Authors

Mod R presented me with a list of questions. Let us get to it.

When will the preorder be availlable?

We don’t know. Well, that was easy. The usual MO is to wait until the cover is done because people tend to preorder in higher numbers once the cover is up. Maybe having the cover is proof that the book exists?

When will the cover be available?

We don’t know that either. I’m knocking these out of the park today.

Can you make Tor publish it faster?

Hahahaha. No.

Will there be opportunities for signed books or bookplates?

Absolutely.

Will there be a e-book and audio version or just print?

There will be all the things. Tor is fully behind this release. So here is how this book sold: it went to several publishers on Thursday and on Friday morning Tor came back with an offer so impressive, that our agent called for an emergency zoom meeting to discuss it. They read it that evening, and they really wanted this book. So there will be everything: ebook, print, audio. The whole kaboodle. We’ve discussed maps and extras.

Will there be special editions/ hardcovers/ book boxes, since it’s Tor? We want all the special editions (Fairyloot, Broken Binding, Forbidden Planet and Illumicrate mentioned specifically) 

We don’t know. But our personal feeling is that yes, there likely will be special editions. We are working on some extra scenes, deleted scenes, and so on.

Can you share a cover artist at least? Are you using Luisa Preissler?

We don’t know who the cover artist is. No idea. It probably will not be an object cover, simply because there have been so many of them that it’s hard to come up with a new distinct image. The direction is more toward illustrative rather than graphic. And that’s all I can say.

A note about Luisa Preissler: Luisa recently changed her creative direction. She is taking a break from covers and is working on landscapes instead. She now paints beautiful gouache art. Here is that story in Luisa’s own words and images, and here is how her first gallery went.

(She is teaching a class on her Patreon and I really want to take it. I haven’t yet, because I paint very, very badly. Like hilariously badly. Only my singing is worse.)

So although Hugh 1’s cover is in desperate need of a makeover and we would love her to do both Hugh 1 and 2, we are not sure that she will have an opening in her schedule. We will definitely bring it up, but we might have to go in the new direction.

And now you know why sometimes we do things other than sequels to the beloved series. Artists, writers, and musicians don’t usually stay in one lane. Creativity is a layered, branching expression of one’s inner self. As we go through life, the direction of creativity changes because we are affected by events that happen to us and the world around us. It is the natural evolution of us as human beings.

Will it be translated into French/ German/ Spanish etc?

Probably. Let me tell you a little bit about foreign rights so you will have a cool industry insight.

Twice a year, the publishing world gets together at two major book fairs: London and Frankfurt. The Frankfurt one is held in Germany and it is the largest book fair based on the sheer number of publishers who attend. It usually happens in October. London Book Fair, which is almost as large, is happening this week, March 11-13. It is held in London, to no one’s surprise, and both our agency and Tor will have a presence.

These are not reader-centric events, but rather events where publishers and agents from all over the world get together and talk about upcoming projects and sell and buy foreign (to them) rights.

While we don’t expect to have offers from foreign publishers, because the final edit was just turned in and hasn’t been accepted yet, This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me, and this was so long to type, let’s call it This Kingdom for short, This Kingdom will be “a topic of conversation.” At least that’s what our agent told us.

To sum up: yes, we expect interest from foreign publishers and we will let you know what is happening with that when we know something ourselves.

Does that mean you are going to London?

No, London Book Fair is not for the authors. But we would love to go to London. And Ireland.

Why are you using comps to announce the book?

We are not. Tor is using comps to announce the book. Comps are mostly for industry insiders to let them quickly identify what the book is about. For some reason, you guys are really concentrating on them, but it is a minor detail.

Will the series be called Maggie the Undying?

Yes. We all loved Maggie as a title, but unfortunately it’s really hard to go to book 2 with it. Something has to beat out the Undying. And then you end up with Maggie the Undaunted or something equally silly.

Is it a series or a standalone?

It is definitely not a standalone. The original plan was for three. The caveat here is that Book 1 ended up being enormous, so Book 2 will likely be equally so, and we may pack the story into two books instead of three. But for now, three is where it is.

Are the 808 pages Word pages or formatted pages and what will be the final length of the book?

So if you take Magic Bites and Magic Burns and put them together, that will be about the right thickness. Typical KD was 90-95K, because the publisher wanted it that way, and this is around 180K.

Is there romance or isn’t there? How spicy is it?

It has strong romantic elements, meaning that you can yank romance out of the book and it would be still make sense. Like Kate books – you can remove Kate and Curran’s relationship and they will still make sense. The romance is slow burn. You will just have to read it.

So is this a twist on the concept from Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint?

Oh good question. Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint is a manhwa, a Korean comic, and a webnovel.

The manhwa is available on Webtoon and the official translation of the webnovel might have been up for preorder some time recently. Not sure about that one.

ORV throws the reader into his favorite book as a character. He starts tugging at strings and influencing events. This is a common trope used by a lot of portal (isekai) manhwa and anime.

The variation on that is being thrown into a video game. If you are in the market for an anime with that theme, there are so many, but I want to mention two here just for fun. First, My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! The heroine ends up stuck as a villainess in the dating video game with hilarious results. Vegetables! All the vegetables ever.

The trailer, which is below, doesn’t do it justice. This anime is available on Crunchyroll. Although the trailer is subbed, the anime is dubbed and the dub is pretty good. (Link for newsletter readers.)

Once you watch that, there is this gem in Hidive.

From Bureaucrat to Villainess: Dad’s Been Reincarnated! has the exact same premise, but he is a middle aged dad, which leads to ridiculous moments, such as him telling another girl that her presence in the magical academy could mean only one thing – her parents love her very much and they want her to succeed.

But back to the Omniscient Reader, yes, This Kingdom has the similar premise of a reader being thrown into a book and changing events as they unfold. But Omniscient Reader is structured like a LitRPG, meaning it has a video-game like narrative. The character goes through a sequence of escalating fights with emphasis on classes and skills. It has more in common with Solo Leveling than Maggie.

(That genre is super fun. In fact, we are working on a very derivative novella in that genre on and off in our spare time because it’s been nagging at me and Gordon suggested that we need to download it onto page and out of my brain.)

This Kingdom has zero LitRPG elements. It is all about political intrigue and fantasy kingdoms, which is where the GOT comparison comes from. There are no defined classes or skills, there is no system window, etc. There are heists and murders and to quote Maggie, “Deadly swordmasters, thieves prowling through moonlit streets, dark magicians, ruthless nobles, hideous monsters…” It’s is meant to be an archetypical fantasy.

So a little bit different. A better comp would be the Lout of Count’s Family, which is available on Tapas. Highly recommend. And now we have it in novel form, available on Amazon and presumably everywhere else. Tada!

Lout of Count’s Family

I haven’t read the novel, but the manhwa is awesome. He is the best dragon dad ever.

Since Maggie is getting sprayed edges, is there any news for a Kate hardcover/sprayed edges, uniform box set release?

We don’t know anything about sprayed edges or where they will go or what they will look like. We first saw it on Tor’s announcement.

We’ve brought up the possibility of reissuing KD in hardcover to Ace, which originally published that series. They are not interested in pursuing that at this time. As much as we all love Kate, it’s an older series.

How are you feeling about all of this?

Cautiously excited. For me there is a little bit of a disconnect, because in my head Maggie was a small weird book, and now This Kingdom reads like a medieval thriller. The book has grown bigger and more vivid. But despite the many editorial passes – or maybe because of them – I love the story. I love the world. I love Maggie and her fierce fandom heart. We both hope you will enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed writing it.

The post All the Questions first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

Caitlin Carter seeks purpose. She needs to, or so her counselors at the VA keep telling her. Find a reason to live. Forget the past.

The past haunts her, especially because she lives in her old hometown. The place where the trouble started.

Until she finds exploring her past might help her find a future…just not the way she expects.

A powerful story about veterans and the traumas they continue to face even at home.

“Rehab” is available for one week on this site. The ebook is also available on all retail stores, as well as here.

 

Rehab By Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Not quite homeless. That’s how she described herself to herself. Not quite homeless but not quite home, either.

Caitlin Carter started her walk back from her appointment at the VA. The stately old building had been at the edge of mansion row for more than forty years, as the neighborhood slowly slipped into decline.

She barely saw it any more. She grew up only a few blocks away, and the mansions had never really been at their peak—not in her lifetime.

She wore two stocking caps over her skull, one pulled down almost to her eyebrows, and two pairs of gloves over her hands, which she still stuck in her pockets. One of the many gifts of her desert tours was a broken internal thermometer—light cold seemed too cold, harsh cold seemed warm, deadly cold felt welcoming—and she made sure she dressed like the sensible Midwestern girl she had been, back before she decided to chuck it all for the sake of some excitement or (oh, hell, let’s be honest) to tell her law-and-order father to go fuck himself.

So many issues, so little time. At least that was what she joked with the shrink the last time she heard, “I’m afraid our time is up.” Yeah, she always just got started, and then the time was up, and she was sent into the cold, literally, at least this winter.

No matter what she did, she couldn’t get her parents out of her mind. She’d moved back in with them six months ago—not in her old bedroom because that belonged to some other girl. A girl who graduated high school, smiled wide, dressed in pink, and had totally dorky boyfriends. A girl with trophies on her shelf from volleyball tournaments, certificates from math contests framed over her bed, and one rather nasty juvie file in a shadow box below a shattered mirror.

Yeah, that girl had issues.

The woman has more.

She lived in the grandmother apartment over her parents’ garage. One bedroom, half kitchen, tiny bathroom, ugly living area. The smell of exhaust filled the place every time her father moved the car.

She found the smell of exhaust comforting.

She needed comforting, because the apartment wasn’t. Her parents weren’t either. Her mother couldn’t meet her eyes, even now, and her father, for all his talk of wasted potential, still mentioned that one night, the joyride, the anger, the accident, leading to what would’ve been a couple of felonies had she been one week older, or had Michael actually died of his injuries.

Caitlin had told her father she hadn’t known Michael had put a gun in her glove box and carried a knife inside his boot. She claimed she hadn’t known about the weapons till she and Michael had ripped off the liquor store that failed to serve them, and sped off, crashing through the windows of a car dealership not half a block away.

Not the worst thing that happened to her, by far.

The thing her father blamed, though. Technically, he hadn’t paid off the judge, but she knew there was a tit-for-tat, probably dealing with secrets. Her father loved secrets, knew where the bodies were buried, liked to haul out the skeletons when he needed them.

And he’d needed them that night, when he traded her years in a juvie facility and/or some prison somewhere for mandatory military service. Sounded like punishment to her at the time.

Life-saving, turned out.

She carefully picked her way across the ice-covered street, to the unshoveled sidewalks of mansion row. Her breath fanned out around her like exhaust from the engines of a dozen jeeps.

It had taken nearly a year to work her way up the VA’s waiting list. Counselors—especially those dealing with the psychological problems—were in high demand.

Her problems had started long before she joined up, got exacerbated by her tours. If it weren’t for the nightmares—the screaming, pound-her-fist-through-the-wall nightmares—she probably wouldn’t have signed up for counseling in the first place.

Thrown out of three separate apartments at the far end of town. License restricted for driving drunk, which limited her choices—especially here, where the phrase “bus service” was an oxymoron and public transportation meant taking a tourist trolley that circled the downtown.

She had to move close to the VA because if she missed one appointment, just one, she got knocked down to the bottom of the waiting list again, and much as she hated the shrink talk and the sharing and the crappy way she felt when the sessions were over, she hated not having someone to talk to—really talk to—worse.

So she walked, every day, even when it was ten below, like today. No matter what her mother said, Caitlin didn’t wear a ski mask over her face—that would bring back flashbacks to high school and the rebellion and the power-high she got from pulling cash from some stupid clerk’s till. (Okay, so she had known about the gun, but she’d only told the shrink that last week. It’d been her gun (which she stole from another kid’s locker), and Michael had been too injured to ever contradict her—at least when it counted, during the so-called court case, the judgment that sent her on the path that led to this icy sidewalk, this everyday walk.)

She tucked her chin inside the parka, letting the fake fur caress her face. Whenever she felt the fake fur, she knew she was okay—not too cold—because if she were too cold, she’d feel nothing at all.

Time to walk back to the undecorated apartment and wait until she had to show up for one of her three five-hour shifts at the nearby coffee shop, the only place that would hire vets and let them be around people. Didn’t matter that most of the customers were also vets. Didn’t matter that she rarely said more than “That’ll be $2.50” and “Here’s your change, sir.” At least she got out of the house.

Or so she said to herself.

She saved the mansion for the way back. She loved the mansion. She had loved it since she was a child.

She used to walk down this stately old boulevard near her parents’ house, and imagine living in the mansions. Back then, they were apartments, mostly, although some were still single-family dwellings. All had fallen on hard times, or so everyone thought.

But even harder times had been on the horizon.

Now most of the mansions were boarded up, with plywood over the windows and doors. Her favorite was on the corner of two boulevards, and it seemed to take up half the block. When she was a kid, an old lady lived there, alone. Sometimes Caitlin saw the old lady, tottering her way to the really fancy car that she left parked in the driveway.

