light with him, a glow that lit up the entire warehouse.

Another sun mage swirled down, and there were more hovering above the roof—two, no three.

The first mage straightened and grinned at Amber. “Oh, hey, look. It’s Blondie again.”

That wide grin and unruly hair. The feathers. The boy from the café.

Which means the other guy… Amber leaned to one side to see past him. Yep, lanky build, hands in pockets, bored expression, magical energy swirling around in mists of cold blue. And that would be Troi.

The first boy—Kael, Amber remembered—moved. Amber’s gaze snapped to the free-floating spell heading for his arm. “Watch out for-!”

Kael’s hand burst into flame. Amber cried out, “Drop to the floor. Roll!” She was already bundling her mist cloak, hurriedly impressing a fire-protection pattern into the folds.

“Wait, it’s fine. See, I’m doing this.” Kael  shook his burning hand, and the flames—vanished. Soot spiraled to the floor, but his sleeve and arm were untouched.

He broke straight through the outside defensive spell. They all did, these sun mages, and survived. Amber’s eyes widened in awe. The thought was followed immediately by, Who are these people, and better yet, how can I slip away from them?

“Are you with the smugglers, too?” Troi said from behind Kael’s shoulder. Unspoken was, It figures.

“No, I’m not—Kael, watch out, there are all sorts of spells all over this—”

An alarm shrilled. Amber clapped her hands over her ears. Even Troi winced. Kael, hand still outstretched towards a large misshapen urn, said, very quietly, “Oops.”

A girl’s voice yelled down from the roof. “What’s going on down there, you two?”

“We’re just disabling these spells,” Troi called back.

“Well, can you do it quietly? We are trying to keep this somewhat covert, you know.”

Amber fought down a sudden bubble of hysterical laughter. Tripping a defense spell and blowing a hole in the roof counted as covert operations?

And then all around the edges of the warehouse, magical nodes flared into life.

“Uh, guys?” she said. “I don’t think we’re alone in here anymore.”

Instantly, both boys raised shields around themselves. Amber slipped on her mist cloak, feeling more vulnerable than ever. Sun magic made its users stronger, faster, more resilient. With their power, these boys were superhuman.

She, on the other hand, wasn’t.

Red-eyed constructs, heavy and ceramic, stomped into the center of the warehouse. Flickers of light gleamed over their rune-tattooed bodies. Their patterns, simple and strong, shone red. Only three nodes, but set in a strong triangular system.

“Don’t worry,” said Kael, already in a fighting stance. “Leave this to us. Watch out for yourself.”

Troi snorted, “She’ll need it. One hit and she’s dead.”

Yeah, I hate him.

Amber backed into a rack and smirked at them. “I’m not the one lit up like a pleasure-boat sign right now. Whatever these constructs are, they’ll be after you first. See you later, boys.”

They didn’t answer. Kael was already leaping for the first construct, movement savage and fast. Troi flicked lashes of cold air at another.

They can take care of themselves. Amber made her way carefully around another rack, keeping an eye out for other spells. Suns glowed and patterns disintegrated behind her. She heard a yell, a crash. A sudden spurt of flame threw her shadow, freakishly long, in front of her.

The lurid color also painted two more constructs, standing guard over the basement steps.

Amber looked into their dark pitiless eyes and decided not to push her luck. She backed up to the middle of the warehouse, where three constructs and innumerable crates were smashed to pieces. One of the racks was on fire.

“Kael,” shouted the unseen female from the roof. “What’d Master tell you about–?”

“It wasn’t me,” yelled Kael, aiming a punch at another construct’s torso, cracking the ceramic. “These guys are tough—and they shoot some nasty fire, too.”

“Much as I hate to say it,” began Troi as he stood over the fire. Air whooshed away from the flames and they went out. “It isn’t his fault this time. He really is trying to be careful.”

Amber winced as Kael kicked the construct’s thigh. The ceramic shattered, the construct tilted heavily to one side. Its nodes went into an alarming light show that could only mean, I’m about to blow and take you lot with me.

“Aim for its nodes, idiot!” she yelled. “Left shoulder, lower right torso and top of the head. Before it explodes!”

“Right!” Kael shouted back. Two quick blows and a kick later, and the construct collapsed into itself.

“What, you’re still here?” Troi drawled, eyebrows raised and arms folded.

“Constructs are at every entrance,” Amber told him. “Get busy knocking nodes or are you going to let your friend do all the work?”

Troi shrugged, but the energy around him changed, struck out in three dark whip-lashes. Another construct fell.

Kael had taken on yet another. Amber turned to the last construct. One of its nodes was out of configuration; the whole pattern flickered madly. When Kael hit the nodes, it didn’t shut down or collapse like the others did.

“The whole thing is unstable, Kael,” Amber called out, ducking behind crates. “We’d better—”

“Eh,” he said. “Let’s do this the good old-fashioned way.”

He punched right through its torso. Ceramic shards flew through the air.

“No, you idiot!” Amber shrieked as energy boiled all along the boy’s arm, engulfed him in sickly colors. Heat blasted her backward and, as she squeezed her eyes shut, she saw Troi armored in a roiling mass of dark air.

Great. My mist cloak isn’t going to save me from this. I’m going to die here because SOME idiot boy stuck his arm in a malfunctioning attack spell.

Silence. A blissful darkness. Amber unscrewed an eye. She was still alive, still unburned, all pieces attached and accounted for.

Slowly she stood up, expecting to see a pile of smoking ash where Kael had been.

