The Masters of Wishes is now the first of The Spectra Crown Tales, available December 6th!
Here's the first chapter, where you get to meet Princess Marjie and two of her brothers!
(As of this posting, this book is still in edits, so this chapter may go through small changes before publication).
Chapter 1: Trouble
IN A NATION of earth-shapers, anyone could create and fill in handholds in the stone castle wall, but only someone with strength, experience, and a touch of insanity could reach the third-floor windows.
Marjie climbed through the window and paused to catch her breath. Only hints of starlight broke the darkness, but she knew the castle well. No guards patrolled this particular hallway. The guards, and most of the castle, still believed her to be a perfect princess, and perfect princesses did not break into the visitors’ wing in the middle of the night.
A thick black curl had plastered itself to her forehead. Marjie tucked it back under her headscarf. Her hair was too carefully maintained to match her servant uniform. She unwrapped a ragged shawl from around her waist and draped it over her shoulders. After exercise, the late spring night was plenty warm, but an overworked servant wouldn’t think so. Her slippers were a bit too new to pass as servant footwear, but they hid under her skirts and made no noise on the tile floor.
A guard stood at the entrance to the guest wing. Marjie paused around the corner and calmed herself with a deep breath. Her future husband slept in this wing. At least, her father thought so. She needed more information on this visitor before she decided if she would remain a perfect princess.
Keeping her head down, Marjie walked down the hall.
“Who's there?” the guard demanded. His uniform was generic black, but his familiar accent clearly identified him as a Nomelands guard, not a visitor. Marjie didn’t dare meet his eyes, but she could study his shiny dagger on his belt. He wouldn’t use it unless he found her a threat.
Of course, he wouldn’t use it at all on a princess, but Marjie often sacrificed safety for anonymity. Few people, even inside the castle, recognized her face.
She just had to act non-threatening.
“Housekeeper Jade insisted I empty the chamber pots immediately,” Marjie said. “I was snoring too loud.”
The guard snorted, and Marjie walked steadily past.
Housekeeper Jade had both a temper and a sense of humor, making Marjie’s excuse perfect. She would also talk to anything that held still long enough. All Marjie had to do was impersonate a servant and work nearby–and, of course, figure out what information was actually important.
Information such as which visitors would stay in which rooms.
Marjie paused in the middle of the hallway and regarded two doors, side by side. Behind the door on the right, she’d find Princess Terra of Castalia, soon to be betrothed to Marjie’s brother, Clifton. Behind the door on the left, she’d find Princess Terra’s cousin, Lord Sutter. Marjie’s betrothed, according to her father, though nothing was official yet. Marjie had seen Lord Sutter standing silently at a few official functions over the years, but as a person, who was he?
Hopefully, she was about to find out.
A faint vibration in the stone floor warned Marjie of company just before a voice rang out. “Hey, you there!”
Marjie froze. A strange guard strode up the corridor toward her. Compared to the first guard, he was small and narrow shouldered. The small lamp in his hand wasn’t enough to reveal his features, and Marjie didn’t dare make eye contact.
“Do you work for the Castalian royalty?” the guard demanded. His accent was off, but she couldn’t tell if he was a Castalian faking a Nomelands accent, or the other way around.
Marjie kept her eyes down on the floor as her thoughts whirled. The Castalians shouldn’t recognize her, so she wouldn’t get into political trouble, but she didn’t know how they punished servants.
The guard must have taken her silence for consent. “What’s it like to work for Princess Terra?”
Marjie almost glanced up but caught herself in time. “I don’t understand, sir.”
“How does she treat you?”
Was this a spy, searching for information? Smart of him, to question the servants, when so many nobles ignored them. Was this one of the Nome noble families, or an enemy of the Castalians? Marjie didn’t know their nobility well enough to guess at their enemies.
“Well enough, I suppose,” she said carefully.
“You won’t be punished, no matter how you respond,” he said gently.
Too gently. And he’d let his fake Castalian accent slip. Marjie almost laughed. “You won’t get anything from me, Clifton.”
He started. Then he raised his lamp high. “Marjie?”
In the darkness, only someone who knew him well would recognize Clifton as Nomeland’s crown prince. Even Marjie rarely saw him without a crown. His curls fluffed in all directions without his crown to hold them down. Even his rings and medals were gone, so that the only thing sparkling on his person was the faint light from the earthen lamp in his hand.
She met her brother’s familiar eyes and sent her thoughts to him directly. I should have expected you’d try this too. You need to work on your subtlety, though.
A faint stir from down the hall reminded them of the guard not far away. So what’s the plan? he sent back through their siblink.
I sneak in and grab the chamber pot and then pretend to cause an accident that makes a lot of noise. Startled awake in the middle of the night–that’ll reveal his character!
Too dangerous, Clifton sent. Lord Sutter is just a sculptor, but who knows what Spectra abilities his guards have?
He’s a sculptor? Marjie should have skipped the midnight test and questioned her brother. I know nothing at all about him!
