Hey all,
We’re just about a month out from the release of book two of Chaos & Order, Search for the Lost, and the return of Crispin & Leopold (Leo to his friends). So I thought I’d give you a little teaser with the first sketch fr the cover (above) and the first chapter (below). Enjoy!
Chapter One
A sharp banging at the door brought Crispin back to the present. Or rather, to the past, when Leo had been taken away from him by Juzir and Qyl.
They shared a look. Leo was clearly thinking the same thing.
Wordlessly, he gathered up his clothes and disappeared into the bathroom, snicking the lock closed.
We have a bathroom lock now? Crispin brushed away the thought. “Coming!”
He hoped Leo wasn’t in trouble again. After all, they’d fixed everything. There were no more flattened citizens aimlessly lying about. Well, except on Tarkon, where most of the wildlife and half of the people were naturally pretty flat. And they’d thrown a big party to smooth the waters with all their new friends, including the Mucklins, even though Molly the moth-woman had planned to feed Leo and Crispin to her children. But that was all in the past.
He opened the door, half expecting an angry mob. Instead it was his annoying older brother, Aspin, staring at him forlornly. “Hey, Elly….”
The old much-hated nickname—derived from his middle name, Eladrin—brought a rebuke to Crispin’s lips, but it died when he realized how dejected Aspin looked. “All clear!” he called over his shoulder. Crispin made way for Aspin to enter. “Come in. What’s wrong? Did something happen?”
Aspin nodded, looking as if he’d eaten a canary—or Minkis, Crispin’s pet squirrel.
“Who is it?” Leo had appeared, dressed formally for company—which for him meant flip-flops and a loose white T-shirt that he’d made a half-hearted attempt to tuck into his jeans. His hair, which usually stuck straight up, was slightly more tamed. “Oh, hey Aspin!”
Even though Aspin clearly despised him, Leo never held a grudge, one of the many things Crispin loved about him.
Aspin threw his arms around Crispin. “She’s gone, Elly. She’s gone.”
“Who?” But then it dawned on him: Aspin had only one her. And Aspin confirmed it with a single word. “Mother.”
Crispin stiffened. “Mother is dead?” Oh sordid heavens. I’m not ready to take over yet.
Aspin ended the embrace, returning to form. “No, you idiot. I said she was gone, not dead. Three days ago, and no one knows where she is or if she will come back. You have to help me find her.”
“Gone.” Crispin eased himself down onto their newest piece of furniture, the hideous old couch from Leo’s Earth apartment.
Leo stared at him, blinking, then sat on the cushion next to him. “She’s gone. So that means….”
Aspin sank down onto one knee. “Hail to Crispin Eladrin Moss’caladin, King of the High Holy Fae.”
Oh flack. If there’s one thing that Crispin was positively absolutely emphatically five-thousand-percent not ready for, it was to take his mother’s throne. He had no aspirations to power, and he certainly didn’t share his mother’s proclivities for seducing mortals. Well, maybe just the one.
A new thought lit up his mind. “Hey, why can’t you do it?” It makes perfect sense. Aspin is older, and he loves pomp and pageantry. And he was already a huge pain in the—
“No.” Aspin frowned, his pretty face partially ruined by the unhappy expression. “You know why. Mother chose you.” His grimace said he’d take the job in a second, if it was offered. But he knew as well as Crispin that the order of succession had already been laid down with the Grimm Council. And you didn’t cross the Grimms unless you had a flawless argument, very strong magic, and a foolproof escape plan, just in case.
Crispin had to concede that Aspin was right, even though it killed him a little inside—he could feel his spleen getting slightly wrinkly, his appendix edging toward a reckless explosion, and his lungs threatening to shrivel up and stop processing air entirely.
He closed his eyes, forcing himself to suck in and hold a deep breath for five seconds. Then he blinked and sighed. “All right then. Come sit down and tell us exactly what happened.”
Leo brightened. “I’ll grab us some tea and crumpets.”
Ever since Leo had discovered that crumpets were an actual thing, not just a made-up fairy-tale food—and that Agnes Turtlerump ran a gourmet crumpet café just three trees down from Crispin’s house, serving specialty crumpets with nightshade jam or hoofrig egg or some strange human food called Captain Crunch—he’d been crazy for them. He vanished into the kitchen, where an immediate clattering commenced.