Kael stood under the hole in the ceiling and waved up to someone. “All done down here,” he called. Troi, his barrier gone, lounged against the ugly urn. Spherical lights bobbed around the shelves, casting a soft silver gleam over the debris.

Kael looked around, saw Amber. “There you are. You shouldn’t really be here, you know.”

Amber started toward him. Rubble crunched under her feet. “How did you—how did you even survive that?” She peered at him, trying to see signs of great power in his face. All she saw was the same goofy guy she’d seen outside the cafe.

“Oh, that wasn’t so bad,” said Kael. “Come on, let’s get you out of here. Help me out, Troi.” Before Amber could protest, he grabbed her by the waist and threw her up in the air as if she were a doll. An updraft caught and flung her up towards the hole. Amber flailed and grabbed an edge as her cushion disappeared. Her legs dangled. A hand grabbed her by the arm and hauled her onto the roof and to her feet.

Amber looked into narrowed eyes above an embroidered scarf that covered her helper’s nose and mouth. The other girl wore a hood and gauntlets, and she had wings stretching out from her back.

“Who,” said the girl, “in blazes are you? And what are you doing with a ishari artifact?”

Amber looked down at her hand. She was still holding the pipe. “Oh. Well, as for that— I can explain, really.”

The girl just gave her a look. “You certainly will have to. No, not right now, dummy. Just give me the pipe and stay out of the way while we clean up.”

 

No one seemed at all interested in interrogating or even securing the wayward bystander. Amber sat on the ruined roof while the flying girl, Kael and Troi explored the warehouse. Apparently, they tripped spells, as the occasional curse or yelp indicated. Amber could’ve told them about those spells, but they didn’t ask and Amber didn’t mention it.

Instead, she lay back on the roof, stared up at stars distorted through a magical barrier. After all, they were sun mages. They could handle it.

There were two others in the party, dark figures whose only purpose seemed to be expending ludicrously large amounts of energy in maintaining a shield over the warehouse. Amber could’ve created a pattern that used a lot less magic, but then again—

They didn’t ask, and she didn’t mention it.

She felt completely drained. When she closed her eyes, all she saw was that flare of white light with that wretched boy inside it. Her stomach clenched. They’d all been a hair’s breadth from a particularly nasty end. Didn’t these people care at all?

Of course not. They were crazy-strong combat mages and they thrived on this kind of thing.

On the other hand, I still have my five hundred coppas. A ticket home is looking more and more promising. And she turned the deactivated locator spell in her hand and wondered if it was at all worth having it out with Waleem, or whether she should just put tonight’s events behind her.

That is, if she survived the sun mages.

After an hour of things being moved around, the flying girl rose up out of the warehouse and consulted with her two comrades on the roof. Within moments, the sun mages dropped their shield. The winged girl stalked over to Amber and scowled down at her. Amber looked back up, expressionless.

“It’s time to go,” said the girl. She walked to the edge of the roof and glared as Amber slowly got to her feet, smoothed out her hair, and straightened her clothes.

I can be annoying, too, thought Amber as she sauntered over to the girl.

The girl put a hard arm around Amber’s waist and pulled her tight against her side. “Hold on,” she bit out, and jumped.

This makes the second time tonight. Haven’t these people heard of personal space? Amber shut her eyes as the ground rose up and her stomach dropped. They landed, winged girl with cat-footed grace, Amber with a stumble.

Ugh, I can’t even balance properly any more. If I don’t get to sleep soon, I’ll be pinching cheeks and making jokes that no one else thinks are funny. I know how this goes.

The winged girl let Amber go, turned to face her. “You’ll be taken to our temporary base. You’ll wait there until Master Zoya can—are you even listening to me?” she snapped.

“Sure I am,” said Amber through a cracking yawn. Honesty compelled her to say, “Though it’s mostly in one ear and out the other, I’m afraid.”

She was sure the other girl sneered behind her mask. “That’s to be expected, considering all the empty space between them.”

For the second time that night, Amber stuck her tongue out at someone else.

“Puh-lease,” said the winged girl. She gestured, and an auto purred over to the pair, long and sleek. The girl opened the door and pushed Amber inside. “Just get her off my hands,” she called to the driver. “She’s Master Zoya’s problem now, not mine.”

Amber put her head back against the cushions, wincing as the sun mage slammed the door. My first auto ride—she yawned again—and I can’t even enjoy it.

Read Episode 5 here.

Author’s Note: Amber’s mental commentary was fun to write, and more fun to re-read. I don’t normally write teenagers, but I enjoy letting my dramatic inner sixteen-year-old take the reins in this story. Any questions, thoughts, or comments? 

Amber hobbled through the streets of Hopeswell. She’d developed a blister on her right foot from a shoe that didn’t fit as well as it should. This was hardly her triumphal procession to the site of victory.

Amber smiled at her own fancies. Her senses were cautiously extended from her body. Every time they collided with a human pattern, she ducked into a side street or took a detour. There weren’t many people around at any rate; the clock had struck one as she’d climbed down from the town hall roof.

The ghost tugged at her, but pattern lines didn’t exactly follow streets. Unless she could walk through brick walls or entered people’s homes through their windows, she had to take a more circuitous route. The ghost didn’t like it and only pulled harder.

A less insistent ghost next time.

The ghost led her behind shops, over the railroad tracks, and in among the warehouses with their tiny windows and large blank walls. A greasy stillness hung around her, heavy with the patterns of a dozen different defensive spells. Amber threaded carefully among them, fitting herself through narrow gaps.

This one. Amber craned her neck up at a warehouse, no different from its fellows in the night. Her ghost pulled at her from inside.

