EXCERPT 1:
“Come on. Just work, dammit,” Elena muttered to herself, trying for the millionth time to cast her spell.Agon had stretched his lithe, weasel-like body across a long, skinny patch of sunlight on the floor of the testing room. He’d spent the morning basking in the warmth of the sun-drenched stone and flicking his fluffy blue-black tail back and forth. As her closest, and arguably only, friend, Agon knew nothing he could say would make her feel better. She was in a mood, and the best thing he could do was to leave her be.Sparks flared and quickly sputtered out from Elena’s fingertips.“Dammit. Why can’t I get this stupid spell right?” It was a rhetorical question, but Elena was so frustrated by her own ineptitude that she would have traded everything she owned to successfully complete a spell on the first try.Elena was easily the worst enchantress in her class, probably the whole school. The other students mocked her mercilessly. It didn’t help that her mother, Madame LaBelle, was the most famous enchantress in the whole country, possibly the world, and the headmistress of their school. She could turn a seed into a centuries-old tree with the flick of her wrist. Elena could grow a seed into a sapling with twenty minutes of chanting, flicking, waving, and praying. Maybe. On a good day.

Madame LaBelle was notorious for her skills with magic as much as her beauty. Unfortunately for Elena, she inherited her looks from her father. At least, she assumed that’s where she got her flat hair and dull brown eyes. She’d never actually met him. In Waverly, as far as enchantresses were concerned, men served one purpose: impregnating women. The men were used and released of all parental rights, whether they liked it or not. Most men didn’t even know the woman they had lain with was an enchantress, much less that they had fathered a child as a result. The women opted to disguise themselves—bar wenches, visitors lost in the big city, damsels in need of aid on the side of the road, etc.—just to get what they needed and be gone before the man even knew her name.

It was crass and cowardly, but Elena had been raised to believe it was for the best. Men weren’t capable of raising children, especially magical ones, and an enchantress always gave birth to another enchantress. Never in the history of the world, had an enchantress given birth to a non-magical child. Or a boy, for that matter. Enchantress beget enchantress. End of story.

Elena dreamed of love and happy endings when she was younger. All the girls did, but their time at Harbor Ridge taught them that magic was their top priority, followed closely by their loyalty to the school and Madame LaBelle. Elena always felt that it was a tad hypocritical how often her mother preached about loyalty to their family—the school and their classmates—when she never paid any attention to her own flesh and blood. What sort of mother neglects her own child to favor those who are more adept at magic? Not a good one, Elena mused glumly.

Agon had been with her since before she was born, like all familiars. They were born together and stayed attached for an “unusually long time,” according to her mother. Typically, familiars disconnected from the baby’s umbilical cord within a few days before settling into their permanent animal form. Agon and Elena stayed connected for two weeks, all the while Agon remained a blob encased in the placenta. Her mother had many specialists, including a Therionology Enchantress, or an animal enchantress, come and inspect Agon and try to coax him into taking any form at all. Nothing worked. Baby Elena just spent her days cuddling “this disgusting blob of goo” and sleeping. Madame LaBelle often liked to remind Elena of how unusual that was, and how that should have been a sign that her daughter was going to be different, and not in a good way.

 

EXCERPT 2:
Quinn awoke to find himself bound to the oak he’d been using as shelter by some sort of invisible force. Lyra appeared to be unconscious still and was being kept under a small cage that looked like it was made entirely of branches. Almost like the trees themselves had turned on him and Lyra and were holding them prisoner. 

“Lyra,” he hissed as he tried to wriggle free from his invisible binds. “Lyra, wake up! What the hells happened? We need to get out of here.”

“She can’t hear you, and the more you struggle, the tighter the binds will get.” It was a girl. A GIRL!?! How the hells had that girl gotten the drop on him and Lyra like that? What was that shock? She was hiding close, by the sound of it, but it was too dark to see anything. 

“Who the mux are you? Why are you holding us? What the hells did you do?!” He was scared, but more importantly, he was livid. This should never have happened to him. He was better than this, dammit. 

“Why were you sneaking up on us? What do you want?” Her voice was shaky and coming from behind him now, to the left, but there was something else, an animal by the sound of its light steps, closer to Lyra. He could almost make out the shape of it. Whatever it was, it was small and nimble. 

“We thought you might be dead. We were checking to see if you needed help. Can you let us go now?” He kept fidgeting with his binds but she was telling the truth, the more he moved, the tighter they became. When he started losing feeling in his fingers, he finally gave up on freeing himself. 

“Liar! You wanted to hurt me, rape me, kill us, and steal what little we have!” 

Q heard the charge before he saw the flash of blue light or felt the shock. 

“Muuuuuuuux! Stop doing that! Fine, we were going to rob you, but only because we thought you were already dead. We’re not killers.” He must’ve been seeing things, or maybe he hurt his head with all the electrocution, but it looked like the shocks were actually lightning bolts coming off that small creature over by Lyra. But that was impossible, right? There was no such thing as an electric animal. Everyone knew that magical animals died out eons ago. Although, Lyra’s fire-starting would probably be considered magic…

“You were going to rob my corpse?” Her question interrupted his thoughts. “And you think that’s somehow supposed to make me comfortable enough to let you go?” She had moved again. Closer still, but now she was more to the right, like she was trying to get a better look at him without letting him do the same. 

“Listen, lady, we aren’t going to hurt you. We’re just trying to make a living here. What are you doing sleeping on the side of the road like that anyway? You could get hurt or killed.” He left the idiot implied since she clearly already knew she’d screwed up. Only a complete moron slept on the side of the road. If you must camp out while traveling, you do it further into the woods for protection from the elements and shady people looking for trouble. 

“Trust me,” she replied, “this wasn’t my first choice. This wasn’t my choice at all.” The sadness and despair in her voice were palpable. He was starting to feel sorry for her until he remembered that she was currently holding them prisoner.