But mostly, Caitlin wondered how one person could live in such a large place. It had three stories, plus an attic and a basement and the biggest garage Caitlin had ever seen.

She used to hoist herself up on top of the stone fence and peer into the yard, imagining what it would be like to own the house. Then the old lady called the cops on her, and Caitlin never climbed the fence again.

She had forgotten about the place until she lost her last apartment, and walked to her parents’ house when the VA admitted it couldn’t help her if she didn’t help herself. They said she needed meaning in her life. She needed purpose. They meant she had to get treatment for her anxiety and PTSD and all-around out-of-control behavior.

But she took it as the one final wake-up call.

Because as she walked those four blocks to her parents’ house to beg for a place to stay, she kept looking at the ruined homes on the dying boulevard and thinking how easy it would be to slip inside one, and squat for a few days, a few months, and no one would ever be the wiser.

That was her backup plan if her parents officially threw her out. When she arrived at her parents’ to beg for her old room back, her mother had made that thin-lipped disapproving grimace that always made Caitlin’s stomach queasy, but her father had just stared at her. He’d had something in his gaze she’d never seen before.

“Yeah,” he’d said. “We’ll fix up the apartment over the garage.”

She could have taken that badly—that they didn’t want her inside their house. But Caitlin had a sense that her father understood what it took for her to ask, and, even weirder, had understood what she needed. What she needed was a place of her own where no one would bother her, and yet, a place where someone kept an eye out for her.

She offered to pay rent, and he told her to bank the money instead. And somehow, that conversation had left her more shaken than any conversation she’d ever had with him—including the angry ones over her terrible behavior in her seventeenth year.

That walk, though—that walk through the mansions, in the long-dead, formerly rich area of town—that walk was the moment when she labeled herself almost-homeless, when she knew she had only a hairsbreadth between being someone with a glimmer of a future and being someone who only had a past.

Every day since, she’d used the mansion as a measuring stick: Was she better? Had she moved forward?

And every day, she had no answer at all.

She stood outside on this cold, cold afternoon and stared at the mansion, with its wrap-around porch, columns, and gabled attic. When she first came on these regular walks, she wondered what the neighbors thought of her staring at the place, and then she realized there were no neighbors.

The neighborhood was as empty as some of the bombed-out places she had patrolled in Fallujah. Someone had lived here once, but no one did now.

No one cared.

The storm the night before had dumped nearly two feet of snow on the neighborhood. No one had shoveled sidewalks, because no one cared. A plow had gone through and tossed even more snow on the sidewalk. There was no real path, only an icy trail of footprints that she had made at the beginning of the winter.

She frowned at the mansion. If she stared at it, and let her eyes blur, it looked no different than it had when the old lady had lived there.

But if Caitlin really looked at it, she realized the house was falling apart, like every other place on this block.

And the snow the night before would only make things worse.

She slipped through the broken gate. No one had shoveled the mansion’s sidewalk either. The only way she had known there was a sidewalk was from memory, the way the brick walk went from the stone fence to the matching stone steps that eased the journey up the small knoll the mansion rested on.

Her boots crunched on the snow’s hard surface, breaking through to a layer of ice beneath. The door ahead looked dark and foreboding, and, unlike the rest of the building’s façade, had no snow plastered against it.

If she were in an old movie, her breath might have come shallowly and she might’ve felt some trepidation. But she knew, she knew, no snipers sat in the windows, no family waited with guns in hand, no insurgent had planted a bomb beneath the stairs.

Maybe she would have worried about such things six months before, but she’d had six months to wrap her brain around the reality of now, not the memory of then, and no matter how bad it might get inside a mansion in her hometown, it would be nothing compared with what she’d seen.

What she’d done.

That last thought made her heart flutter just a bit. She took a deep breath of air so cold that it burned going into her lungs.

She made herself focus on her destination, and as she did so, she realized that the door was partially open. Snow had piled against it, making sure it would never close.

Open all winter, the mansion’s decay would accelerate. No one would come here and check—not the city historical division which was trying to sell the place, not the police, not the imaginary neighbors. No one would notice this; no one would understand it.

No one except her.

She continued forward, up another, smaller flight of stairs, and then crossed the pristine layer of snow to the house itself.

She had never stepped on the porch, not in years of dreaming about it. Up close, the porch looked dangerous. In the places where the snow did not blanket the surface, she saw rotted wood and broken beams.

The mansion’s stone exterior needed some kind of grout or something—whatever they put between the stones—and the door wasn’t open, so much as it wasn’t really intact.

Ah hell, she might as well be honest with herself: The door was shattered, and the snow that accumulated near the opening was as deep as the snow around the building.

Even though she had stared at the thing for months, she hadn’t realized that it had been snowing inside since winter began.

She put her hand on one of the stone columns that made the mansion look so stately.

She pushed past the broken door, stepped over the biggest mound of snow, and felt her heart sink as she saw how deep the snow had piled inside.

The house was as cold inside as it was out, but the air didn’t have the fresh crispness of the outdoors. It smelled faintly sour, and she knew, if the inside were any warmer, that sour smell would grow into something overpowering.

Still, she felt almost like a child as she stepped inside the foyer. To her right was the receiving room. It still had its dark wood wainscoting, but someone had painted the area between the end of the wainscoting and the crown molding a bright pink. She winced when she saw it, and when she saw the cracked and ruined fireplace (as if someone had gone after it with a bat), and the toppled radiator.

Each room she walked through had damage—a rotted floor, dented plaster and lathe, missing light fixtures. The kitchen had no appliances. It looked like they—and the sink—had been ripped from the wall. A large stain near the water pipe where the sink had been made her think that water had flowed steadily since the sink was gone—until a deep freeze froze the pipes.

She didn’t want to think about that damage—or any of the damage she couldn’t really see.

Still, here and there, she saw traces of love. This house had been grand once, and then when it was no longer grand, someone had still cared for it enough to keep its character.

The damage didn’t look fresh, but it didn’t look decades old either. The house had good bones beneath all the garbage and the destruction.

She ventured to the back staircase. Part of it threaded down into a basement, and she just couldn’t bring herself to go there, not on the coldest day of the year so far. But upstairs—she had always wanted to see upstairs.

The staircase twisted upward, working its way around two corners. It opened in a narrow hallway, and she realized with a bit of a shock that this house actually had a servant’s wing. Two small bedrooms separated by the tiniest jack-and-jill bathroom she’d ever seen convinced her of that. The bathroom was 1950s vintage, and looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in at least forty years.

The door to the hallway was closed. She pushed it open, the squeal echoing in the emptiness. Her heart started pounding now.

She recognized the feeling. A sense that she didn’t belong, combined with experience from a dozen (maybe a hundred) entries into seemingly empty buildings, only to have someone jump out at her, or a hand clutch her arm, holding her back just in time to save her from danger.

She was slipping, slipping into memory. She recognized the feeling, and she caught herself. She didn’t dare leave this place—this frigid and empty house, a building she had always wanted to visit.

It wasn’t dangerous here.

It was just broken.

Rather like her.

Amazing how broken could seem dangerous when viewed in the wrong light.

She took a deep breath and made herself walk forward. Two medium-sized bedrooms. A remodeled bathroom with a claw foot tub and a glassed-in shower added at least thirty years before.

The stained glass window over the toilet made her realize that nothing had been broken or stolen up here. Apparently the thieves from downstairs hadn’t ventured up this high.

She let out a small sigh, then continued on, to what had to be the master suite. Rays of thin winter light penetrated the hallway. The sour stench seemed stronger here, probably because this level was just a tiny bit warmer.

She stepped into the bedroom—and stopped.

A camp stove, blankets, a sleeping bag, some books, all scattered near the fireplace. Half burned wood rested against the fireplace’s brick wall.

And next to it all, a person wrapped in blankets.

Or what was left of a person.

She had seen enough death to know that death had come and gone from this room at least a week ago, maybe more.

She swallowed hard, looked at the little camping area, saw that whoever this had been had managed to clear the fireplace, but either the flue was closed or there was a block in the chimney, because soot covered too much of the area around the body.

A pitcher, with ice along the rim, sat beside the fireplace. Her heart twisted.

He—and it had been a he—had put out the fire rather than burn the house down. Respect, to the bitter end.

She crouched before him, saw the dog tags first, maybe because she had looked for the dog tags first. His face was too ruined for her to tell what he looked like, but if he tried to live here and he was a vet, she had a hunch she had seen him before.

He had stolen her idea of living in one of the mansions so that he could be close to the VA, only he hadn’t thought it through. Sleeping in one of these old places was fine in summer and maybe okay in early fall, but on days like this, the house needed more than a single fireplace, and if that wasn’t working, well…

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

She rocked back on her heels and stood.

She wasn’t feeling cold any more, but it wasn’t her broken thermostat. She’d learned how to cope with death. Four tours, and death no longer bothered her.

The means of death, that sometimes did. The roadside bomb (God, the truck flew. She should have warned them. Should. Have…), the single shot from a great distance (Look at the sniper nest. Been up there days. She should have scoped the area. Should. Have…), the child with the knife (Big enough to be a young adult. She should have thought that through. Should. Have…)

She wiped a gloved hand over her face, felt the fabric against her skin. No frostbite, not yet. But soon if she wasn’t careful.

She had to call this in to someone. And what would she say?

The truth. She’d learned that too, over there.

The truth was the only defense and the only explanation. No matter how ugly things got.

She stood, her knees cracking.

He—whoever he was—had tried to make a home here, and no one had even known he was around. The neighborhood was empty because everyone thought it dangerous. Her parents had warned her not to walk through it, as if they had no idea what she had seen in her short life. And then she realized/remembered/understood. They did have no idea.

No one had any idea.

Except the folks at the VA. Who told her that she had to give herself a chance. To step forward, do the right thing. And they had said earlier this afternoon, the right thing was to take care of herself.

Right now, though, in this moment, the right thing was to let someone know about him.

To bring him home—since he hadn’t been halfway homeless. He’d been all the way homeless.

She was nearly down the stairs before she remembered where she was, and when she was. She had a phone in her pocket. She didn’t have to keep radio silence.

She gave herself a rueful smile, tapped 911, and reported the body. Then she sat on the stairs and waited.

***

Three people in the ambulance, two cops in the squad, no sirens. They photographed the scene, removed the body, asked if she knew who he was.

She had to say no, but she asked them to keep her informed.

“If he doesn’t have people,” she said. “I’ll pay for him, make sure he’s buried with honors. Tell whoever needs to know.”

She didn’t have a business card, so she made sure the cops took her information, and one of the ambulance drivers did too.

Only as an afterthought did one of the cops ask her why she had been here.

She was about to launch into the open-door explanation, the curious-about-this-place-since-childhood story, when the words caught in her throat.

“Just a feeling,” she said. “I just had a feeling.”

She wasn’t sure that was right, but she wasn’t sure it was wrong either. She had had a feeling.

If she’d had a premonition, she would’ve liked to think that she would have arrived before he froze to death.

But she had proven to herself time and time again in the desert that she had no premonitions, that she never saw the future, that she barely saw the warning signs.

And this was a big warning sign. Alone, in the dark, freezing, with enough respect not to light a fire for fear of destroying part of an already-hurting 110-year-old house.

Respect and loneliness. A man with a past and no future.

A man no one remembered or knew.

A man no one had even seen.

The cops left last, apparently not caring that she was inside a house she didn’t own.

No one cared about this place.

Except her.

She loved it. The man who died had cared about it too—enough to gamble his life on saving it.

She turned around, looked at the gloom, the dust motes floating in the twilight air.

She had no idea what a house like this needed. She didn’t know how to repair plaster or how to fix the missing stones out front. She’d never pounded a board into a porch or painted a wall above beautiful wood.

But she had shoveled snow for her entire life. She could start there.

And she had savings too. A lot of it, thanks to her father and his no-rent policy.

No one liked this neighborhood. It wasn’t dying. It had died a long time ago, and no one had cared.

But this house was still alive, barely clinging to life. With no future, only a past.

Unless someone helped it.

She was shaking—not from cold, but from excitement.

She needed a shovel. She needed some plywood. She needed to go to the city and make some promises that she intended to keep.

She would learn how to fix the house, no matter how long it took. She would promise to live here afterward—like that little old lady from her childhood.

Caitlin would learn how a single person could survive in a house this big.

After she glued it back together.

Repairing the damage and becoming presentable, slowly, by focusing on each tiny section.

Like the snow in the foyer. The chill in the air.

A little love and elbow grease might not make the house a showplace again, but they would ease the house back to life.

Ease her back to life.

One missing piece at a time.

 

___________________________________________

“Rehab” is available for one week on this site. The ebook is also available on all retail stores, as well as here.

Rehab

Copyright © 2020 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Published by WMG Publishing
Cover and layout copyright © 2020 by WMG Publishing
Cover design by WMG Publishing
Cover art copyright © sorokopud/Depositphotos

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

 

After a weekend of excitement and prayers for p*tience to last us until the release of This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me, it’s time to return to our Iron Dogs.