Amber pulled out the locator spell Waleem had given her. Stick it on the ground, activate the spell, and one thousand coppas are as good as mine.

But still she hesitated. Still the ghost pulled. Still the voices went around and around her head.

“… we’ll have all the sycophants after us…”

“… two-coppa witch…”

“…don’t feed the strays…”

The memory stung. The band around her wrist, marking her as not-good-enough, was a painful reminder. Amber turned it over and over around her arm. The knowledge rubbed her raw.

I’m better than they think! I know I can do this. I can walk into that warehouse and stick the spell right on that pipe without tripping any alarms at all.

She knew it was her pride talking. She knew what Papa would say if he were privy to her turmoil. But the same sudden impulse that had taken her into the bakery this evening had a hold of her again.

I can do this.

Amber scanned the defense spell around the warehouse. Ooh, tricky. It looked like your average, off-the-shelf keep-thieves-out spell, but there some nasty little snarls and thorns hidden in it. Yes, this spell could give someone quite the unpleasant shock. Right before they were incinerated by fire or zapped with lightning.

But no defense spell was airtight. There were always holes, and the key was to insert yourself through them without triggering the spell.

You had to make yourself be part of its pattern, or else something small and harmless, like a mouse or a puff of air.

Since you couldn’t change your own individual pattern, all you could do was wear a disguise on top of it.

If I duplicate this part… and match up the edges… I can walk right through this gap… and no one will be the wiser.

Amber pulled out a square of fabric from her pocket and shook it out. It billowed into a grey cloak, almost as light as air. I knew this would come in handy. The cloak was mistwoven; its fibers easily absorbed and held patterns. Amber could use it as either disguise or armor, though her patterns didn’t hold much longer than a day. Mostly, they dispelled within hours or even minutes, depending on the circumstance.

This pattern would last long enough. Once she’d imprinted it on the mistcloak, Amber flung it around her shoulders and put the hood up over her head. It draped on her body, surprisingly heavy now that she wore it. It was as if the pattern actually added weight to the fabric.

Let’s do this.

Amber stepped forward. One, two, three. The defense spell shifted as she stood in its gap, and her shoulders tightened against a lightning bolt.

None came.

Amber slid one foot along the ground, then the next, slowly detaching herself from the spell. A sudden jerk would trigger massive amounts of pain.

With a last pinch, she was past the spell and free. Amber took a deep breath and strode forward.

A warning shimmer stopped her mid-stride, one foot lifted up.

What’s this? Another layer? Amber carefully put her foot back down and examined the second layer, this one weaker and paler, hiding behind the stronger, bolder pattern.

And I nearly walked straight into it. Amber shook her head in disgust. Pay attention, you two-coppa witch!

She wove another pattern, imprinted it into her cloak, glided through a gap. There. She reached out and touched the wall of the warehouse. It was solid and spell-less.

Amber cast a doubtful look at the wide padlocked door. Too big, too heavy, bound to be guarded with more nasty spells and make a horrible grinding sound when moved.

She circled the building, looking for windows. Her ghost fluttered at the end of its tether, but the movement was weak.

It was already dissipating. Amber wished, not for the first time, that she had sun magic to power her pattern creations, and then instantly felt treacherous for even thinking it.

Aha. Amber crouched by a basement window, hidden in the shadow of an overhang. The window was small, the glass dusty, the frame rickety, and there were no spells around, in front of, or behind it. The pattern threads around it were frail and stretched thin. It took the merest twitch to encourage the hook-and-eye latch to click open.

Amber tugged at the casement. It put up a token resistance, then popped open. She put her feet in the gap and squeezed through. Her hips stuck for one heart-stopping moment, but a wiggle freed them. She fell ungracefully to the floor in a heap of braided hair and mistwoven cloak.

Mysterious shapes hulked in the faint light coming from the window. Great. I hate working in the dark. Amber pushed her senses out ahead of her and made her slow way past stacks of crates and up a short flight of stairs. She tripped up the last step and landed hard on her hands. Ouch.

At least she was on the main floor now. The gloom lifted a little, and Amber risked a small light pattern. It bobbed ahead of her, casting a dim glow.

Smaller spells draped walls and ceiling. Some were detached and floating free. They were easy enough to deflect, but Amber slowed, moving cautiously. More annoying were the blanks in her mage senses, dead places were objects had been heavily wrapped in silence. The sheer number of those blank spots made Amber nervous.

Just how many magical artifacts were in this warehouse?

I’m in this up to my neck, so I might as well see it through. Amber stopped in front of a shelving unit crowded with boxes. She reached out a hand and her ghost misted onto her palm, leaving a slight coolness.

Found you. Amber ran her fingers over a long narrow case, raising dust. She held back a sneeze, then fiddled with the clasps. The age-worn leather gave way easily. Amber opened the case and peered at the pipe.

In the cool blue of her faint lights, she could make out few details, but the curve of its stem and shape of its bowl was distinctive. A Serepentine cha-smoking pipe, as she’d guessed.

Amber couldn’t resist picking it up, couldn’t resist feeling its pattern, matching it with her ghost, gloating over how right she’d been.

Not bad, huh? Wonder how many licensed mages could pick out an object in an entire city based off a bit of broken energy signature. Time to get that locator spell on and get out of here. I deserve a warm bed, a hot bath, and a great meal after this.

Amber pulled out the locator spell Waleem had given her, a small sticky blob with a deep indentation. Her thumb hovered over the hollow.

All the patterns around her lurched horribly, flashed in lurid colors. Amber staggered, blinded.

What the–?

And then the world went horribly, disastrously mad.

