A Muddle of Magic. Alexandra Rushe

rabbit and the tail is crooked.”

      Raine nodded and wandered away. She peeked under a rowing bench, more out of habit than any real expectation that Flame would be hiding there. Empty. She straightened to find Mauric watching her, one shoulder propped against a mast.

      “What?” she demanded, pushing a stray curl behind her ear.

      “Nothing, lass. It’s just that I’ve noticed a distinct chill in the air whenever I’m around you.”

      “No idea what you’re talking about.”

      “Come now. A man could freeze to death in your vicinity. Does Bree know you’ve been mucking about with the weather?”

      “I’ve done no such thing. I wouldn’t know how.”

      “Ah, then there’s only one explanation. You’re still fratched with me.”

      “I thought you were my friend.” Raine lifted her chin. “A friend would have told me Gertie is a squillion years old. Instead, you let me make an idiot of myself.”

      Mauric looked contrite. “I’m a blighter, and no lie, but you’ve paid me back and then some. My lips are still burning from the blister powder you put on the rim of my mug.”

      “You’re damn lucky it’s only your lips that are on fire.”

      His eyes twinkled at her. “Friends, then?”

      “Friends,” Raine said, relenting. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to find Flame.”

      “I’m glad Raven agreed to purchase some sheep for your snake.”

      “Me, too. I don’t think birds agree with him.” Raine peered under a longboat, but there was no Flame. “I don’t know why Raven’s in such a bad mood.”

      “Don’t you?”

      Raine straightened. “No, I do not. Do you?”

      Mauric shrugged and looked away. “You heard what he said. The men are fretful. Once we reach home, word will spread of our misadventures, and of Raven’s…wizardly proclivities. He’ll have a hard time hiring a new crew.”

      “That’s stupid,” Raine said. “Raven’s a ditook helluhmah thingy. They should be proud. Gertie says it’s very rare.”

      “Dytugg helbredden, but, rare or not, it won’t matter. Magic is magic, to a Finlar, but mayhap Raven won’t mind being landbound. According to Gertie, he took to sea in the first place to avoid the scandal.”

      “Scandal?”

      Raine knew that Raven was half elf and half Finlar, and the natural son of the rowan. Beyond that, she knew little else about him.

      “Hedda, the rowaness, is Raven’s stepmother. Beautiful, but a troublemaker. My uncle married her a few months after Raven was named captain of the Royal Guard. Raven enlisted, you know. Worked his way up the ranks. He could have accepted an appointment as a prince of the realm, but he made captain on his own merit.”

      “You like him, don’t you?”

      “Raven?” Mauric said. “Tro, yes. Best of good fellows. He didn’t deserve what happened to him. The story goes that Hedda waited until Raven got roaring drunk one Trolach, and—”

      “Trolach?”

      “The summer solstice when we honor Trowyn and Finn,” Mauric explained. “Three days of games and contests ending in a great feast. Anyway, Hedda waited until Raven was in his cups and crept into his bed. The rowan found them. Quite a dust up, as you can imagine.”

      “And the rowan believed Hedda?”

      “Don’t think so, but he asked Raven to leave, all the same, until things settled down.”

      “Well,” Raine said, incensed. “I’m new around here, but even I know Raven’s not the sort of man who’d sleep with his father’s wife, no matter how drunk he got.”

      “I agree. Wish I’d been there to set them straight, but it happened before I was born.”

      “How old is Raven, anyway?”

      “Right at three hundred, I reckon. Don’t recall the exact number.”

      “Three hundred years old? But he doesn’t look a day older than you.”

      “It’s the elvish blood, I suspect,” Mauric said. “And he’s in Finn’s direct line, which means he’s long-lived.”

      “Are you in Finn’s direct line?”

      “Oh, aye, though I’m farther removed. The rowan’s my uncle, you know.”

      Raine narrowed her eyes at him in sudden suspicion. “Are you older than dirt, too?”

      “Me?” Mauric chuckled. “Nay, lass. I’m a mere lad. Twenty-seven, my last name day—three years older than Carr, Raven’s half brother. You’ll meet him when we reach the Citadel.” His expression sobered. “Have a care around Hedda. Rumor has it, she’s a witch.”

      “Beautiful, bad, and a witch, huh?” Raine dimpled at him. “I won’t take any apples from her, I promise.”

      She left him shaking his head at that remark and went in search of Flame.

      Chapter 3

      Golem

      Keron padded into the Dark Wizard’s chambers, his silk trousers swishing across the tops of his bare feet. He refused to wear shoes. It was a small act of defiance, a reminder that he was a floater. He belonged on the river, not in this bank dweller’s nightmare of stone. The marble floor was cold, but he didn’t mind. At least he could feel. The black gurshee the wizard had given him had numbed him to things, good and bad. Pain. Joy. Fear.

      Sadness and loss.

      Keron blinked back tears. He’d been weaned off the gurshee for some weeks now. As soon as he was no longer muddled by the drug, he’d asked for his da.

      “That floater scum?” Praxus, the captain of the guard, had sneered. “Deader ʼn Xan’s toenails. Glonoff fed him to his dragons. The only thing left of your da is a few scraps of hair.”

      I’ll kill Praxus one day, Keron swore to himself, and feed him to the lizards, same as he did Da. Glonoff, too, by Gar.

      He’d teach them all a lesson one day, when he was a man.

      Keron crept farther into the room. The wizard’s apartments were spacious and richly furnished. An immense bed of black wood with posts carved to resemble four snarling mere dragons dominated the space. Blood-colored satin sheets covered the high mattress, and silken black draperies shielded the occupant of the bed from the morning light that poured through the leaf-shaped windows. Not that the Dark Wizard slept. Too busy killing folk, Keron thought, his resentful gaze lingering briefly on the red fur throw across the foot of the bed. His father’s red locks dangled from one end like some hunter’s grisly prize.

      “Come here, Keron.”

      The boy jerked in surprise and turned in the direction of the lazy voice. The Dark Wizard sat on a dais on the far side of the immense room. The chair he occupied, like the bed, had been fashioned in the shape of his hateful pets. Keron took a few steps closer and hesitated. The living versions of Glonoff’s darlings sprawled on the floor near their master, their forked tongues tasting the air.

      “Now, boy.”

      The steel in the wizard’s tone spurred Keron across the room. Disobedience meant pain, he’d quickly learned. Head down, he halted at the foot of the dais stairs.

      “Don’t be tiresome,” Glonoff said. “Look at me.”

      Keron lifted his gaze. The Dark Wizard regarded him from the throne, his chin resting on one manicured hand. Mira, one of the palace chambermaids, claimed