Since House Andrews gifted us with chapters from the first draft of Hugh 2, I thought we should test our memory of where it all began! And if it should happen to prompt us into rereads, we will gladly walk into the fray, like the fearless Devouring Horde that we are.

Disclaimer 1: The newsletter doesn’t like the quiz plugin and sends it out in code. If you read this in email form and want to take the test, click here to come directly to the website.

Disclaimer 2: Please remember, this is just for fun. The Preceptor doesn’t grant or revoke privileges based on your score. If you think a bad result will real-life upset you, please don’t take the quiz. We’ll see you later in the week with more fun and treats.

98

What Iron and which Magic?

Iron and Magic gave us battle, betrayal, redemption, and a marriage of convenience so hot it practically melted the page. But how well do we really remember Hugh’s journey from Roland’s warlord to Elara’s yearning husband and fortress co-owner? Sharpen your swords (and your wits) and see if you can conquer this quiz like Hugh conquers… well, everything.

1 / 11

How did Roland ensure Hugh recovered after Colchis?

Fed him hippogriff bone broth for 3 months. Surrounded him with rhododendrons (Hugh's favourite flower) for 3 months inside a dream of Shinar's water gardens Put him inside a phoenix egg for 3 months. Recited poetry to Hugh for 3 months. "Hugh d’Ambray is your designated nomenclature / A towering warlord, ruthless by nature...."

2 / 11

Who is part of Hugh's closest Iron Dogs entourage at the end of Iron and Magic?

Stoyan, Felix, Lamar, Bale, Rene Stoyan, Lamar, Bale, Sam Stoyan, Lamar, Bale, Felix and Cedric Stoyan, Lamar, Bradwick, Jimothy and Johnaford

3 / 11

What is Bucky?

A crossbreed of Percheron and Andalusian A big, mean sonovabitch that nobody wants Bucky is a unicorn, which makes Hugh a sparkly unicorn princess! This is my truth and I will not be denied it! All of the above

4 / 11

What creatures attacked at Elara and Hugh's wedding?

Mrogs and their handlers Shifters Tikbalangs The humans from Asheville

5 / 11

What did Elara say to Roland when she went to get Hugh back?

TAKE YOUR STINKING PAWS OFF MY PRECEPTOR HE IS MINE, WIZARD ON WEDNESDAYS WE WEAR PINK, FETCH YOU HAVE NO POWER HERE, NIMROD THE GREY

6 / 11

What is the name of the Departed's castle?

Château What If Arundel Baile Harper's House of Horrors

7 / 11

What do her people call Elara?

The Ice Harpy Shawty (with them apple bottom jeans, boots without fur, the whole club averted their eyes, for she was not dark but beautiful as the dawn, an obelisk that absorbs the cold of the stars and Harbinger of the Final Hour) The Lady/ The White Lady Preceptorix of the Metal Puppies

8 / 11

What was Elara supposed to do in exchange for Hugh saving Aberdine?

Eat a whole chicken Be the hero, for once Guard his pipes. It's what the cool kids are calling it these days, I guess... Make crêpes Suzette

9 / 11

Who planned to poison the Departed's well with cholera?

Raphael Medrano Luther, our favourite mage against the machine Senator Victor Skolnik The Remaining

10 / 11

What was in the Iron Dogs' barrels?

Garlic chip cookies made by Roland himself A bacterial strain from the Alaskan permafrost Holy water blessed by Transylvanian priests A venom that was specifically developed against the Immortus Pathogen

11 / 11

What is discovered about the mrogs in Iron and Magic?

That their real name is the yeddimur That they attack settlements at Neig's order That they travel through time from the Holy Roman Empire II - Electric Boogaloo That the mrogs and their handlers depend on their commanding officer LinkedIn Facebook Twitter VKontakte