Read Episode 4 here. 

Author’s Note: Everything was going too well for Amber. It’s time to shake things up. 

Any questions or comments? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Click to read Episode 1! 

Amber didn’t have a great head for heights, but she was learning to overcome that. She stood upon the flat roof of Hopeswell’s town hall and leaned her hands upon the stone balustrade. Hopewell’s clock tower, a surprisingly ornate edifice in such a town, loomed darkly behind her. The rest of Hopeswell spread out below, the black shapes of one-story buildings huddled together, threaded through with dotted lines of faintly glowing street lamps. A dark sea glimmered in broken waves to the east; the oblong bulks of warehouses were a solid mass to the north.

“Now, here’s the deal, dollface,” Waleem had said earlier, rubbing his long-fingered hands together. “You ain’t got the sort of magic folks will pay big bucks for, but there is something you are good at and that’s finding things. And I’ve got a client lined up who’s willing to give you your lucky break. Thing is—are you man enough to take it?”

He probably imagined the look he gave her was an inspiring combination of challenge and encouragement. It just made him look constipated.

Amber folded her arms. “Go on.”

Waleem looked crestfallen at her lack of enthusiasm. “Well, thing is, client wants you to prove you’re as good as I know you are. He wants you to find something for him and he’s ready to lay out in cold hard cash”—he paused dramatically—“one thousand coppas!”

“I’m not doing anything illegal,” said Amber automatically.

Waleem let out a gusty sigh and rolled his eyes heavenwards. “Look at her,” he said to the sky. “Why does she think the worst of me? I know her—straight as an arrow and true as the day. Baby doll, would I ever get you in trouble?”

“Don’t call me baby doll,” said Amber, more out of habit than with any conviction he’d actually stop. “And, yeah, you wouldn’t hesitate to throw me to the dogs to save your hide. Tell me more about this oh-so-legal job of yours.”

“Well, the fact is… the fact is… that you’re right,” conceded Waleem. “There’s been some hanky-panky, but not by the client. Seems like his property was stolen and he’d like it back. Now, just wait a moment—” He lifted a beseeching hand as Amber drew in a quick breath. “I ain’t asking you to go into some smugglers’ den with all suns blazing and neither is he. He just wants you to find where the thing is and slap this tracking spell on the place. You won’t get your hands dirty at all.”

Amber wavered.

Waleem smiled slyly, showing crooked, yellow teeth, and tapped the breast pocket of his grubby coat. “I have five hundred coppas here in crisp banknotes—half the payment upfront.”

A thousand coppas! That was several train tickets out of Hopeswell.

I could go home. I could get my license. I could pay the Mages’ Guild fees back in Ravin. Amber could scarcely breathe as the possibilities unfolded. To someone who’d been counting her coppas in tens, the prospect of ten hundred was dizzying.

“And the price goes up the closer you get,” Waleem went on. “A thousand coppas for slapping the spell on the building where my client’s property is. If you put it on the object itself, the price goes up to five thousand or more.”

Five thousand. Visions of rented apartments and grocery shopping trips and maybe a trip to the theater or two danced in Amber’s head.

“All right,” she said. “What do you need me to find?”

 

Now Amber looked down at Hopeswell and wondered if she’d actually pull it off.

Waleem had dug into the many layers swathing his scrawny frame and pulled out a wrapped package with a flourish. Amber recognized the gauzy packing material as silence, a magic-dampening substance. It numbed her fingers as she unwrapped a hollow wooden stem, tapered at one end.

“What’s this?” Amber held the object between her fingers. Residual power throbbed deeply within it. Its magical signature was definitely unique.

“No idea.” Waleem shrugged. “It’s part of the stolen property. Can you find it?”

“Oh, I think so.” Something this individual would stamp itself deeply into the pattern of Hopeswell. She rolled it between her fingers. It was too dark to make out the grain, but the stem had been worn satiny-smooth. Is this some kind of mouthpiece? To what? “With this in hand, it should be easy enough to create an attraction spell—”

“Uh, no. I have to take the thingummy back with me. You don’t get to keep it, baby girl.”

Amber was exasperated. “Does your client actually want me to find his property or is he amusing himself by making this hard for me?”

“You should be grateful, doll. You really want to be found snooping around with that in your pocket? You won’t be able to sweet talk your way out if you were.” Waleem widened his eyes and pitched his voice high. “Oh, please, sir, I was only taking a short cut and I got lost and there was this big, hungry dog…”

“All right, all right, I get it.” Amber closed her eyes and focused on that signature. I can find this easily enough. She rewrapped the stem in silence and thrust it at Waleem. “Now give me that tracking spell, and I’ll be off.”

“Godspeed, baby doll,” said Waleem with false piety. He made a blessing sign at her. Amber stuck her tongue out at him.

 

Standing by herself in the warm night air, Amber caught sight of Hopeswell’s one chapel and felt a wriggle of guilt. She’d always prided herself on her integrity, but here she was, doing something that she couldn’t say for certainty was honest, all for the price of a train ticket out of Hopeswell. Not only that, but she’d actually broken into a building to gain access to a vantage point. It didn’t matter that one of the side windows of the town hall had ben unlatched, that it had been child’s play to lift the sash and clamber over the sill. Amber was still not supposed to be on the roof of the Hopeswell town hall.

She just couldn’t bring herself to compound her wrongdoing by praying for help, so she didn’t.

Instead she did a mental twitch. Lines in all sizes and colors sprang out all over Hopeswell.

The pattern.

