Tag: serial

The Faerie Thief: The Ruby Queen’s Garden 002

tft002The daisies had been gossiping again.

Their voices, high and fluting then low and secret. Words cupped behind leaves, sepals curling with glee.

And their eyes.

Bright and knowing. Watching her. Waiting.

Gwyn curled her fingers into her fist, one by one as she stared back. For one breathless moment, she envisioned herself gripping slender stems and tugging upward, hard and sharp. Exposing root to sky, scattering the daisies’ secrets on the wind along with wishes and petals.

But the beastly things were sentient, and she was not a murderess.

Not yet, anyway.

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The Curious Leaf: Voyage to the Moon 002

moonmouse

Kya frowned at the moonscape stretching out as far as her eyes could see. It wouldn’t be fair if they had to leave now, not when they’d only just arrived. But like its earthly counterpart, the moon had its rules and regulations to keep it spinning straight and true.

“I’m afraid we didn’t bring anything with us,” she said, regret weighing down her voice. “We didn’t know we were supposed to bring anything.”

The mouse shook his paw at her. “What sort of guests arrive—uninvited I might add—without a gift for the host?”

Hearthorne strained against the force of her roots keeping her down in one place. Never before had she appreciated the ability to move even a single step to the side. But now that she no longer had any feet to step with, she would have to make do with what she had.

“What offering?” she asked again, her petals spread wide against the coming day.

Kya’s frown deepened a little. Hearthorne didn’t seem at all surprised to hear about the offering.

The mouse straightened, though his nose continued to quiver at them. “A wish or a dream is the usual fare.”

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Mira Morganstein: The Pink Lemonade Club 001

MMCoverIn which Mira celebrates her Eleventy Year, acquires a fairy doll of dubious origins, meets a changeling, and learns that she is to be the next Queen of the Nearly Dead Fae.

Preliminary Report by Bodkins A Hatpin to Her Majesty of the Realm

Subject: Mira Morganstein a.k.a Our New Queen In Potentia

Topic: The Subject’s Fascination with the Number Three, Glitter, and Fancy Dresses.

Your Majesty,

As per your request, I have studied the girl in question. While the magic is in her blood, I am still not settled as to whether or not her personality is compatible with her future duties. My findings are below.

Mira Morganstein has always wanted to be a princess.

If it is pink, frilly, or sparkles, she wants one. Two is better, and three, perfect.

Mira always does things by threes if she can help it—which will be both a strength and a hinderance.

So far as we have been able to ascertain, she believes three is a special number that is, at its heart, the direct opposite of what it says it is. An odd number, yet it is made of two half circles stacked one on top of the other. It has three points aimed at the left, but always looks forward. It is an unfinished letter “B”, and its number of points odd and its curves even.

She is the sort of person who finds comfort in a number that is more like a metaphor than a simple symbol used to denote the space between two and four. Her math teacher, Ms. Simmons, a mortal fraught with reality, despairs of ever getting Mira to write a three without flourishing it somewhere.

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The Faerie Thief: The Ruby Queen’s Garden 001

TFTcoverPROLOGUE:

 

Her new name sank past her tangle of wild red curls and into her skin.

It seeped into her bones. Her magic. Her reality.

When Robin had told her about names, his voice had had a reverent quality she hadn’t understood until now.

Names were power.

Power to choose. Power to change. Power to become.

And power to be free.

Her fingers curled around a small stone embedded in the key she’d created in the garden no one was supposed to know existed. It fit in her palm like a second name, and in a way, it was.

Now all she had to do was find this Faerie Thief and bring him or her back to the White Queen for justice.

And then . . . Her heart beat a little faster, and for a moment her lungs forgot how to breathe.

And then there was a whole world out there just waiting for her to explore her newfound freedom.

 

Join me next Tuesday for one of the true beginnings of this story. 😉


The Curious Leaf: Voyage to the Moon 001

TCL Cover

For a girl who had been a flower only a short time ago, flying to the moon was still an impressive feat of the impossible.

The Curious Leaf sailed smoothly through the night, rocking gently with the air currents as it made its way up through the sky. The moon shone like a silver face that watched the world pass beneath it with a benign sort of interest.

Some believe the moon to be a person—usually a maiden, but not always—while others think it is a round object composed entirely of either rock or cheese. Of course, the moon isn’t precisely Scientific.

It is all of these things, yet none of them.

They were yet a ways out, having only just entered into the moon bay, but even from here, Kya could see the silvery white beams of wood that rose out of the waters like twin sentinels. This was the moon’s front door where the dapper walnut hull would gently knock by way of greeting and politely requesting permission to dock. The place was less a single thing like the moon, and more of a complexity of worlds woven seamlessly together, much like the ship’s compass-orrery.

Kya didn’t care about any of this—for plants rarely ever give thought to the Scientific or to the Fantastic. The moon might have been a jeweled onion, and it still would have been the most magnificent sight she’d ever seen in her three short seasons. As she drank in the moon, she had to admit that it had been well worth the trouble of going back to seed and convincing said seed to please let her out again.

The moon’s country glowed dimly into the fading night by the time The Curious Leaf washed upon its shores.

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