Extraits

Chapter 1

The diner was nearly empty when I stumbled in, looking for coffee and a plate full of fat and protein to soothe my starving stomach. I was glad for the lack of people to stare at me, but the emptiness meant the waitress had no one else to pester.

“What’s your story, honey?” she asked me as she leaned a hip against my table, holding the coffee pot precariously in one hand. She was plump with wide blue eyes, and had probably been pretty before smoke and sun and the disappointment of years working in a diner in the middle of nowhere got to her.

“I used to be a sorceress,” I told her. “Until I took an arrow to the knee.”

“Sure you did,” she said with a small shake of her head, easing away from me like I was rabid. “Holler if you want a refill.”

All right, so it was a bad joke. But it was true. Only instead of an arrow, I’d burned myself out by pulling some seriously timey-wimey shit. I’d created a freaking save file in real life. Which was pretty cool. And I’d saved my friends from my psycho ex. I’d saved Alek.

Well, saved most of my friends. My every thought was haunted by that sickening puff of feathers as Junebug was shot out of the sky, and Harper streaking past me, out of reach of Iollan’s spell. I still saw Harper’s face every time I closed my eyes. I’d failed her the worst.

I shoved away those thoughts and thought instead that it was funny, almost, that in saving everyone, in resetting the entire world a few minutes back, and getting the druid to teleport us all to here and gone, I’d lost the very power that had made Samir hunt me. Not that I expected for a minute he would stop, even if I was an ex-sorceress. My wounds were healing, so I guess I was only a powerless sorceress and still not human. He’d eat my heart; it would just make less of a meal at the moment.

Because the power was gone. Poof. No more. I could reach inside me and there was nothing there but a vast empty hole. A dry well. I couldn’t have lit a candle or a match with it. Or bent one of the tarnished and chipped spoons on the table in front of me.

No magic. Not a drop. Not even mind-Tess chiding me in my brain anymore. All my ghosts were silent, though their memories still floated around in my head. They were just memories now, however, no more distinct than my own. Even my talisman, the silver d20 necklace, was damaged. Where the one had been on the die was just a pockmark now, a divot. It hung from my neck, a cold reminder that I was totally powerless.

Which really sucked. Because I wanted to find Samir and rip his fucking heart out and swallow it whole.

Literally.