Amber smiled to see it. These strings connected everything together. To her senses, they were smells and colors, textures and tastes. They touched her in ways she could hardly describe, because her ability was rare enough that there were no words for what she sensed and did with the pattern.

All right. Now to find that signature.

The entire city was made up of patterns upon patterns. They interwove, interlaid, overlapped. Amber could focus on even a millionth part and lose herself in the patterns for hours, for days. There was no way one human mind could encompass all the richness and complexity of a pattern. It’d be overwhelmed and lost.

Overload was the danger of pattern magic.

Dotted all over the pattern were nodes, pulsating in vibrant colors, ever-changing designs swirling across their faces. These orbs were reservoirs of magical energy. Many resided inside people—the sun mages, like the boys at the bakery. The nodes tugged at Amber’s senses, pulling her toward them. The stronger the node, the harder it was to resist its attraction.

Distance helped, which was why Amber had chosen this rooftop.

Time to get to work. She held the energy signature of the mouthpiece in her mind, turning it this way and that. It was only a part of a whole; she noted it ragged edges. Somewhere was the rest of the piece, and she rather suspected that it was a smoking pipe. The signature put in her mind of solidity and comfortableness, of controlled power and a quicksilver mind and a sly, twinkling humor. The lines of the part-pattern of the mouthpiece reminded her of an exhibition of Serepentine artifacts she had once attended. Amber had learned to trust her instincts, so she recalled images from the pipes exhibit and selected one that seemed to fit.

Now for the fun part. She would make a ghost, a temporary pattern image that she’d set loose among the lines and loops of Hopeswell. Once it found a match, it would tug her toward the location. The challenge was that she’d have to create the ghost by extrapolating from the meager information she had.

Carefully, Amber worked out the pattern of the rest of the piece. Extend that line here, smooth out that curve, add a jagged edge where the pattern was broken. There was a taste of ash against her lips, a scent of tea in her nose. Yes, certainly the Serepentine Isles. And one of the powerful sun mages of that archipelago had owned the pipe.

Soon the ghost was ready, pale and fluttering in her mage senses. Amber breathed out, and the ghost drifted into the Hopeswell pattern. It floated down, stuck onto an energy line. The line brightened, the ghost sped up, and disappeared among pulsing gold swirls.

And now I wait. Amber sat down on the cold rooftop, knees drawn up against her chest. She rested her chin on them. I hope I gave it enough longevity. I didn’t know that there was so much complexity in Hopeswell. From up here, she saw several clusters of suns, the strong nodes of magic.

She wondered if one of those clusters was the Kael and the rest of his group, then rejected the notion. They’d been too well-shielded to stand out. But a frontier port like this was bound to be home to organized smuggling and other assorted crimes. It was not uncommon to find magic hand in hand with whatever passed for power in a place.

Several parts of the pattern attracted her, but Amber resolutely pulled back from it. It had already been a long day and she was tired. She didn’t know if she had the willpower to keep from getting lost inside the magic.

I need to rest my eyes and my mind. Amber yawned. It may not look it, but pattern manipulation is work. A deep ache lay in her muscles, a sure sign that she had pushed her magical skills beyond the norm.

She left herself open enough only to detect immediate threat or a ping from the ghost, then dropped her head to her knees.

Amber must’ve dozed off, because when the jerk came, she started and bit back a yelp. Her muscles were stiff, her eyes gritty, and damp had seeped through her clothes.

But her ghost had found the stolen artifact. Take that, Mr. Client! She thought, but her mind painted instead an image of the magic-school boys with their hidden insignias and not-quite-uniforms and superior suns and tight shields.

Why am I thinking about them, anyhow? They’re just a bunch of pampered jerks who’ve had everything handed to them. Surely I’m not that insecure.

Amber held on to the railing and climbed to her feet. Forget them. I have a job to complete.

Read Episode 3 here.

Author’s Notes: That Waleem sure is a slimy character, isn’t he? I loved writing more about Amber’s magic. It has so much potential, and I’m looking forward to what else she can do with it. She has a lot of growing up to do as a character, too, but I have a lot of sympathy for her position. I see her situation like a gap year gone awry, hee!

Do you have any questions or comments? Any typos I missed? (There are always typos I missed.) Let me know below! 

This is the very first episode in a brand-new serial fantasy that you can read for free. A young mage finds herself stuck in a dead-end town, but change is right around the corner…

Amberlin stood on the cracked stone pier looking out across the choppy water and thought, for the thousandth time, about going home.

The sky over the sea was a uniform grey; she couldn’t even pretend to make out a smudge on the horizon that might be the western tip of Ravin, her island home. A clammy wind, smelling of brine and sewage, poked warm fingers through the holes in her knitted jacket, tugged the hem of her skirt. Amber grimaced and smoothed her skirt back down.

Stop torturing yourself, she scolded. Going home was not an option. Going home meant giving up. Amber wasn’t ready to do that just yet, not even when her purse was almost as empty as her belly. It hadn’t even been a year since she’d left.

Brushing light brown strands of hair from her face, Amber resolutely turned away from the sea and back towards Hopeswell.

None of the promise of its name had come to fruition in Hopeswell. It was a seedy, rundown seaside town, full of sagging buildings, rusting iron roofs, and shiftless and shifty-eyed people. Amber had expected this port of the wild and wonderful mainland she’d dreamed of since she’d been a small girl to be drenched in magic and mystery. Stepping off the boat two months ago had been a shock. The dock areas were the kind of places Mama would never allow Amber to walk alone back in Oaktown, and the rest of Hopeswell wasn’t much better.