div#ays-quiz-container-9 * { box-sizing: border-box; } /* Styles for Internet Explorer start */ #ays-quiz-container-9 #ays_finish_quiz_9 { } /* Styles for Quiz container */ #ays-quiz-container-9{ min-height: 350px; width:400px; background-color:#fff; background-position:center center;border-radius:0px 0px 0px 0px;box-shadow: 0px 0px 15px 1px rgba(0,0,0,0.4);border: none;} /* Styles for Navigation bar */ #ays-quiz-questions-nav-wrap-9 { width: 100%;border-radius:0px 0px 0px 0px;box-shadow: 0px 0px 15px 1px rgba(0,0,0,0.4);border: none;} #ays-quiz-questions-nav-wrap-9 .ays-quiz-questions-nav-content .ays-quiz-questions-nav-item a.ays_questions_nav_question { color: #000; border-color: #000; background-color: #fff; } #ays-quiz-questions-nav-wrap-9 .ays-quiz-questions-nav-content .ays-quiz-questions-nav-item.ays-quiz-questions-nav-item-active a.ays_questions_nav_question { box-shadow: inset 0 0 5px #000, 0 0 5px #000; } #ays-quiz-questions-nav-wrap-9 .ays-quiz-questions-nav-content .ays-quiz-questions-nav-item.ays-quiz-questions-nav-item-answered a.ays_questions_nav_question { color: #fff; border-color: #fff; background-color: #000; } #ays-quiz-questions-nav-wrap-9 .ays-quiz-questions-nav-content .ays-quiz-questions-nav-item a.ays_questions_nav_question.ays_quiz_correct_answer { color: rgba(39, 174, 96, 1); border-color: rgba(39, 174, 96, 1); background-color: rgba(39, 174, 96, 0.4); } #ays-quiz-questions-nav-wrap-9 .ays-quiz-questions-nav-content .ays-quiz-questions-nav-item a.ays_questions_nav_question.ays_quiz_wrong_answer { color: rgba(243, 134, 129, 1); border-color: rgba(243, 134, 129, 1); background-color: rgba(243, 134, 129, 0.4); } /* Styles for questions */ #ays-quiz-container-9 #ays_finish_quiz_9 div.step { min-height: 350px; } /* Styles for text inside quiz container */ #ays-quiz-container-9.ays-quiz-container .ays-questions-container .ays-start-page *:not(input), #ays-quiz-container-9.ays-quiz-container .ays-questions-container .ays_question_hint, #ays-quiz-container-9.ays-quiz-container .ays-questions-container label[for^="ays-answer-"], #ays-quiz-container-9.ays-quiz-container .ays-questions-container p, #ays-quiz-container-9.ays-quiz-container .ays-questions-container .ays-fs-title, #ays-quiz-container-9.ays-quiz-container .ays-questions-container .ays-fs-subtitle, #ays-quiz-container-9.ays-quiz-container .ays-questions-container .logged_in_message, #ays-quiz-container-9.ays-quiz-container .ays-questions-container .ays-quiz-limitation-count-of-takers, #ays-quiz-container-9.ays-quiz-container .ays-questions-container .ays-quiz-limitation-count-of-takers *, #ays-quiz-container-9.ays-quiz-container .ays-questions-container .ays_score_message, #ays-quiz-container-9.ays-quiz-container .ays-questions-container .ays_message{ color: #000; outline: none; } /* Quiz title / transformation */ #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-fs-title{ text-transform: uppercase; font-size: 21px; text-align: center; text-shadow: none; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-quiz-password-message-box, #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-quiz-question-note-message-box, #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays_quiz_question, #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays_quiz_question *:not([class^='enlighter']) { color: #000; } #ays-quiz-container-9 textarea, #ays-quiz-container-9 input::first-letter, #ays-quiz-container-9 select::first-letter, #ays-quiz-container-9 option::first-letter { color: initial !important; } #ays-quiz-container-9 p::first-letter:not(.ays_no_questions_message) { color: #000 !important; background-color: transparent !important; font-size: inherit !important; font-weight: inherit !important; float: none !important; line-height: inherit !important; margin: 0 !important; padding: 0 !important; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .select2-container, #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-field * { font-size: 15px !important; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-fs-subtitle p { text-align: center ; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays_quiz_question p { font-size: 16px; text-align: center; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays_quiz_question { text-align: center ; margin-bottom: 10px; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays_quiz_question pre { max-width: 100%; white-space: break-spaces; } div#ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-questions-container .ays-field, div#ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-questions-container .ays-field input~label[for^='ays-answer-'], div#ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-questions-container .ays-modern-dark-question *, div#ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-questions-container .ays_quiz_question, div#ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-questions-container .ays_quiz_question *{ word-break: break-word; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-quiz-timer p { font-size: 16px; } #ays-quiz-container-9 section.ays_quiz_redirection_timer_container hr, #ays-quiz-container-9 section.ays_quiz_timer_container hr { margin: 0; } #ays-quiz-container-9 section.ays_quiz_timer_container.ays_quiz_timer_red_warning .ays-quiz-timer { color: red; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays_thank_you_fs p { text-align: center; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .information_form input[type='text'], #ays-quiz-container-9 .information_form input[type='url'], #ays-quiz-container-9 .information_form input[type='number'], #ays-quiz-container-9 .information_form input[type='email'], #ays-quiz-container-9 .information_form input[type='tel'], #ays-quiz-container-9 .information_form textarea, #ays-quiz-container-9 .information_form select, #ays-quiz-container-9 .information_form option { color: initial !important; outline: none; margin-left: 0; background-image: unset; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .information_form input[type='checkbox'] { margin: 0 10px; outline: initial; -webkit-appearance: auto; -moz-appearance: auto; position: initial; width: initial; height: initial; border: initial; background: initial; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .information_form input[type='checkbox']::after { content: none; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .wrong_answer_text{ color:#ff4d4d; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .right_answer_text{ color:#33cc33; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .right_answer_text p { font-size:16px; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .wrong_answer_text p { font-size:16px; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays_questtion_explanation p { font-size:16px; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays_cb_and_a, #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays_cb_and_a * { color: rgb(0,0,0); text-align: center; } #ays-quiz-container-9 iframe { /*min-height: 350px;*/ } #ays-quiz-container-9 label.ays_for_checkbox, #ays-quiz-container-9 span.ays_checkbox_for_span { color: initial !important; display: block; } /* Quiz textarea height */ #ays-quiz-container-9 textarea { height: 100px; min-height: 100px; } /* Quiz rate and passed users count */ #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays_quizn_ancnoxneri_qanak, #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays_quiz_rete_avg{ color:#fff; background-color:#000; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-questions-container > .ays_quizn_ancnoxneri_qanak { padding: 5px 20px; } #ays-quiz-container-9 div.for_quiz_rate.ui.star.rating .icon { color: rgba(0,0,0,0.35); } #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays_quiz_rete_avg div.for_quiz_rate_avg.ui.star.rating .icon { color: rgba(255,255,255,0.5); } #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays_quiz_rete .ays-quiz-rate-link-box .ays-quiz-rate-link { color: #000; } /* Loaders */ #ays-quiz-container-9 div.lds-spinner, #ays-quiz-container-9 div.lds-spinner2 { color: #000; } #ays-quiz-container-9 div.lds-spinner div:after, #ays-quiz-container-9 div.lds-spinner2 div:after { background-color: #000; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .lds-circle, #ays-quiz-container-9 .lds-facebook div, #ays-quiz-container-9 .lds-ellipsis div{ background: #000; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .lds-ripple div{ border-color: #000; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .lds-dual-ring::after, #ays-quiz-container-9 .lds-hourglass::after{ border-color: #000 transparent #000 transparent; } /* Stars */ #ays-quiz-container-9 .ui.rating .icon, #ays-quiz-container-9 .ui.rating .icon:before { font-family: Rating !important; } /* Progress bars */ #ays-quiz-container-9 #ays_finish_quiz_9 .ays-progress { border-color: rgba(0,0,0,0.8); } #ays-quiz-container-9 #ays_finish_quiz_9 .ays-progress-bg { background-color: rgba(0,0,0,0.3); } #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-progress-value { color: #000; text-align: center; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-progress-bar { background-color: #27AE60; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-question-counter .ays-live-bar-wrap { direction:ltr !important; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-live-bar-fill{ color: #000; border-bottom: 2px solid rgba(0,0,0,0.8); text-shadow: 0px 0px 5px #fff; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-live-bar-fill.ays-live-fourth, #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-live-bar-fill.ays-live-third, #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-live-bar-fill.ays-live-second { text-shadow: unset; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-live-bar-percent{ display:none; } /* Music, Sound */ #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays_music_sound { color:rgb(0,0,0); } /* Dropdown questions scroll bar */ #ays-quiz-container-9 blockquote { border-left-color: #000 !important; } /* Quiz Password */ #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-start-page > input[id^='ays_quiz_password_val_'], #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-quiz-password-toggle-visibility-box { width: 100%; margin: 0 auto; } /* Question hint */ #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays_question_hint_container .ays_question_hint_text { background-color:#fff; box-shadow: 0 0 15px 3px rgba(0,0,0,0.6); max-width: 270px; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays_question_hint_container .ays_question_hint_text p { max-width: unset; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays_questions_hint_max_width_class { max-width: 80%; } /* Information form */ #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-form-title{ color:rgb(0,0,0); } /* Quiz timer */ #ays-quiz-container-9 div.ays-quiz-redirection-timer, #ays-quiz-container-9 div.ays-quiz-timer{ color: #000; text-align: center; } #ays-quiz-container-9 div.ays-quiz-timer.ays-quiz-message-before-timer:before { font-weight: 500; } /* Quiz buttons */ #ays-quiz-container-9 input#ays-submit, #ays-quiz-container-9 #ays_finish_quiz_9 .action-button, div#ays-quiz-container-9 #ays_finish_quiz_9 .action-button.ays_restart_button { background-color: #27AE60; color:#333; font-size: 17px; padding: 10px 20px; border-radius: 3px; white-space: nowrap; letter-spacing: 0; box-shadow: unset; white-space: normal; word-break: break-word; } #ays-quiz-container-9 input#ays-submit, #ays-quiz-container-9 #ays_finish_quiz_9 input.action-button { } #ays-quiz-container-9 #ays_finish_quiz_9 a[class~=ajax_add_to_cart]{ background-color: #fff; color:#333; padding: 10px 5px; font-size: 14px; border-radius: 3px; white-space: nowrap; border: 1px solid #333; } #ays-quiz-container-9 #ays_finish_quiz_9 .action-button.ays_check_answer { padding: 5px 10px; font-size: 17px !important; } #ays-quiz-container-9 #ays_finish_quiz_9 .action-button.ays_download_certificate { white-space: nowrap; padding: 5px 10px; } #ays-quiz-container-9 #ays_finish_quiz_9 .action-button.ays_arrow { color:#333!important; white-space: nowrap; padding: 5px 10px; } #ays-quiz-container-9 input#ays-submit:hover, #ays-quiz-container-9 input#ays-submit:focus, #ays-quiz-container-9 #ays_finish_quiz_9 .action-button:hover, #ays-quiz-container-9 #ays_finish_quiz_9 .action-button:focus { box-shadow: 0 0 0 2px #333; background-color: #27AE60; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays_restart_button { color: #333; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays_restart_button_p { display: flex; justify-content: center; flex-wrap: wrap; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays_buttons_div { justify-content: center; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .step:first-of-type .ays_buttons_div { justify-content: center !important; } #ays-quiz-container-9 input[type='button'], #ays-quiz-container-9 input[type='submit'] { color: #333 !important; outline: none; } #ays-quiz-container-9 #ays_finish_quiz_9 i.ays_early_finish.action-button[disabled]:hover, #ays-quiz-container-9 #ays_finish_quiz_9 i.ays_early_finish.action-button[disabled]:focus, #ays-quiz-container-9 #ays_finish_quiz_9 i.ays_early_finish.action-button[disabled], #ays-quiz-container-9 #ays_finish_quiz_9 i.ays_arrow.action-button[disabled]:hover, #ays-quiz-container-9 #ays_finish_quiz_9 i.ays_arrow.action-button[disabled]:focus, #ays-quiz-container-9 #ays_finish_quiz_9 i.ays_arrow.action-button[disabled] { color: #aaa !important; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays_finish.action-button{ margin: 10px 5px; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-share-btn.ays-share-btn-branded { color: #fff; } /* Question answers */ #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-field { border-color: #444; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px; box-shadow: none;flex-direction: row-reverse; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-quiz-answers .ays-field:hover{ opacity: 1; } #ays-quiz-container-9 #ays_finish_quiz_9 .ays-field label.ays_answer_caption[for^='ays-answer-'] { z-index: 1; position:initial;bottom:0;} #ays-quiz-container-9 #ays_finish_quiz_9 .ays-field input~label[for^='ays-answer-'] { padding: 5px; } #ays-quiz-container-9 #ays_finish_quiz_9 .ays-field { margin-bottom: 10px; } #ays-quiz-container-9 #ays_finish_quiz_9 .ays-field.ays_grid_view_item { width: calc(50% - 5px); } #ays-quiz-container-9 #ays_finish_quiz_9 .ays-field.ays_grid_view_item:nth-child(odd) { margin-right: 5px; } #ays-quiz-container-9 #ays_finish_quiz_9 .ays-field input:checked+label:before { border-color: #27AE60; background: #27AE60; background-clip: content-box; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-quiz-answers div.ays-text-right-answer { color: #000; } /* Answer maximum length of a text field */ #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays_quiz_question_text_message{ color: #000; text-align: left; font-size: 12px; } div#ays-quiz-container-9 div.ays_quiz_question_text_error_message { color: #ff0000; } /* Questions answer image */ #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-answer-image { width:15em; height:150px; object-fit: cover; } /* Questions answer right/wrong icons */ #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-field input~label.answered.correct:after{ content: url('http://ilona-andrews.com/wp-content/plugins/quiz-maker/public/images/correct.png'); } #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-field input~label.answered.wrong:after{ content: url('http://ilona-andrews.com/wp-content/plugins/quiz-maker/public/images/wrong.png'); } #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-field label.answered:last-of-type:after{ height: auto; left: 10px;top: 10px;} /* Dropdown questions */ #ays-quiz-container-9 .select2-container--default .select2-search--dropdown .select2-search__field:focus, #ays-quiz-container-9 .select2-container--default .select2-search--dropdown .select2-search__field { outline: unset; padding: 0.75rem; } #ays-quiz-container-9 #ays_finish_quiz_9 .ays-field .select2-container--default .select2-selection--single { border-bottom: 2px solid #27AE60; background-color: #27AE60; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-field .select2-container--default .select2-selection--single .select2-selection__rendered, #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-field .select2-container--default .select2-selection--single .select2-selection__placeholder, #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-field .select2-container--default .select2-selection--single .select2-selection__arrow { color: #d8519f; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-field .select2-container--default .select2-selection--single .select2-selection__rendered, #ays-quiz-container-9 .select2-container--default .select2-results__option--highlighted[aria-selected] { background-color: #27AE60; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-field .select2-container--default, #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-field .select2-container--default .selection, #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-field .select2-container--default .dropdown-wrapper, #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-field .select2-container--default .select2-selection--single .select2-selection__rendered, #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-field .select2-container--default .select2-selection--single .select2-selection__rendered .select2-selection__placeholder, #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-field .select2-container--default .select2-selection--single .select2-selection__arrow, #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-field .select2-container--default .select2-selection--single .select2-selection__arrow b[role='presentation'] { font-size: 16px !important; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .select2-container--default .select2-results__option { padding: 6px; } /* Dropdown questions scroll bar */ #ays-quiz-container-9 .select2-results__options::-webkit-scrollbar { width: 7px; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .select2-results__options::-webkit-scrollbar-track { background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0.35); } #ays-quiz-container-9 .select2-results__options::-webkit-scrollbar-thumb { transition: .3s ease-in-out; background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0.55); } #ays-quiz-container-9 .select2-results__options::-webkit-scrollbar-thumb:hover { transition: .3s ease-in-out; background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0.85); } /* WooCommerce product */ #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-woo-block { background-color: