I walked Tucker to the door of the next house, pulled my iPhone out of a pocket while he did a rapper spiel for the homeowners. I scrolled through my e-mails: spam, overdue credit card bill, message from Kate, more spam, invitation to speak, endorsement request, message from my agent, overdue car payment—
I paused, flicked open the message from my agent. Like all his correspondence, it was brief.
Fantastic! I need more, ASAP. Talked with three editors today. Showed them what you sent. One of them is offering a three-book deal. How soon can you get us the first fifty pages? We’re thinking a novel this time, not graphic. She’s talking six figures for all three books, based on your previous sales figures, but we need it like yesterday so she can squeeze the first one into next year’s lineup—
My heart skipped a beat.
Six figures.
A couple of years ago I wouldn’t have gotten excited over that amount, but everything was different now.
Now I needed it. Desperately. Immediately.
Chapter 56
Moon Magic
Ash:
Fog licked the edges of the forest, met the drifting snow, merged with the villagescape, reminding me of the mountains in Europe, two hundred years ago. I missed the Old World—when humans had whispered legends about me, telling their children dark faery tales just before they drifted off to sleep.
It had been the time of dreams.
And now the scent of moss and juniper sharpened in the frost-filled air. Wearing a skin of dappled shadow and snow, I followed Maddie down a narrow street. I was nearly invisible. If she happened to turn around, I would have looked like a blank spot in the landscape.
A blank spot. How appropriate.
I shouldn’t have been following her. She bore the mark of another. But Thane had been exiled and it certainly wouldn’t be the first time I had broken the rules. Nor the last.
The snow crunched beneath her feet and a cloud of frost surrounded her. The boy and the dog frolicked at Maddie’s side, distracted by the promise of adventure and bite-sized treasures neatly wrapped in plastic.
None of them could see what I saw.
Madeline was encompassed by transparent cogs and circles, every one of them spinning and sparking, an organic legion of ideas that blossomed from the mists. All of her thoughts were being built and fashioned from the ether, fog swirling in tempestuous roiling eddies, patterns that morphed and growled, a womb of cloud and idea that was giving birth as she walked. White spirals, curling tendrils, fog merging with the canvas of imagination— I drew even closer, watching in awe.
The moon cast down silver beams, touching her, setting the machinery that surrounded her on fire, making it luminescent. It even transformed her skin, making her glow as if filled with stardust. Every move of her hands, every word from her lips caused the great sprockets to turn and twirl and twist.
Moon magic.
On a night like this, anything could happen.
Chapter 57
Shadow-Cast Landscape
Elspeth:
The snow layered in drifts along the edges of the houses and against the cars. Leaves, soggy and heavy, muddled to the ground, broken mementos of the narrow bridge between summer and winter. I pretended that the cold bothered me, like it did the other girls. I stamped my feet, made my nose and cheeks turn red, and kept my hands inside the gloves Jake had given me. So far we had spray painted a barn, let the air out of several car tires and filled mailboxes with gravel.
And now we were playing hide-and-seek in the village cemetery, jumping out and scaring other children that scurried past, all clasping precious bags of candy with white-knuckled fists. Hunter tried to get our group to steal candy from the passing kids, but Jake refused. It was the only time he stood up to Hunter and I wasn’t sure what was going to happen.
Hunter backed down.
I crouched beside Jake now, snow turning his pale hair a frosty white.
The sky shifted above us, black and gray and blue, twisting patterns of cloud and moon. And song.
No, not song. Something else.
I closed my eyes, tried to focus on this new sound that drifted through the night sky. “Do you hear that?” I asked, keeping my voice low.
“What?”
I lifted my head, certain I could hear someone calling my name, far away. It was my name, certainly it was, soft as the snow, but growing stronger.
“What do you hear?” Jake asked again.
Then I realized what it was and why he couldn’t hear it. None of the humans could hear it. It was the Legend, rippling through the heavens, twisting its way between the branches, circling ever downward toward the earth. But it was suddenly different tonight.
For the first time I could hear my own name in its midst.