Still, there was all the rest of the Ravinian colony to explore: the uplands where the wealthy had summer homes, the picturesque towns that lay nestled along the riverside. There had to be something better beyond Hopeswell. She just needed to get out and make her way there.

Amber left the pier, her hands buried deep in her pockets. A damp newspaper wrapped itself around her foot; she twitched it loose. Broken glass, ground into dust, glistened in cracks and between cobbles. Wavelets sucked and gulped against the docks and retaining walls. A smear of green slime spread up the stone to the high-water mark. The few boats at anchor were weathered and worn-looking, paint faded and chipped. They bobbed tiredly as she went past.

From the north of Hopeswell came the long whistle of a train. It sounded unbearably lonely, as if the train, too, were homesick.

Amber scuffed her way through streets filled with deepening gloom. Most of the shops were closed by now, metal grills down over their display windows and big padlocks on the doors. Their signs, corroded and faded in the sea air, swung sadly in the breeze. Scrumptious Seconds… Bargain Prices! Dazzle Fashions… Oldsmills’ Books… Stunning Spells

Amber stopped in front of the spell shop, as she always did, and once again read the Help Wanted sign taped to the door, as she always did. With many exclamation marks and much misuse of quotation marks, the sign promised her an “exciting” position! with an “innovative” company! with many “opportunities” for promotion!

Amber considered the sinister connotations of the quoted words. The shop was a small operation, and she knew exactly what opportunity consisted of: packed into a small backroom with four or five other magic users, churning out copy after copy of the same spell.

It was soul-crushing work, and Amber had already put in her time at such a place back in Ravin. The spells, she knew, would promise the world and deliver nothing. In their quest to be all-inclusive, they’d end up being vague and useless. Yet people kept buying these charms for finding misplaced items, for good luck, for fair weather and pest control and more, by the dozen.

They’d be better off with custom spells from licensed mages. Sure, those were more expensive, but worth every coppa. And in the colonies, enough people had realized this that a licensed mage could make a comfortable living anywhere in Ravin territory.

Licensed. There was the rub.

Amber wound her way between more streets and stopped when she realized she was following her nose. A heavenly aroma of cinnamon and yeast had guided her this far; already her mouth watered in anticipation. Her stomach, protesting the reduced rations of the past three days, rumbled.

She couldn’t resist. Her feet took control and hurried her across the cobblestones to the source of the smell.

It was a bakery, in what passed for an upscale area in Hopeswell. Tucked between a luxury goods store and a haberdashery, it was neither large nor opulent. Yet the dandelion yellow paint was fresh and cheerful, the blue door with its strand of silver bells welcoming. The display windows gleamed, all manner of cakes, pastries, and breads placed to full advantage behind them.

Amber’s gaze darted from flaky pastries covered in almonds to pies oozing with berry filling. A tall chocolate cake covered in sugar flowers and chocolate curls had her nearly swooning. Then she caught sight of a white cake, light and frothy, made of layers glued together with lemon filling and whimpered.

A slight movement to her right. Amber looked down at an urchin next to her, his palms against the glass, the tip of his nose almost touching the window. His eyes were round and his mouth open. Hunger and yearning were written all over his face.

Amber realized that she mirrored his position, and quite probably, his expression. The urchin looked up at her. He was a sharp-featured fellow with a dirty face and a shock of unkempt hair the color of mud. Bony wrists stuck out from his too-small coat and his feet were wrapped in waxed paper. His eyes were young-old, and he was probably a smooth liar and light-fingered thief.

He had to be, living on the streets in Hopeswell. This was the kind of kid that poor or drunk parents all too easily abandoned.

And yet, as their eyes met, a camaraderie flashed between them. They were united in their hunger and their desire, not for healthy stews and warm coarse bread, but for sinfully rich, lusciously sweet, bad-for-you-and-your-purse desserts.

Amber grinned at the boy. “Let’s not stand here gawking, all right? Let’s go eat.” Her fingers curled around the money-pouch in her pocket. There was enough. There had to be enough.

The urchin grinned back, revealing ill-kept teeth. Amber flung open the door with unnecessary vigor, its bells jangling madly. The plump lady behind the counter looked up, face clouding, as Amber marched across her gleaming floor.

“I’ll have an apple past… no make that almond… no, both. An apple and an almond pastry. A big slice of the white cake. And he’ll have…” She put an expectant hand on the urchin’s shoulder.

Not slow on the uptake, the boy pointed to a cherry pie and a pile of sticky pink-sugar-coated buns.

“He’ll have a slice of the pie and two of the buns,” Amber went on. And before the woman could embarrass her, she pulled out her money pouch and asked, “How much will that be?”

Relieved that her customers intended to pay in good faith, the woman bustled around, putting the goodies in paper bags and becoming downright chatty. “What a miserable spring we’ve been having, eh…. Look, how hungry that poor mite looks… what a kind miss you are… that’ll be fifteen coppas, then.”

Amber let her expression go blank as she struggled to keep the dismay off her face. Parting with those fifteen coppas depleted her meager hoard pretty much down to a few coins—and they were not of high denominations. But she placed the money on the counter with an air of reckless bravado. She might end up on the streets tomorrow, but by the Maker, she would eat good, rich food tonight!

The baker swiped the money into her cash-box with practiced swiftness, still talking. “Ah, I see you’re a mage, then, miss.”

Amberlin touched the blue and yellow band at her wrist, which more or less proclaimed her to be an unlicensed and nigh on unemployable mage. It was her shame, lumping her in with those of little talent or few ethics, or both.