rgba(39,174,96,0.8); } #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-woo-product-block h4.ays-woo-product-title > a { color: #000; } /* Audio / Video */ #ays-quiz-container-9 .mejs-container .mejs-time{ box-sizing: unset; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .mejs-container .mejs-time-rail { padding-top: 15px; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .mejs-container .mejs-mediaelement video { margin: 0; } /* Limitation */ #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-quiz-limitation-count-of-takers { padding: 50px; } #ays-quiz-container-9 div.ays-quiz-results-toggle-block span.ays-show-res-toggle.ays-res-toggle-show, #ays-quiz-container-9 div.ays-quiz-results-toggle-block span.ays-show-res-toggle.ays-res-toggle-hide{ color: #000; } #ays-quiz-container-9 div.ays-quiz-results-toggle-block input:checked + label.ays_switch_toggle { border: 1px solid #000; } #ays-quiz-container-9 div.ays-quiz-results-toggle-block input:checked + label.ays_switch_toggle { border: 1px solid #000; } #ays-quiz-container-9 div.ays-quiz-results-toggle-block input:checked + label.ays_switch_toggle:after{ background: #000; } #ays-quiz-container-9.ays_quiz_elegant_dark div.ays-quiz-results-toggle-block input:checked + label.ays_switch_toggle:after, #ays-quiz-container-9.ays_quiz_rect_dark div.ays-quiz-results-toggle-block input:checked + label.ays_switch_toggle:after{ background: #000; } /* Hestia theme (Version: 3.0.16) | Start */ #ays-quiz-container-9 .mejs-container .mejs-inner .mejs-controls .mejs-button > button:hover, #ays-quiz-container-9 .mejs-container .mejs-inner .mejs-controls .mejs-button > button { box-shadow: unset; background-color: transparent; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .mejs-container .mejs-inner .mejs-controls .mejs-button > button { margin: 10px 6px; } /* Hestia theme (Version: 3.0.16) | End */ /* Go theme (Version: 1.4.3) | Start */ #ays-quiz-container-9 label[for^='ays-answer']:before, #ays-quiz-container-9 label[for^='ays-answer']:before { -webkit-mask-image: unset; mask-image: unset; } #ays-quiz-container-9.ays_quiz_classic_light .ays-field input:checked+label.answered:before, #ays-quiz-container-9.ays_quiz_classic_dark .ays-field input:checked+label.answered:before { background-color: #27AE60 !important; } #ays-quiz-container-9.ays_quiz_classic_light .ays-field input:checked+label.answered.correct:before, #ays-quiz-container-9.ays_quiz_classic_dark .ays-field input:checked+label.answered.correct:before { background-color: #27ae60 !important; } #ays-quiz-container-9.ays_quiz_classic_light .ays-field input:checked+label.answered.wrong:before, #ays-quiz-container-9.ays_quiz_classic_dark .ays-field input:checked+label.answered.wrong:before { background-color: #cc3700 !important; } /* Go theme (Version: 1.4.3) | End */ #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays_quiz_results fieldset.ays_fieldset .ays_quiz_question .wp-video { width: 100% !important; max-width: 100%; } /* Classic Dark / Classic Light */ /* Dropdown questions right/wrong styles */ #ays-quiz-container-9.ays_quiz_classic_dark .correct_div, #ays-quiz-container-9.ays_quiz_classic_light .correct_div{ border-color: green !important; opacity: 1 !important; background-color: rgba(39,174,96,0.4) !important; } #ays-quiz-container-9.ays_quiz_classic_dark .correct_div .selected-field, #ays-quiz-container-9.ays_quiz_classic_light .correct_div .selected-field { padding: 0px 10px 0px 10px; color: green !important; } #ays-quiz-container-9.ays_quiz_classic_dark .wrong_div, #ays-quiz-container-9.ays_quiz_classic_light .wrong_div{ border-color: red !important; opacity: 1 !important; background-color: rgba(243,134,129,0.4) !important; } #ays-quiz-container-9.ays_quiz_classic_dark .ays-field.checked_answer_div.wrong_div input:checked~label, #ays-quiz-container-9.ays_quiz_classic_light .ays-field.checked_answer_div.wrong_div input:checked~label { background-color: rgba(243,134,129,0.4) !important; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays_question_result .ays-field .ays_quiz_hide_correct_answer:after{ content: '' !important; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-quiz-close-full-screen { fill: #000; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-quiz-open-full-screen { fill: #000; } @media screen and (max-width: 768px){ #ays-quiz-container-9{ max-width: 100%; } div#ays-quiz-container-9.ays_quiz_modern_light .step, div#ays-quiz-container-9.ays_quiz_modern_dark .step { padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important; } div#ays-quiz-container-9.ays_quiz_modern_light div.step[data-question-id], div#ays-quiz-container-9.ays_quiz_modern_dark div.step[data-question-id] { background-size: cover !important; background-position: center center !important; } div#ays-quiz-container-9.ays_quiz_modern_light .ays-abs-fs:not(.ays-start-page):not(.ays-end-page), div#ays-quiz-container-9.ays_quiz_modern_dark .ays-abs-fs:not(.ays-start-page):not(.ays-end-page) { width: 100%; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays_quiz_question p { font-size: 16px; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .select2-container, #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-field * { font-size: 15px !important; } div#ays-quiz-container-9 input#ays-submit, div#ays-quiz-container-9 #ays_finish_quiz_9 .action-button, div#ays-quiz-container-9 #ays_finish_quiz_9 .action-button.ays_restart_button { font-size: 17px; } div#ays-quiz-container-9 div.ays-questions-container div.ays-woo-block { width: 100%; } /* Quiz title / mobile font size */ div#ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-fs-title { font-size: 21px; } } /* Custom css styles */ /* RTL direction styles */ #ays-quiz-container-9 p { margin: 0.625em; } #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-field.checked_answer_div input:checked~label { background-color: rgba(39,174,96,0.6); } #ays-quiz-container-9.ays_quiz_classic_light .enable_correction .ays-field.checked_answer_div input:checked+label, #ays-quiz-container-9.ays_quiz_classic_dark .enable_correction .ays-field.checked_answer_div input:checked+label { background-color: transparent; } #ays-quiz-container-9.ays-quiz-container.ays_quiz_classic_light .ays-questions-container .ays-field:hover label[for^='ays-answer-'], #ays-quiz-container-9 .ays-field:hover{ background: rgba(39,174,96,0.8); color: #fff; transition: all .3s; } #ays-quiz-container-9 #ays_finish_quiz_9 .action-button:hover, #ays-quiz-container-9 #ays_finish_quiz_9 .action-button:focus { box-shadow: 0 0 0 2px rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.5), 0 0 0 3px #333; background: #27AE60; } if(typeof aysQuizOptions === 'undefined'){ var aysQuizOptions = []; } aysQuizOptions['9'] = '{"quiz_version":"8.7.4","core_version":"6.7.2","php_version":"8.2.27","color":"#27AE60","bg_color":"#fff","text_color":"#000","height":350,"width":400,"enable_logged_users":"off","information_form":"disable","form_name":"off","form_email":"off","form_phone":"off","image_width":"","image_height":"","enable_correction":"off","enable_progress_bar":"off","enable_questions_result":"off","randomize_questions":"on","randomize_answers":"off","enable_questions_counter":"on","enable_restriction_pass":"off","enable_restriction_pass_users":"off","restriction_pass_message":"","restriction_pass_users_message":"","user_role":[],"ays_users_search":[],"custom_css":"","limit_users":"off","limitation_message":"","redirect_url":"","redirection_delay":0,"answers_view":"list","enable_rtl_direction":"off","enable_logged_users_message":"","questions_count":"","enable_question_bank":"off","enable_live_progress_bar":"off","enable_percent_view":"off","enable_average_statistical":"off","enable_next_button":"off","enable_previous_button":"off","enable_arrows":"off","timer_text":"","quiz_theme":"classic_light","enable_social_buttons":"on","final_result_text":"","enable_pass_count":"on","hide_score":"on","rate_form_title":"","box_shadow_color":"#000","quiz_border_radius":"0","quiz_bg_image":"","quiz_border_width":"1","quiz_border_style":"solid","quiz_border_color":"#000","quiz_loader":"default","quest_animation":"shake","enable_bg_music":"off","quiz_bg_music":"","answers_font_size":15,"show_create_date":"off","show_author":"off","enable_early_finish":"off","answers_rw_texts":"disable","disable_store_data":"off","enable_background_gradient":"off","background_gradient_color_1":"#000","background_gradient_color_2":"#fff","quiz_gradient_direction":"vertical","redirect_after_submit":"off","submit_redirect_url":"","submit_redirect_delay":"0","progress_bar_style":"first","enable_exit_button":"off","exit_redirect_url":"","image_sizing":"cover","quiz_bg_image_position":"center center","custom_class":"","enable_social_links":"off","social_links":{"linkedin_link":"","facebook_link":"","twitter_link":"","vkontakte_link":"","instagram_link":"","youtube_link":""},"show_quiz_title":"on","show_quiz_desc":"on","show_login_form":"off","mobile_max_width":"","limit_users_by":"ip","explanation_time":"4","enable_clear_answer":"off","show_category":"off","show_question_category":"off","answers_padding":"5","answers_border":"on","answers_border_width":"1","answers_border_style":"solid","answers_border_color":"#444","ans_img_height":"150","ans_img_caption_style":"outside","ans_img_caption_position":"bottom","answers_box_shadow":"off","answers_box_shadow_color":"#000","show_answers_caption":"on","answers_margin":10,"ans_right_wrong_icon":"default","display_score":"by_percentage","enable_rw_asnwers_sounds":"off","quiz_bg_img_in_finish_page":"off","finish_after_wrong_answer":"off","after_timer_text":"","enable_enter_key":"on","show_rate_after_rate":"on","buttons_text_color":"#333","buttons_position":"center","buttons_size":"medium","buttons_font_size":"17","buttons_width":"","buttons_left_right_padding":"20","buttons_top_bottom_padding":"10","buttons_border_radius":"3","enable_audio_autoplay":"off","enable_leave_page":"on","show_only_wrong_answer":"off","pass_score":0,"pass_score_message":"<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\">Congratulations!<\/h4>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">You passed the quiz!<\/p>","fail_score_message":"<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\">Oops!<\/h4>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">You have not passed the quiz!\r\nTry again!<\/p>","answers_object_fit":"cover","quiz_max_pass_count":1,"question_font_size":16,"quiz_width_by_percentage_px":"pixels","questions_hint_icon_or_text":"default","questions_hint_value":"","enable_early_finsh_comfirm_box":"on","hide_correct_answers":"off","quiz_loader_text_value":"","show_information_form":"on","show_questions_explanation":"disable","enable_questions_ordering_by_cat":"off","enable_send_mail_to_user_by_pass_score":"off","enable_send_mail_to_admin_by_pass_score":"off","show_questions_numbering":"none","show_answers_numbering":"none","quiz_loader_custom_gif":"","disable_hover_effect":"off","quiz_loader_custom_gif_width":100,"quiz_title_transformation":"uppercase","quiz_image_width_by_percentage_px":"pixels","quiz_image_height":"","quiz_bg_img_on_start_page":"off","quiz_box_shadow_x_offset":0,"quiz_box_shadow_y_offset":0,"quiz_box_shadow_z_offset":15,"quiz_question_text_alignment":"center","quiz_arrow_type":"default","quiz_show_wrong_answers_first":"off","quiz_display_all_questions":"off","quiz_timer_red_warning":"off","quiz_schedule_timezone":"UTC-6","questions_hint_button_value":"","quiz_tackers_message":"This quiz is expired!","quiz_enable_linkedin_share_button":"on","quiz_enable_facebook_share_button":"on","quiz_enable_twitter_share_button":"on","quiz_enable_vkontakte_share_button":"on","quiz_make_responses_anonymous":"off","quiz_make_all_review_link":"off","quiz_message_before_timer":"","quiz_password_message":"","enable_see_result_confirm_box":"off","display_fields_labels":"off","quiz_enable_password_visibility":"off","question_mobile_font_size":16,"answers_mobile_font_size":15,"social_buttons_heading":"","social_links_heading":"","quiz_enable_question_category_description":"off","quiz_message_before_redirect_timer":"","buttons_mobile_font_size":17,"quiz_answer_box_shadow_x_offset":0,"quiz_answer_box_shadow_y_offset":0,"quiz_answer_box_shadow_z_offset":10,"quiz_enable_title_text_shadow":"off","quiz_title_text_shadow_color":"#333","right_answers_font_size":16,"wrong_answers_font_size":16,"quest_explanation_font_size":16,"quiz_waiting_time":"off","quiz_title_text_shadow_x_offset":2,"quiz_title_text_shadow_y_offset":2,"quiz_title_text_shadow_z_offset":2,"quiz_show_only_wrong_answers":"off","quiz_title_font_size":21,"quiz_title_mobile_font_size":21,"quiz_password_width":"","quiz_review_placeholder_text":"","quiz_make_review_required":"off","quiz_enable_results_toggle":"off","question_count_per_page":null,"question_count_per_page_number":"","mail_message":"","enable_certificate":"off","enable_certificate_without_send":"off","certificate_pass":"0","form_title":"","certificate_title":"<span style=\"font-size: 50px; font-weight: bold;\">Certificate of Completion<\/span>","certificate_body":"<span style=\"font-size: 25px;\"><i>This is to certify that<\/i><\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-size: 30px;\"><b>%%user_name%%<\/b><\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-size: 25px;\"><i>has completed the quiz<\/i><\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-size: 30px;\">\"%%quiz_name%%\"<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-size: 20px;\">with a score of <b>%%score%%<\/b><\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-size: 25px;\"><i>dated<\/i><\/span>\r\n<span style=\"font-size: 30px;\">%%current_date%%<\/span>","mailchimp_list":"","enable_mailchimp":"off","enable_double_opt_in":"off","active_date_check":"off","activeInterval":"2025-03-10 08:49:33","deactiveInterval":"2025-03-10 08:49:33","active_date_message":"The quiz has expired!","active_date_pre_start_message":"The quiz will be available soon!","checkbox_score_by":"on","calculate_score":"by_correctness","send_results_user":"off","send_interval_msg":"off","question_bank_type":"general","questions_bank_cat_count":{"1":""},"enable_tackers_count":"off","tackers_count":"","send_results_admin":"on","send_interval_msg_to_admin":"off","show_interval_message":"on","allow_collecting_logged_in_users_data":"off","quiz_pass_score":"0","send_certificate_to_admin":"off","certificate_image":"","certificate_frame":"default","certificate_orientation":"l","make_questions_required":"off","enable_password":"off","password_quiz":"","mail_message_admin":"","send_mail_to_site_admin":"on","generate_password":"general","generated_passwords":{"created_passwords":[],"active_passwords":[],"used_passwords":[]},"display_score_by":"by_percentage","show_schedule_timer":"off","show_timer_type":"countdown","progress_live_bar_style":"default","enable_full_screen_mode":"off","enable_navigation_bar":"off","hide_limit_attempts_notice":"off","turn_on_extra_security_check":"on","enable_top_keywords":"off","assign_keywords":[{"assign_top_keyword":"A","assign_top_keyword_text":""},{"assign_top_keyword":"B","assign_top_keyword_text":""},{"assign_top_keyword":"C","assign_top_keyword_text":""},{"assign_top_keyword":"D","assign_top_keyword_text":""}],"quiz_enable_coupon":"off","quiz_coupons_array":{"quiz_active_coupons":[],"quiz_inactive_coupons":[]},"apply_points_to_keywords":"off","limit_attempts_count_by_user_role":"","enable_autostart":"off","paypal_amount":null,"paypal_currency":null,"paypal_message":"","enable_stripe":"off","stripe_amount":"","stripe_currency":"","stripe_message":"You need to pay to pass this quiz.","payment_type":"prepay","enable_monitor":"off","monitor_list":"","active_camp_list":"","enable_slack":"off","slack_conversation":"","active_camp_automation":"","enable_active_camp":"off","enable_zapier":"off","enable_google_sheets":"off","spreadsheet_id":"","google_sheet_custom_fields":[],"quiz_attributes":null,"quiz_attributes_active_order":null,"quiz_attributes_passive_order":["ays_form_name","ays_form_email","ays_form_phone"],"required_fields":null,"enable_timer":"off","timer":100,"enable_quiz_rate":"off","enable_rate_avg":"off","enable_box_shadow":"on","enable_border":"off","quiz_timer_in_title":"off","enable_rate_comments":"off","enable_restart_button":"off","autofill_user_data":"off","enable_copy_protection":"off","enable_paypal":"off","ays_enable_restriction_pass":"off","ays_enable_restriction_pass_users":"off","result_text":null,"enable_result":"off","enable_mad_mimi":"off","mad_mimi_list":"","enable_convertKit":"off","convertKit_form_id":"","enable_getResponse":"off","getResponse_list":"","submit_redirect_after":"","rw_answers_sounds":false,"id":"9","title":"What Iron and which Magic?","description":"Iron and Magic gave us battle, betrayal, redemption, and a marriage of convenience so hot it practically melted the page. But how well do we really remember Hugh\u2019s journey from Roland\u2019s warlord to Elara\u2019s yearning husband and fortress co-owner? Sharpen your swords (and your wits) and see if you can conquer this quiz like Hugh conquers\u2026 well, everything.","quiz_image":"https:\/\/ilona-andrews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Hugh-Header.jpg","quiz_category_id":"1","question_ids":"77,76,75,74,73,72,71,70,69,68,67","ordering":"9","published":"1","intervals":"[{\"interval_min\":\"0\",\"interval_max\":\"50\",\"interval_text\":\"Somewhere, Landon Nez is cackling. He sent vampires to swap your copy of Iron and Magic with the April Fools prank Warlord\\u2019s Price.\\r\\n No matter, once an Iron Dog, always an Iron Dog! Rally, regroup, and retake the battlefield. After all, if Hugh taught us anything, it\\u2019s that redemption is possible.\",\"interval_image\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ilona-andrews.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2015\\\/04\\\/Warlords-Price.jpg\",\"interval_redirect_url\":\"\",\"interval_redirect_delay\":\"\",\"interval_wproduct\":\"\",\"interval_keyword\":\"A\"},{\"interval_min\":\"51\",\"interval_max\":\"100\",\"interval_text\":\"Congratulations, Warlord!\\r\\nYour knowledge of magic waves, unicorns, castles, and preceptor romances is truly unmatched. \\r\\nYou can take a victory lap around your stronghold, and you don't even have to put down that cow!\",\"interval_image\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ilona-andrews.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2025\\\/03\\\/Iron-and-Magic-AS.jpg\",\"interval_redirect_url\":\"\",\"interval_redirect_delay\":\"\",\"interval_wproduct\":\"\",\"interval_keyword\":\"B\"}]","author_id":"4477","post_id":null,"create_date":"2025-03-04 10:12:01","quiz_url":"","is_user_logged_in":false,"quiz_animation_top":100,"quiz_enable_animation_top":"on","store_all_not_finished_results":false}';