I barely know him. He’s kind of hard to read. But that’s not the point! He lives among Castalians!
So?
Castalians have communication abilities, and some of them are terrifying! Did you know there are Castalians who can use emotion control to make you do anything? Like, if you were under their control, you wouldn’t even recognize your own family. I don’t know all of the special abilities they might have, but all of them are creepy, the way they look at you and know things.
Castalians probably think that our earth abilities are creepy too.
Before he could argue further, Marjie eased the door open.
The room felt wrong. The only sounds came from the night insects outside the open window. No breathing, no shuffling in sleep. She edged inside, peering into the darkness. Clifton? she sent. Can you bring the light?
He entered, still holding his small lamp. The flame revealed empty beds. The sheets were changed and fresh, with a hint of lavender scent. The white cloth stretched across the feather-filled mattress without a single wrinkle. The servants had done their best to prepare this room, yet no one was using it.
Did we get the wrong room? Clifton sent.
Housekeeper Jade doesn’t make mistakes, Marjie answered. And look at the sheets!
Clifton picked up a small ceramic bowl and inspected the pine nuts inside. It’s set up for a royal guest, all right. Or a very honored one, anyway. These are expensive. He set the bowl down. I’m checking Princess Terra’s room!
Lord Sutter had never used this room. Had he been kidnapped? Held hostage? Their enemies must have been clever to pull off something like that within the castle itself.
Marjie reached the hallway a second before Clifton emerged from the other room. Also made up but empty, he reported.
Good thing we were here. Should they try to track down the kidnappers, or slip the information to their father? Probably both.
Clifton seemed to be thinking along the same lines. We need to question the guard out there.
He thinks I’m coming to clean chamber pots.
Clifton lunged at her.
Marjie dodged his grabbing arms and jabbed her elbow into his ribs.
He wheezed, but he didn’t need breath to speak mind-to-mind. Hey! I was going to restrain you. If I tell the guard I caught a spy, he’ll be more forthcoming.
Oh. You should have said so. Marjie allowed him to pull her arms behind her back and manhandle her into the hallway.
Clifton pulled her right up to the guard. “I caught this girl in the visitor rooms. She has to be a spy.”
“Oh, I know she’s spying,” the guard drawled.
This time, Marjie recognized his voice. “Mason?”
The guard flicked his wrist, and the little flame in Clifton’s lamp expanded. Marjie found herself staring into her oldest brother’s gray eyes.
Mason smirked. “Sometimes, when you keep your head down, you miss things.”
She’d known, of course, that Mason was a palace guard, but they usually stationed him in the safest areas of the castle, nowhere near visitors with unknown abilities. He couldn’t inherit the throne because of his fire abilities and his adoption, but Mason was still a prince.
Shaking her head, Marjie twisted out of Clifton’s hold.
“How are you so good at that?” Clifton grumbled.
“I taught her,” Mason answered. “Sometimes it pays to have a brother among the guards. You could use more training yourself, Clif.”
Clifton straightened. “I am the crown prince. I have a lot of important things taking up my time.”
“Yeah, I see that.” Mason scoffed. If he resented his younger brother’s title, he didn’t show it. His light hair, so different from Marjie and Clifton’s black curls, highlighted their differences, but it didn’t matter. Marjie considered him family as much as Clifton and their little brother Mica.
If Mason chose to speak out loud instead of through their siblink, no other guards must be in hearing distance. “What about the royal visitors?” Marjie asked. “Why aren’t they here?”
“Delayed in their travels,” Mason answered. “They won’t arrive until tomorrow evening. I’ve been asked to stand guard in case assassins slip poison into their rooms or something. You didn’t, did you?”
Marjie removed her headscarf in order to flip her thick black curls over her shoulder. “I wouldn’t poison someone unless I knew they deserved it.”
Mason rolled his eyes. “That’s very comforting, but I have to ask you to go back to bed.”
“All right, all right.” Marjie started to walk away, but then paused and looked back. “You aren’t going to tattle on me, are you, Mason? I wasn’t doing anything wrong, honest, but if Father expects me to marry this total stranger–”
“I don’t blame you,” he interrupted. “Trust me, I will be watching this foreign lord very closely. I’ll let you know what I find out. The princess too, if you want.”
Clifton shrugged, but Marjie saw through his nonchalance.
With Clifton at her side, Marjie didn’t bother climbing back down the building. They walked back in the near pitch blackness. “One more day of freedom,” Clifton sighed.
“One more day to prepare,” Marjie corrected.
“I shudder to think what kind of trouble you can come up with in a day.”
“Me? Trouble? I was only going to suggest that we go out tomorrow and maybe pick out a nice gift for our betrotheds. Not to mention something for your birthday. Something sparkly.”
Clifton stopped walking. “You and me in a jewelry shop? Together? You are trying to cause trouble, aren’t you?”
Marjie continued down the hall. Over her shoulder, she called, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