She managed a smile. “Yes, ma’am.” The words came out with practiced cheerfulness and her look was open and direct. There’s nothing wrong with being a banded mage! I’m like all those other masons and metal workers looking for jobs. Nothing to be worried about here, at all.

The baker pursed her lips, looked at Amber out of shrewd, black-currant eyes. Amber beamed back.

“We-ell,” said the baker. “I put in a spell against pests just the other day, but I’m scared that I didn’t do it right. Magic gives me the prickles, if you know what I mean.” She twitched her shoulders in a ripple that took several moments to make its way all over her body. The urchin watched, fascinated.  “If you could give it a quick look later on–?”

“I’d be happy to,” Amber assured her. She gathered up the all-too-expensive goodies and retreated, urchin in tow, to a round marble-topped table in the corner.

Soon, the two were eating in companionable silence; the urchin with a sticky bun in each hand, alternating bites between the two. Amber put a creamy forkful of cake in her mouth, savoring the texture and taste. She was only halfway through when the urchin crammed the last of his cherry pie in his mouth, then sat eyeing her pastries.

“Here.” Amber pushed the almond pastry toward him. “I think my eyes are bigger than my stomach.” She felt slightly queasy. Perhaps the rich cake after her strict diet hadn’t been the best idea.

The boy must have a cast-iron stomach. He inhaled the pastry. Amber looked idly out the window, let her magical senses reach out over the bakery. There were several small spells here, most of them unfurled and running. The pest control spell, though, was a tight, hard knot, still coiled up into itself. The baker was right; she hadn’t set it properly and—Amber sighed—it wasn’t a very good one. In fact, none of the spells were of high quality. What was worse, they didn’t fit together very well, grating and getting in each other’s way. But Amber could fix that easily enough.

She could do it right now, sitting here, but Amber knew that it’d be more impressive if she put herself in a meditative pose and added a few sparkles to the process. She could charge a premium for the show, even though her integrity rebelled against it. She may not be a powerful mage with an impressive talent, but what she could do, she did very well, with minimum fuss. She was quick, quiet, and tidy.

Qualities better suited to a housemaid than a successful mage unfortunately.

However, she couldn’t just sit here now that she’d seen the mis-alignment of the bakery spells. It rasped down her nerves and whined, mosquito-like, in her ears. Such imbalance ought to be criminal. Amber reached out with her magic. A twitch here, a tweak here, a little nudge to this spell and a harder shove to that one and—

Buttery-yellow lines shone in her mage-sight. Now the spells were actually talking to each other, reinforcing each other, humming along contentedly and usefully, set in a classic star-shaped pattern. It felt right. Amber felt a warm flush of pride. This was why she’d become a mage in the first place.

I do good work. Even if she did feel like she’d just broken into someone else’s house in order to wash the dishes and dust the china. I’ll save the sparkles for that pest spell, she promised herself.

She brought her focus back to the real world.

And started.

There was a boy on the other side of the window and he was grinning at her. Unruly brown hair, peculiar gold eyes, and were those feathers trailing down behind his ear?

The boy cocked his head, yelled something over his shoulder. More boys came running up.

Relief rushed over Amber. She hadn’t been caught red-handed, after all, illicitly pruning someone else’s rose bushes. He wasn’t looking at you, dummy. He’s staring at the FOOD.

Amber had three little brothers, all younger than the boy outside the window, but she had a healthy respect for masculine appetites.

The next moment, she was squeezing further into her corner, as the door crashed open and boys poured into the bakery in a stampede of feet and rush of voices. Round lights dotted Amber’s vision; it took her a second to realize that her mage-sight was showing her the boys’ magic as smooth and compact spheres of light, hidden from most other mages by well-formed shields.

Amber was not most mages.

“Look at those–!”

“… buns as big round as…”

“Nice job finding this place, Kael. Knew we could trust your nose.”

Amber’s urchin companion had slipped away in the crush, but Amber knew she wouldn’t be so lucky. She counted only five boys, ranging in age from early to late teens, but they seemed to take up all the space in the shop. All of them wore sober clothes that gave the impression of being uniforms without being, well, obviously uniforms.

Boys from a magic school on some kind of field trip? Amber wondered. She had no idea why anyone would think Hopeswell a likely destination, and she couldn’t think of any magic schools nearby. She knew there were many in the islands and some dotted down the mainland coasts, but she had never looked into them. Mama and Papa couldn’t afford the tuition, and she didn’t have the impressive talent needed to secure a scholarship.

The boy with the feathers—Kael—leaned his hands on the counter and beamed at the bemused baker. “I’m starving,” he said, “and I can tell by the smell that this is the best bakery in Hopeswell. I’ll take one of everything.”

The poor-starving-boy-look and the flattery did their work. The baker melted into dimpled smiles, and her voice was motherly and indulgent. “You poor things. Came in on the evening train, did you? No good food there, that’s for sure.”

A chorus of assents rose up. “Only old sandwiches.” “I’m sure the cookies are made of concrete. I chipped a tooth on one.” “Wilted lettuce and limp chicken in my lunch.”

One of the boys had an insignia of a stylized tree on his upturned collar. Amber stared it, trying to call up a name. She was just about to look away when another boy, this one tall and icy-eyed and bored-looking, caught her staring.

Amber flushed, looked down. The bored-looking boy whacked his companion on the head.

“Ow, what’d you do that for, Troi?” yelped the other.

“Turn down your collar, or you’ll have all the sycophants after us,” said Troi in a contemptuous drawl.

Heat rose up her cheeks. He didn’t even bother to lower his voice! Why should I care which stupid magic school he’s from? Amber wanted nothing more but to flounce away, but Mr. High-and-Mighty stood right next to the door. Since she wanted no accidental contact with any part of him, she sat where she was, stared stonily at a rack of buns, and fumed silently.