The post The Iron and Magic Trivia Quiz first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

I’z super high!

You’re what now?

Cut him some slack, his brain cell is out visiting the fruit flies.

I’z high!

I can’t believe this is the family that adopted me…

Featuring a whole new Schooled in Magic novella!

Have you ever wanted to go to magic school? To cast spells and brew potions and fly on broomsticks and – perhaps – battle threats both common and supernatural? Come with us into worlds of magic, where students become magicians and teachers do everything in their power to ensure the kids survive long enough to graduate. Welcome to … Fantastic Schools.

Meet the students preparing for magical war, learning how to wield sorcerous weapons or fantastic talents in defence of the world; meet the magicians testing their abilities in worlds touched by the fantastic and the supernatural, or the magicians completing their final exams – or going to war, learning on the job as the darkness moves ever-closer to home. Meet the students who think they have all the time in the world, and the ones who discover that their training has suddenly become all too real.

The glory of war awaits them, in these pages, but so too does the price …

Purchase from: Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon CAN, Amazon AU.

And check out the latest call for submissions here!

The Federation has endured for hundreds of years, but as corruption and decadence wear away the core of human unity, rogue admirals rise in rebellion. As the Federation struggles for survival, two officers, an old Admiral and a newly-minted Lieutenant, may be all that stands between the Federation and destruction.

Book One: Barbarians At The Gates (now on KU)

Book Two: The Shadow of Cincinnatus

Book Three: The Barbarian Bride

The weather elementals are not happy with High Wizard Elron at DOGE Supernatural, and they've retaliated with a tornado at one of his manufacturing plants. What kind of revenge will he enact for what they've done?

A few days ago, when the edits for This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me just landed in our inboxes, I made this candle with the idea that once this, final content edit was done, I would ceremoniously light it.

In all fairness, the candle looked prettier in my head, but I don’t normally make candles.

Well, guess what?

That’s right, the edits are done.

Here is the candle, burning in the study. Hopefully it will smell lovely.

The edit has been sent off and I’m going to take a couple of days to recover.

The post The Candle Is Lit… first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

Interesting, how does the technology to ‘drain the well’ (and store it for later use) interact with sigil recyling?
Looks like one could ‘create their own wells’ by acquiring different sigils and capturing the essentia from them. With enough skills, research (of background of these sigils) and money, one could actually build quite a formidable well this way.

Some Thoughts On The Current European/American Situation

“Closing your eyes isn’t going to change anything. Nothing’s going to disappear just because you can’t see what’s going on. In fact, things will even be worse the next time you open your eyes. That’s the kind of world we live in. Keep your eyes wide open. Only a coward closes his eyes. Closing your eyes and plugging up your ears won’t make time stand still.”

― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

Well, we can’t say we weren’t warned.

It was easy to believe, after the end of the Cold War, that Russia was a broken state and would remain so for the foreseeable future. This was obviously inaccurate. There was no danger in both expanding NATO and cutting European military forces to the bone, Europeans thought, nor was there any risk in becoming dangerously dependent on Russian gas and oil. The prospect of Russia being able to rejuvenate herself, as Germany had done after 1918, seemed increasingly remote. The chaos and corruption of the Yeltsin years left a lasting impression. Unfortunately, that impression was severely misplaced.

Since assuming power, Vladimir Putin has pursued a cold-blooded strategy of rebuilding military power, reassuming Russian primacy amongst the surrounding states and generally making it clear that Russia is no longer a military pygmy whose opinions can be safely ignored. To his credit, Putin played a weak hand very well. Russia crushed Chechnya, at appalling cost; Russia Georgia (the country, not the state) firmly in her place, Russia took over and annexed a chunk of Ukraine, Russia deployed a major force to Syria to support their allies in the region (a feat only matched by Britain and America in recent years), all the while manipulating the global economy to ensure that international opposition was limited and largely futile. All of this should have been a wake-up call.

Putin does appear to have believed, to some extent, in his own propaganda. The Russians appear to have developed an overinflated idea of their military prowess, and seriously believed that they could launch a blitzkrieg into Ukraine, capture the capital, and declare victory before any sort of international opposition could possibly be mobilised. In this, they were wrong. Far from being a three-day policing operation, or however else the Russians chose to spin it, the Ukraine war has bogged down into a conflict dangerously reminiscent of the First World War. Russian gains, such as they are, have come at appalling cost. Worse, for Russia, the fact that their military has been exposed as far less powerful and capable as everyone believed means that their neighbours and more distant opponents are more willing to risk conflict with Russia by supporting Ukraine. It was possible to believe that Russia would lose, quickly and badly, and the disaster would lead to Putin accidentally brutally shooting himself in the back several times.

I was not comfortable with that prediction. In 1939, for example, Russia invaded Finland. The initial invasion was a disaster, with the Finns brutally humiliating Russians time and time again. Their valour disguised the fact that Russia was far stronger, numerically speaking, and the natural selection of an ongoing war ensure that Russia would learn from her own mistakes, adjust her tactics, and resume the offensive. Finland did manage to convince Stalin that she was too tough a morsel to swallow, a remarkable feat given that Stalin was far more ruthless than even Putin, but she was effectively beaten. It could have been far worse.

The Winter War gave British, French, and German politicians a seriously understated impression of Russian military power. The British and French, desperate for a way to help Finland, came up with crazy plans to bomb Russian oil fields, convinced the Russians would not be able to retaliate in any substantial way. Hitler, at the same time, became equally convinced that Russia was a paper tiger, that the might of Nazi Germany could defeat the Russians in no more than six weeks (a delusion shared by some in Britain, who held out no hope of Moscow surviving German attack). This was a serious misjudgement. The Russians survived Operation Barbarossa, defeated the Germans soundly, and marched on to conquer Berlin. We all think twice about offending the mighty Russian bear because Russia held half of Europe in a grip of steel for nearly 50 years.

Or we did.

European politicians appear to have pursued a frankly bizarre policy towards the Ukraine War. On one hand, it is greatly to the credit of many politicians that they have offered Ukraine vast amounts of financial, military, and other material support. There is very little sympathy for Russia in Europe, nor should there be. On the other hand, they have refused to grapple with the implications of the Ukraine War, or to consider the very dangerous possibility that Russia will actually win the war, or at least come out ahead. There is both a firm belief that Russia can and must lose in Ukraine and yet, at the same time, there is a dangerous complacency lulling Europe to sleep even as the Russians finally start making some battlefield gains.

The blunt truth is that Europe has cut its military forces to the bone. Europe’s ability to project power outside its own borders is very limited. Europe’s ability to resupply its troops and replace ammunition expended in wartime (usage rates are always higher than predicted) is even more so. European deindustrialisation makes it hard to rebuild, let alone expand what little remains to Europeans. Protected by the United States, European politicians have indulged in fantasies of abolishing nuclear power, moving all those dirty industries to the Third World, and that soft power can make up for a lack of hard power. This did not work out well for Greece, when she was confronted by an expanding Imperial Rome, and it will not work out well for Europe. The key to preventing war is to be ready for it, and Europe is not ready.

How many wake-up calls do we need? Must we wait until the call starts coming from inside the house?

The rot goes deeper. Faith in governments is at an all-time low. Social cohesion is coming apart at the seams, the problem of mass migration and government unwillingness to deal with it firmly and decisively empowering more radical political parties; government censorship and two-tiered justice is undermining confidence in government, the media, and nearly everything else. It is difficult to believe that many Europeans will willingly fight for countries that appear to have turned their backs on the native population, and punish them for daring to complain. I think is fairly safe to say that patriotism is on the decline too, or that it is benefiting the more radical parties rather than centrists. But then, if reasonable voices refuse to acknowledge a problem and deal with it, unreasonable voices will take advantage of the problem to promote themselves.

It is difficult to believe, too, that conscription will ever be reintroduced in Europe. It would be extremely unpopular. Like I said, very few people want to fight for the current order. But even if it is introduced, how will Europe arm those soldiers? It is incredibly difficult to produce modern weapons, from main battle tanks and fighter jets to man-portable antitank and anti-aircraft missiles, without a major industrial base. The problem will not be solved by recruiting vast numbers of soldiers, willing or not. Those soldiers need to be armed, and that means Europe must build up its industrial base too.

But this too is a problem European politicians have chosen to ignore.

This leads neatly to a second problem.

There has always been a strong isolationist streak in the United States of America. It is easy for European politicians to forget this, because every president from FDR onwards has been an internationalist (including Trump, to some extent). America has hugely benefited from being the world’s policeman, but not unlike the European Union the benefits of this policy have not been spread evenly. A sense has been growing in American thought that argues, not unreasonably, that Europe should pay more towards her own defence, and build up her own military forces to the point they can serve as more than a tripwire. During the Cold War, the Europeans could be relied upon to give a good account of themselves. Now, it isn’t so clear they could. It may not be entirely fair to say that the Europeans are wholly dependent on America, but there is a great deal of truth in it.

It is difficult to understate how offended and hurt many Americans were by European reluctance to provide major support after 9/11. It is easy to make fun of people who renamed ‘French Fries’ as ‘Freedom Fries,’ or insist on pronouncing “European” as “Your-A-Peon,” but such humour masks a more serious reality. The political consensus that America could and should bolster European defence was severely weakened, with Americans openly questioning the value of NATO to the United States. Why should the United States send its young men and women to defend nations that were not only unwilling to defend themselves, but spent much of their time criticising the United States and/or take advantage of America to undercut its economy? This is not a new thing – similar concerns were raised about Japan, although those faded away after the Japanese crash – but the world is now a very different place. The American failures in Iraq and Afghanistan have given the isolationists good reason to think twice about foreign entanglements. What does the United States get out of them, except body bags?

You may be reading this and thinking that that is a stupid argument. You might be right. But others disagree.

Every American President since Clinton has tried to nudge Europe to spend more money on its own defence. Bush43 tried. Obama tried. Trump tried. Biden tried, and his arguments were backed up by a full-scale war exploding in Europe’s backyard. The response was always the same, more military cuts. It is a simple fact of life that people grow tired of giving, no matter how good the cause, and America was slowly falling out of love with NATO. To help someone get back on their feet after being knocked down is one thing – in fact, it is the core of right-wing charity – but to keep supporting them the rest of eternity is quite another. American Internationalists are slowly being superseded by American Isolationists, who are deeply suspicious of international involvements and have no particular interest in writing blank cheques.

It is easy to blame the current crisis on Donald Trump and JD Vance. Vance certainly fits into the American Isolationist tradition far more than Donald Trump. In Trump’s case, matters are made worse by the fact he genuinely did point out the dangers of becoming dependent on Russian oil and gas (as well as being one of the first presidents to send large arms shipments to Ukraine), and response he got from Europeans was largely mockery and casual dismissal. A stronger and more mature man than Donald Trump would find this very hard to take, and in Trump’s case he would have the grim awareness that he had been right all along and his detractors were not. (European governments supporting Kamala Harris in the 2024 election are another display of European complacency, a foolish move no matter what you think of Donald Trump and/or his chances of victory in 2024.) The combination of European complacency, refusal to believe that history has restarted (in truth, it never stopped), and head-in-the-sand thinking has produced a very dangerous situation, in which Europe is exposed to enemy attack while at the same time alienating the one hope of a conventional defence.

Let me be very clear on one point. Putin and Russia are in the wrong. The Russian justifications for the war make sense from a geopolitical point of view, but they do not justify a full-scale invasion and conquest of Ukraine. Might does not make right. But as anyone who has dealt with a schoolyard bully knows, the only way to stop him is to give him a bloody nose and the only way to do that is to prepare for conflict. We now have a situation where Ukraine cannot continue the war for much longer, cannot recover her territories through her own efforts (no matter how many weapons we send them), and we are unable as well as unwilling to send our own troops to drive the Russians out. It is possible, true, that Russia’s economy will collapse, or that some kindly soul will assassinate Putin, take power, and order a withdrawal. The former is unpredictable. The latter, as pleasant as it sounds, will mean that Putin’s successor (assuming he manages to take power without a fight, which isn’t guaranteed) will face the same dilemma currently challenging Vladimir Putin. If Russia gains nothing for her efforts, it will be fatal for her leader. Any successor will look at the example of 1918, where the German civilian government found itself forced to accept an extremely unpopular peace, and think twice about making any agreement that will look like a defeat, let alone a surrender.

In Europe, politics are genteel. In Russia, they can be lethal.

The blunt truth is that European politicians are no longer serious men. They have grown so used to the American umbrella that they have surrendered the tools they need to shape the world, even in their own backyard. Faced with a slowly shifting situation, a growing split between America and Europe, they have chosen to ignore the problem rather than take steps to address it. Faced with an outright war, they have made grandiose statements without taking measures to prepare for an expansion of the conflict. They have been long on words, and short on action. And in doing so, they have made the world a much more dangerous place.

In recent days, many commenters have raised the spectre of Munich. That is unfair. Neville Chamberlain was a fool who believed the Nazis were overwhelmingly powerful (they weren’t), that any war in 1938 would be long and bloody (probably incorrectly), and the cost of the war would doom the already fragile British Empire (probably true). If Chamberlain had stood up to Hitler at Munich, the world would be a very different place and much of the slaughter of the next six years would have been averted. But Chamberlain believed he was buying time to rearm, to catch up with the Germans and prepare for a war. He may have severely misjudged German military power, but he was laying the groundwork to defeat it. The same cannot be said for modern-day European politicians. They have created a situation in which they are playing poker with neither cards nor stake against an opponent who understands the realities of power in a way they cannot match.