Kael hadn’t been joking when he said he’d wanted one of everything. The baker bustled about, snatching food off shelves, and the piles on the counter kept growing. Boys rained coins on the counter, in a joyful abandon of coppas that made Amber wince. Already she was regretting her earlier extravagance. Her leftover lemon cake was sad and sagging. Moodily, she cut it to pieces with her fork.

The baker gave Amber a harried look as she reached for sticky buns. “Miss, that pest spell–?”

“Oh, yes. I’ll be right over.” Amber pushed the plate away from her, pushed herself away from the table, and hurried over to the counter.

Just then Kael turned around, arms laden with baked goods.

Uh-oh. Great, crashing into a walking bakery is just what I need to cap this ridiculous evening, flashed through Amber’s mind, and suddenly the boy was no longer in front of her, but passing her. His trailing feathers brushed against her cheek as she stared, stupefied. How’d he move so fast? I didn’t even see him change course.

“Hey, you want to help me eat some of this?” Kael waved a scone at her.

“No picking up strays,” called Troi.

Amber clenched her teeth and ducked behind the counter. The baker waved a hand vaguely. “Over there, dear.”

Amber squeezed past racks and into a vast, silent kitchen filled with granite countertops and steel pots hanging from overhead hooks. Huge ovens, now sleeping, were set into one wall. Trays of rising dough, covered in cloth, sat upon a wooden table. The aroma of years of baking lingered in the air.

The pest spell was on a lower shelf; Amber crouched down and picked it up. Its physical form was a badly-cast ceramic blob with metal spikes sticking all over it. Someone had thought it a great idea to paint it purple, and the half-torn-off packaging read “…unning Spe…”

From outside, Amber heard Troi say, “… two-coppa witch… they’re the worst.” Kael responded, amiably, “Shut up or I’ll punch you.”

Amber activated the spell with an unnecessarily vigorous yank. Just as I thought, it’s a useless generic spell. It’ll be lucky if it repels a fly. Mouth set tight, she stripped out parts of the spell that were only getting in the way and strengthened the rest. Then she pinched and pulled the rest until she’d gotten it into shape, plugged it into her star-shaped pattern.

Without ruining the balance of the whole thing, thank you very much!

Amber pulled out a charcoal stick and carefully wrote some relevant runes on the outside of the spell, in case another mage came along. Most mages did not have the same mage-sight she did–they worked with runes instead of threads and patterns. Runic magic was standard, so Amber had had to adapt to it.

The baker looked in on her. “Ah, you got it working, didn’t you, dear? It’s glowing all right, just like the package said.”

It was indeed, glowing a violent purple. Amber smiled slightly. “I do have to warn you, ma’am, that these store spells will never be as good as custom ones. You should find a real mage to come and set spells designed for your shop.

The baker made agreeing noises, but they both knew that she’d put it off until a situation arose.

Some people just have to learn the hard way.

“Will twenty coppas be enough for your trouble? And take this bag of rolls with you, dear. I won’t be able to sell them after tonight.”

“Of course,” said Amber. I could’ve charged at least hundred if I’d been licensed, for the same work. This cursed band! She put her hand in her pocket.

Her empty pocket.

My money pouch is gone!

Amber dug through her other pocket, then the ones in her skirt, panic in her chest. The baker watched her knowingly, a gleam of sympathy in her shrewd dark eyes. “Rascal boy made off with your money-pouch, didn’t he? It’s not worth being kind to those street rats.” She tut-tutted.

The urchin! No wonder he ran out of here so fast! Apparently, I have to learn the hard way, too.

“Thank you, ma’am,” said Amber weakly, stuffing the coppas in her pocket and putting the paper bag in the crook of her arm.

“And you can use the back door since it’s closer, too.” The baker was trying to spare her from any more of the haughty Troi’s remarks, Amber realized. To her horror, she found tears weren’t far away. She nodded at the baker and hurried out the kitchen.

Outside, evening had turned to night. Amber stood beside some rubbish bins in a dimly-lit alleyway, blinking. The familiar worry gnawed at her stomach again. Twenty coppas was all she had, not enough to buy a ticket out of Hopeswell, not enough for her rent coming due in less than a week. What had possessed her to indulge herself in the bakery this evening? What happened to her vaunted self-control? She, who had flitted from makeshift work to makeshift work for over a month, never knowing where the next coins were coming from? Amber gritted her teeth, furious with herself.

A human presence intruded on her consciousness. Angrily, she turned to confront it.

“Hey, Odd Job Girl.” The small man held out his hands appeasingly and spoke in an annoying whine. “No need to get all zappy and zingy with me.”

“Waleem,” sighed Amber. “What do you want?” Thanks to his habit of sidling up to people unexpectedly, Waleem had been on receiving end of her only offensive spell. Most normal people would’ve laughed it off (Amber readily admitted combat spells were not her forte), but Waleem was neither smart nor brave. He had a kind of low cunning, though, that could be very useful—and Waleem had survived the streets by filling a niche, much as cockroaches did.

Now he pouted. It was not an endearing look on him. “I’ve been waiting all evening for you to come out of there. That’s time slipping through my hand, one coppa at a time. Got a job that’s right up your alley. Unless”—he gave her a sly sideways look—“you don’t need the work?”

Amber thought of her stolen money pouch, the twenty coppas in her pocket. She sighed. “Spit it out, Waleem. I’m listening.”

Read Episode 2 here. 

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