Stalin famously asked how many divisions the Pope had. Putin could easily ask the same about European politicians who have no conception of how weak they have become, or that the wake up calls they have heard over the last two decades have become the howl of the approaching wolf.

We need a change. And fast.

We interrupt this scheduled broadcast with breaking news.

Text of the Announcement:

This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me by Ilona Andrews

Game of Thrones meets Outlander in This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me

When Maggie wakes up, cold, naked, and filthy in Kair Toren, a city in the kingdom of Rellas, she recognizes it immediately. It’s the world she knows intimately from the pages of an unfinished dark fantasy series she’s been obsessively reading and re-reading while waiting years for the final novel. With no idea how or why she landed in this gritty, violent world, she’s determined to survive until she can figure out how to get home with her only tools – an encyclopedic knowledge of the plot, setting, and the characters’ actions, motivations, and fates: information she can sell to the highest bidder – all while staying under the radar so as not to change the very information she plans to barter.

Soon Maggie discovers another surprising “skill”: she cannot be killed (though many will try.) And as she becomes more attached to the motley band she’s somehow gathered – which includes a former lady’s maid, a deadly assassin, a dangerous soldier, and various outrageous magic creatures – she abandons all thoughts of lying low for her own good. Instead she finds herself trying to save them, and the Kingdom of Rellas from the cataclysmic war she knows is coming.

And then there is a nice paragraph about us and our writing stuff.

To reiterate:

Series title: Maggie the Undying.

Book 1 Title: This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me.

Book 1 Release date: March 31, 2026

Why is this announcement happening now?

Because TOR has learned that the Book Devouring Horde is not to be denied. They were planning to keep the title and release date under wraps until we had the cover, but it was concluded by all that since this book will be presented at London Book Fair next week, BDH will surely find out the details and will blast them all over the internet.

Congratulations, you are mighty!

How dark and gritty is this?

As we are finishing up the edits – page 649 of 808 – actually, not that dark and gritty. The Game of Thrones in the blurb above refers to the epic fantasy nature of the series and the Outlander reference is about the portal nature of the books, where the main character is transported into another world.

There are some tough scenes, but it’s nothing that exceeds our usual. If you’ve read Kate Daniels or Hidden Legacy, you should be fine. There is no on page rape, although sexual assault does happen in this world. The book overall has an uplifting trajectory.

Is this truly a fantasy?

Yes. Knights, assassins, weird magical beasts, swordfights, unhinged mages, the whole thing. This is meant to be a world of epic fantasy tropes.

Is there romance?

Yes. There is a romantic arc, but this is not a romance. This is an epic fantasy. That said, if you are a romance reader, you will likely enjoy this.

Is this one of those stories where it was all a dream and she wakes up and nothing changed and she is back in her own world…

No. I hate the dream thing. Not a dream. We would not put you through an emotional wringer to just then make it not matter.

That’s it. More to come, as our agent likes to say.

PS. Mod R has a fun post which will go out on Monday.

The post Maggie The Undying: Title Reveal first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

In reply to Tony.

*Essentia, stupid autocorrect

I thought the answer would probably have something to do with filling wells. Wonder if there’s a primal effect to help homogenise essentially as it’s added?

The White Mists of Power, Heart Readers, and Traitors made my reputation as a fantasy writer. Published worldwide to great acclaim, the books have been in print for years. But they haven’t been revamped since 2012. The interiors were old and tired, and the covers of the 2012 versions have not held up.

So we’re reissuing the books with a brand-new design. And, as we’ve been doing, we’re starting the relaunch with a Kickstarter. This Kickstarter contains more rewards than we usually have, because the original mass market books are part of the Kickstarter, signed by me.

As well as the very first edition of The White Mists of Power.

If you back the Kickstarter, you will get the brand-new ebook editions. You can get the newly redesigned hardcover or trade papers and…or…you can get the original older versions.

We have a lot of other fun items in this Kickstarter, so head on over and take a look.

We’re all sick of the villains, morally gray characters and the bad things we have to hear about constantly.

It’s time to switch things around and celebrate the best of the best supporting characters — they may not be the main protagonists, but they absolutely make every scene better just by existing. They’re the ride-or-dies, the problem-solvers, the comic relief, and we can trust they’ll never do things with evil intention.

While some heroes brood in the corner, these legends are out there actually getting things done. Vote wisely!

(And if you wish to revisit the results and heated discussion for the previous villain poll, you’ll find it here.)

The selection today:

Grandma Frida is the badass grandma we all wish we had. She can talk to tanks, fix tanks and drive tanks, but she also made her garage be the safe place for everyone to go when they need to pour their hearts out.

Orro is a seven-foot-tall, monstruous hedgehog alien chef who acts like Gordon Ramsay on a Shakespearean monologue spree. He lives for culinary perfection, feeding people until they levitate with joy and storming off into his Dramatic Woods. FIRE!

Leon lived his early teenage years thinking he was the only dud in a magical powerhouse family. Now, he’s an unparalleled killing machine, fueled by dead pan, sci-fi Westerns and the same big heart he’s always had.

Grendel is he a poodle? Is he an omen of death? All we know is he’s fluffy, even in nightmare Black Dog shape. His hobbies include vomiting, rolling in vomit, eating everything not nailed down, stealing our hearts…and being living proof that pets reflect their owners.

Gaston a gentleman of adventure, a spy, a gourmet smooth-talking rascal who could probably convince Death itself to take a vacation. If life were a swashbuckling novel, Gaston would be the one swinging from chandeliers mid-battle while winking at the enemy.

Andrea the sharpshooter ex-Order knight, now queen of the boudas – and she did it all in heels (whilst being a beastkin). She’s the kind of loyal best friend who brings snacks, shoots first, and asks questions if necessary.

Helen: we would fix all her ripper cushions! The adorable bacon menace who stole all our hearts also has a kill list, and is ready to defend her family with her Fangs, as any self-respecting warrior vampire princess would.

Cornelius impressed us with his ferrets, deadly frying pan skills, and pied piper song of grief. He is a proud father, a loyal friend and someone who could call on arcane animals to shred the enemy to pieces while sipping his tea. Terrifying? Yes. Lovable? Definitely.

Luther or Dr Loose Cannon to his detractors, is the scientist-magician-bestie every hero needs. His lectures, unexpected sass, hilarious T-shirts and ability to keep up with whatever post-apocalyptic Atlanta throws at Kate make him a true BDH treasure.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

The post Best of the Best poll – Sidekick Stars edition first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

Sometimes meeting your soulmate happens under difficult circumstances.

Briella and Marcus, both suffering, find rays of light and each other, when events go horribly wrong.

A story of how love and caring win even over loss, and start to mend even the most broken hearts.

“The Mix-up” is available for one week on this site. The ebook is also available on all retail stores, as well as here.

 

The Mix-up By Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Briella Wilder felt silly driving back to the Rolling Hills Pet Memorial Park with the small and tasteful gray bag strapped into the passenger seat of her six-year-old Audi. She had a slight headache from repressing tears which—she thought—was a lose-lose situation. If she cried, then she couldn’t see the road. And if she didn’t, she got the headache.

Of course, she almost always got a headache after crying, hence lose-lose.

And there really wasn’t anyone she could talk with about losing Rochester, not someone who would understand. Her more insensitive friends were impatient with her. After all, she had lost cats to old age before, and she had two perfectly lovely Siamese at home, so, really, what was the problem?

The problem was that Rochester had been beside her for the past fifteen years. He had shown up at her new apartment in her new city, when she had been shaky and terrified to live alone.

Until that summer, she never had lived alone nor had she ever moved across country before. She knew back then that she needed a new start. Her parents had divorced and started new families and she had married the wrong man in the middle of that, maybe to prove to them that marriage worked.

Instead, she had learned that marriage was hard, and she and Del did not love each other enough to weather the ups and downs. He liked to say he left first, but that wasn’t accurate. They left together, on the same day, walking down the sidewalk away from the townhouse that had felt so very sterile, the way that people walked down an aisle as they exited a church.

Reverse wedding march, she had called it, and Del had snuff-laughed, something she always liked about him.

She liked most things about him—still did—but she had never really loved him. They had remained friends, though, and he had been the first to call her when she had texted that Rochester died.

Rochester. Hard to believe he fit into the tiny cat-shaped urn Rolling Hills had given her.

Or hadn’t fit, as the embarrassed owner of Rolling Hills told her that very morning.

Because the cremains in the urn beside her did not belong to Rochester. They belonged to another cat named Rose Chester. The extremely stressed receptionist had misheard, and given Briella the pretty little gray bag without following procedure.

No doublecheck on the last name, no need to present identification. Just Briella’s signature on a fancy little document, and then the receptionist had gone into the back and returned with the gray bag, that Briella had somehow known from the beginning did not belong to Rochester.

But she had assumed she had felt that way because Rochester was gone. He had struggled so hard at the end—a bony pile of long black fur which was steadily getting coarser due to illness, pretending that everything was all right, until he couldn’t anymore.

Even then, on that last morning, he had gotten up off his special catbed (which Briella had moved to the end of the couch during those final two weeks so that he could always be with her) to greet the home-care vet who was going to put him out of his misery.

He had toppled over on his way to her, and Briella had to pick him up, cradling him as she talked to the vet. It was obvious to all three of them that Rochester had used up all of his nine lives and then some.

Briella’s two Siamese —Brooklyn and Bronx—watched from their favorite hiding place under the stairs. They were a bonded pair that had met at the animal shelter and taken to each other. They liked Rochester, but they had never loved him.

Not like she had.

She swiped at her left eye, because it was betraying her by filling with tears. Fortunately, she had turned on the wide side street that led to the memorial park.

The park was startlingly big, partly because it was almost as old as the city. The park was green, with actual rolling hills and large pine trees. There was a manmade pond in the center, with benches all around it. The benches had iron railings that were decorated with little cat and dog heads. The feet were, of course, clawed.

She had gone into the park three days after Rochester died and sat quietly, staring at the pond. That was the day Rolling Hills had called to let her know that his remains were ready. Or cremains, as they insisted on calling them.

She had gathered herself enough to go inside the little white building, when a couple stormed out, still screaming at each other. She had hoped for peace, and had instead found turmoil.

Turmoil everywhere.

And the poor receptionist tried her best that day. She had been shaking from the encounter, trying not to cry herself, and yet somehow remaining professional. She had even—with empathy—told Briella that she was ever so sorry for her loss.

Briella had believed her. But Briella had never believed that the little urn held her heart-cat. And she had told herself that the reason was because she had never received the cremains of a cat before, even though she had cremated three others.

She just couldn’t bear to part with whatever was left of Rochester. And yet, it turned out, she had.

She pulled into the narrow parking lot in front of the white building. There was another, wider lot, for people who wanted to visit their pets in the cemetery. She had seen the little headstones, some with lifelike statues of a cat or a dog or, in one case, a rabbit, but she couldn’t imagine leaving Rochester there. That felt like abandoning him.

He had hated the outdoors so very much. He never wanted to leave the warmth and safety of indoors, not after she had rescued him.

Another car, a newish dark blue sedan, sat at the other side of the narrow parking lot. For a moment, Briella stared at the vehicle, trying to see if someone was inside. As emotionally fragile as she was at the moment, she didn’t really need to see another screaming fight outside of this building.

But the car appeared empty, and it was parked far away enough that it might have belonged to a staff member.

Briella sighed, and stepped out of her car into the spring sunshine. The sun wasn’t warm, but its thin light was comforting. She wiped at her eyes again, then reached back inside the car and removed the tasteful gray bag.

The braided handle was soft between her fingers, and the bag itself was thick and pleasant to the touch. It struck her that this was not the type of place that made obvious mistakes, particularly ones that would cause the pet parents even more grief.

The owner had to have been mortified.

Briella took a deep breath, and crossed the lot. Last time she had been here, two days ago, she hadn’t noted how clean the white exterior was or the beautiful calligraphy in the same gray as the bag which suggested the rolling hills of the business’s name.

She opened the door and stepped inside, then blinked at the sudden dimness. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust.

The entry was clean and wide, with a few seats along one wall. There were pamphlets on grief and a display of urns that looked like they had been taken from a museum.

A small door opened into a hallway Briella had never ventured down. If the tiny map on the corner of the desk was accurate, they included viewing rooms and places for families to mourn, just like a human mortuary had.

A man was standing near the reception desk, blocking Briella’s view of the receptionist. The man was wearing a shirt that stretched across his broad shoulders. His dark hair rested on the back of his collar a bit unevenly, suggesting that it needed a trim. He was taller than she was and looked strong, but nothing in his posture suggested that he was angry.

Briella hung back, so that she wouldn’t call attention to herself. At first, she thought there was going to be conversation, but there wasn’t: no one sat in the reception chair.

A woman that Briella hadn’t seen before came out of the back area, and said as she did, “Mr. Chester, if you’ll just wait in the back. It’ll take a minute—”

“Mr. Chester?” Briella blurted before she could stop herself. “You’re Rose’s…”

She let the name dangle, because she wasn’t sure what to call him. Some people objected to owner. Others thought pet parent too precious by half.

The man turned. He had a strong face, with flat cheekbones and a square jaw. His skin was light brown and he had deep circles under his eyes.

He looked as sad as she felt.

“Yes?” he asked.

She held up the bag. “I think this might be yours.”

“Let me.” The receptionist hurried over and took the bag. She was an older woman, wearing tan dress pants and a blue and tan patterned blouse that would hide any stain.

Briella recognized her voice. This was the woman who had called that morning.

“Let’s get you to the back room,” she said. “I need to confirm…”

And then she shook her head, as if somehow, she was editing the experience as she was having it.

“I’m so sorry about the confusion,” she said. “We don’t run our business like this. I don’t know what happened, but I can assure you, it won’t happen again.”

“I know what happened,” Briella said. “You had a couple in here that was having a screaming fight over their pet. I got the sense they were no longer together. It felt…”

She wasn’t sure how to finish that sentence either. The word she wanted was violent and it seemed like a violation of the peace in this place.

But the other two waited, until she finished her sentence.

“It was scary,” she said, deciding not to go with violent. “I saw them on the way out.”

Mr. Chester nodded, his gaze meeting Briella’s. He seemed to understand what she was saying.

“I was here when they arrived,” he said. “They were furious with each other. Your poor receptionist wouldn’t give either of them the cremains they asked for, because apparently, there’s some kind of legal battle…?”

“Oh,” the owner said. “I know who they are. And yes, there’s a legal battle. They’re not supposed to come here in person anymore. I didn’t realize…”

She closed her eyes, catching herself. Then she shook her head again, and opened her eyes, not looking any calmer.

“But that’s not an excuse,” she said. “We try to make your experience here as smooth as possible, and we failed that. When we call you, we set your loved ones in a different area, alphabetically, and we—”

“It’s all right,” Mr. Chester said. “Really. Everyone makes mistakes.”

“Yes, but this…” The owner’s voice broke. “We’ve never had this happen before.”

“And I’m sure it won’t happen again,” Briella said. “I used to do crisis management for businesses—” and she had hated every minute of it, which was why she quit. “—and we found that when a serious mistake happened, the business put new systems in place to make sure the mistake would never happen again.”

The woman nodded, then her expression changed, becoming just a bit hooded. Her professional look, most likely.

“For what it’s worth,” Briella said, “I never even opened the bag. Everything here is exactly as you gave it to me.”

“Me too.” Mr. Chester swept his hand—also square with long fingers—toward a bag on the table. “I wasn’t…I don’t know.” He smiled, but it was an uncomfortable smile. “I didn’t…um…I don’t know if I wasn’t ready to face the loss of Rose or…it just didn’t feel like her.”

“Yes,” the woman said, and it was clear from her tone that she had launched into her canned speech. “These are just reminders of loved ones.”

She leaned forward and took the bag that Mr. Chester had brought as well.

“If you would like,” she said, “there are family rooms in the back, if you want to wait in private. I know how hard this is.”

But something in the woman’s eyes said she didn’t know, that this was still new.

“We have markers on each urn to ensure that the right one goes to the right family. I just need to check our system, which is also in the back. I’ll take you back there, if you would like.”

“I don’t mind waiting here,” Briella said. She really didn’t want to see all of the workings of a pet mortuary. This experience had been tough enough without putting images in her head that might never go away.

“I’ll stay too,” Mr. Chester said, then looked at Briella. “If you don’t mind…?”

“I don’t mind,” she said.

“It might take fifteen minutes or so,” the woman said. “You might be more comfortable.”

“Take your time,” Mr. Chester said, and somehow managed not to sound like a man who wanted to add and get it right.

The woman nodded, then disappeared through that door clutching both bags.

Briella had a hunch the woman would check and double-check and go through each system as carefully as possible, before she brought the bags back out.

Mr. Chester moved to the display of urns, hands clasped behind his back. Briella sat in the chair closest to the window. The chair was on the same wall as the door that the woman had gone through. Briella did not want to watch the door, as if she were in a hurry.

She really wasn’t. She worked at home now, in the quiet, and could adjust her day if she needed to. She had promised herself that she would take it easy after Rochester died, and not put pressure on anything.

After a moment, Mr. Chester sat in a chair across from her. The entry wasn’t that big, so they weren’t sitting far from each other.

He looked over at the reception desk, with its empty chair. “You don’t think the receptionist got fired, do you?”

“I hope not,” Briella said. “Everyone’s allowed one mistake.”

He smiled. This time the smile was soft, and suited his face. “Let’s hope this doesn’t get counted as two mistakes.”

Briella nodded. “I’m Briella,” she said. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“And yours,” he said. “I’m Marcus, by the way.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” she said, and then realized what she had said. “Despite the circumstances.”

His smile faded just a bit. “I left work to come here. No one there seemed to understand why I thought it was important to bring the bag back. They thought it could wait.”

“Yeah,” Briella said. “I kept thinking about someone else, wanting their pet, and not getting even the right…what do they call it?”

“Cremains,” he said in a tone that suggested he didn’t like the word.

“So I came right away too,” she said.

“Good thing,” he said. “Then we don’t need to make a third trip here, not that this is a bad place.”

“Exactly,” she said. “When the mobile vet told me about it, I was picturing, you know, horror movie crematoriums.”

With smoke coming out of the roof and a dirty trailer park front office, a man smoking a cigarette who took the body and tossed it on a pile.

She didn’t say any of that, but maybe she didn’t have to, because Mr. Chester—Marcus—smiled.

“Me too.” He leaned forward just a bit. “What was your cat’s name?” Then he caught himself. “Cat, right?”

“Cat,” she said. “His name was Rochester.”

“Rochester,” Marcus said. “Rose Chester.” He nodded. “I can see that.”

“Me, too,” she said.

“Why Rochester?” he asked. “The name?”

“That’s where I was living,” she said, “when he showed up. In New York, not Minnesota. All my cats have New York names now.”

“All?” Marcus asked. “You have other cats.”

“Two,” she said. “They’re bonded pair. Bronx and Brooklyn. I’m not sure they care that Rochester is gone.”

He rubbed a hand on his knees, a bit nervously. “Rose didn’t like other cats. Just me.” He shrugged. “I suspect she would consider it a betrayal if I got a cat, even though she’s gone.”

“Or maybe she would want you to be happy,” Briella sa.

“Naw,” he said. “She really wanted me to herself.” He chuckled, lost in a memory. Then he sighed. “The place is quiet without her.”

“It’s not quiet at my place,” Briella said. “Those two play a lot. But Rochester followed me everywhere. He was my shadow from the moment we met.”

“Sounds like he had a lot in common with Rose,” Marcus said.

“Was she jealous of you spending time with people?” Briella asked. She had heard about cats like that.

“She hated my last girlfriend,” Marcus said. “Turns out, Rose was right.”

Briella nodded. “Yeah, Rochester had a radar about anyone I brought home as well. I’ll miss that. The two Bs don’t have that kind of radar.”

The woman came out of the back with two bags. They were two different shades of gray. One was slightly darker than the other. She set them on the desk.

“I was as careful as I could be,” she said. “I put everything in new bags. Yours is the darker bag, Mr. Chester, but if you would like, you can go through it and make sure.”

Marcus stood, and walked over to the bags. He picked up the tag on the side. Then looked inside. “It appears to be in order,” he said.

“And Ms Wilder, if you want to look at yours,” the woman said.

Briella stood. She didn’t have to look. She knew, somehow, that bag belonged to Rochester, just as surely as she knew that the previous one hadn’t.

Still, she looked at the tag and then peered inside at the pamphlets, the framed paw print, and the tiny little urn with a cat face along the top that looked nothing at all like Rochester.

“Would it make you feel better if we checked the numbers?” she asked the woman.

“No, no,” she said. “I had my assistant help me. Not the receptionist you saw, but the one…”

She mercifully let that sentence trail off. Briella didn’t want to know what all of the jobs were in this building.

“I don’t need to double-check,” Briella said, and knew better than to ask Marcus if he did. She didn’t want to put pressure on him.

“This is Rose,” he said and hefted the little bag as if it held the weight of a gigantic personality.

“All right,” the woman said. “Again, I’m so sorry for the mixup and if you need anything from us or the next time—”

“It’s fine,” Briella said, not wanting to hear the end of that sentence either. It was probably something like the next time you need our services which was not anything she wanted to think about. Not this week. “Thank you.”

“No, thank you,” the woman said. “I appreciate the understanding.”

“I’m glad you cleared it up,” Marcus said, and then he walked to the door. He pulled it open, letting the lovely spring sunshine inside. He held the door for Briella, and she walked through, stepping into the faint scent of roses. Only then did she realize some were blooming near the door.

Marcus followed her out. He looked at the other car in the lot, so obviously his. He was about to say something, but Briella spoke first.

“I, um…this might be odd, but would you and Rose like to get some coffee?”

He glanced at the bag as if he were checking with it. “We would love to,” he said. “But I suspect Rose will remain in the car. She was never the adventurous type.”

“Neither was Rochester,” Briella said. “We passed a coffee shop about a mile from here. If you want…”

“I’d love some,” Marcus said, “if you don’t mind me boring you with Rose stories.”

“Only if I can counter by convincing you how brilliant Rochester was,” Briella said.

He smiled. She was beginning to like how easy his smile was and how often he was willing to share it.

“I would love to hear about Rochester,” he said. “I’ll follow you to the coffee shop, since I don’t remember seeing it.”

Something in that sentence let her know that he had been too upset to notice. Something else they shared.

“You just hit the main road and turn left,” she said. “I promise I won’t drive too fast.”

“All right,” he said, and headed to his car, carefully putting the bag with Rose into the front passenger side. When Briella saw him put the seatbelt over the bag, she knew that they had a lot more in common than the loss of a special pet.

She went to her car, and strapped Rochester in. Then she backed out, saw that Marcus was waiting, waved, and headed down the street.

She was most of the way to the main road when she realized that the tears no longer threatened. She had no idea what would come of coffee with Marcus, and she wasn’t sure that mattered, not in the long run.

But in the short run, it would be lovely to discuss Rochester with someone who understood the loss of a family member—and felt it, as deeply as she did, every single day.

 

For Cheepy

___________________________________________

“The Mix-up” is available for one week on this site. The ebook is also available on all retail stores, as well as here.

Copyright © 2025 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Published by WMG Publishing
Cover and Layout copyright © 2025 by WMG Publishing
Cover design by WMG Publishing
Cover art copyright © Canva

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

 

People often ask why Nancy and I moved to New York when we left the Appalachians. We could have settled pretty much anywhere, but we chose an area — the Hudson River Valley — that few think of as a retirement destination. The fact is, a main reason we came here was to be near my brother and sister-in-law, whom we adore.

Jim and me, birding in Arizona.

As it happens, this is my brother’s birthday week, and so I am afforded a wonderful opportunity to embarrass him.

James Coe — Jim to me; Jimmy when we were much younger — is just about my very favorite person in the world. He is older than I am. I won’t say by how much, but trust me, it’s A LOT!! When we were kids, I wanted to do everything he did, often to his dismay. He was my babysitter, my early-life mentor, occasionally my tormentor, but throughout all my years my best friend. He was the one who interested me (and our oldest brother, Bill) in birdwatching. He shaped my early musical tastes, introducing me to James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, the Beatles, Crosby Stills and Nash, Carole King, Simon and Garfunkel, not to mention the Monkees and Young Rascals. Later, as I got older, he was my guide to jazz. He saw to it that I discovered pizza. He risked parental sanction by lighting off firecrackers for my entertainment (and the satisfaction of his own pronounced pyromaniacal tendencies).

Jim is a remarkably talented artist — you can find samples of his work, as well as his very impressive biography, here — and all kidding aside, his courage in pursuing his own unconventional artistic career emboldened me to do something similar in pursuit of my passion for writing fantasy. In a sense, I owe my career to his example. His art is all over our walls, and for all of my adult life, the best gift I could receive for any birthday has been an original James Coe painting. Over the years, he has been incredibly generous in that regard.

He is a bold and creative chef, an accomplished baker whose from-scratch bread rivals Nancy’s (and that, my friends, is saying something). He is wise and caring, a wonderful Dad to his talented, beautiful children, Jonah and Rachel, a loving spouse to his spectacularly brilliant wife, Karen, and a marvelous uncle to our girls. He is, to this day, my favorite birding companion, my constant partner in silliness, my beloved big brother.

So, please wish Jim a happy birthday, and really do check out his website. He is annoyingly talented.

Love you, Coe.

Confession time, guys. I think I might have a drinking problem.

Really? No one could have guessed that. I’m surrounded by idiots.

There’s one above you.

And one below you.

We are legion. Also, why are you all upside down?

>the provisional release date is 4th November, 2025.
Let’s go!!!

In this episode, High Wizard Elron is upset with a trio of 100-year-old ghosts for not sending an email listing their five accomplishments of the week. They've also failed to haunt certain annoying members of Congress adequately.