Crispin led his brother over to the small, lumpy brown couch in the middle of the living area—Leo’s couch. Crispin hated the look of the alien thing, but he wanted to keep his new beau happy, so he’d said yes. Something he was already regretting. Maybe I can infect it with magical mice and then we’ll have to throw it out.
Aspin raised one perfectly manicured eyebrow at the sight of the great brown beast but said nothing. He took a seat with the grace of a dancer and the poise of… well… their mother.
I don’t hate him. I don’t hate him. I don’t hate him. Crispin sat next to him with perfectly fine form, managing all the grace of an office drone. Office manager, now. “Go on.”
Aspin deflated, his poise deserting him like ink squirting from a squid beetle on Othrox Prime. “When we got back to the Estate, everything seemed normal. For a while. Mother ranted and raved about the usual things… the staff taking abnormally long ear-cleaning breaks. All the mortal food spoiling because fewer and fewer mortal men have been coming through the veil to see her. That damnable mirror in her bedroom, which refuses to tell her anymore that she’s the fairest of them all—that honor seems to be going to some sweet young thing named White Sow, or something of the kind. It’s quite dreadful.” He shuddered. “But none of that was out of the ordinary. Mother can be a lot.”
Crispin let the corners of his mouth quirk up in a smile. Yes, she can. But coming from Aspin… he’d always been a mamma’s boy. “So when did you notice she was missing?”
Aspin squeezed the bridge of his nose between his finger and thumb, then twisted his hips, as if trying to find a comfortable position on the couch. “I wasn’t sure. Not at first. She didn’t come to breakfast three days ago, but that’s not unusual. Sometimes she lures in a new mortal and spends an excruciating amount of time with them in her bed. Until she tires of him at last.”
Crispin snorted. Lucky girl. “And then?”
“I went out on a quest.” He straightened up as he said it, his poise returning and his face taking on a noble cast.
“Quest?” This was the first Crispin had heard of his brother’s quest. “For what?”
Aspin squirmed. “Just a quest.”
“Well, you must have been questing for something.” As a member of the Office of the Lost, he knew a fair amount about questing. “What was it? A Holy Grail? A Sword of Power? The Only Ring That Really Matters?” He was enjoying, just a little too much, putting his brother on the spot.
Aspin threw up his hands. “All right, dammit, no. None of those things. I was out for a drink with my friends, all right? We grabbed a few tankards of ghost mead and chatted with the phantoms and that stitched-up guy at Shelley’s Monster Bar. Are you satisfied?” His nobility fled him once again, leaving him a moderately handsome mess.
“Crumpets!” Leo burst into the room carrying a huge silver tray, the one engraved with unicorns engaged in various sexual exploits—including putting horns where horns should never go, to Crispin’s way of thinking. At least, not without great care. Leo looked from Crispin to Aspin and back again. His cheerfulness was so bright it could blind you, and sometimes Crispin wished he would tone it down a bit. “What?” Leo asked. “Did I interrupt something?”
Crispin took the tray from him and set it on the low wooden coffee table, which growled in protest and flicked its tongue at them. He petted it, and it calmed down. “No, handsome. Nothing important.” He kissed Leo’s cheek, setting aside his annoyance, and turned back to Aspin, who was already devouring a crumpet topped with chocolate-covered ants. “So what happened when you returned from the, err, quest?” Was that a grateful look?
Aspin swallowed the last of his crumpet. “I asked around, but none of the staff had seen or heard from her in days. So I knocked on the door to her bower—did you know she had to have the whole thing redecorated after you splashed that horrid drink—”
“The one Mother prepared for Leo?” Crispin raised an eyebrow. “The one that could have killed him?”
Aspin waved it away as if it wasn’t of any consequence. “Yes, that one. Anyhow, she didn’t answer, so I barged in to make sure she was safe—”
It was Leo’s turn to snort.
Aspin turned to glare at him. “What?”
“It’s just…. Oh my god, you are such a mamma’s boy.”
Aspin rolled his eyes. “I love my mother. Is that a crime?”
Leo shook his head. “Not at all.” He patted Aspin’s knee. “Sorry. Go on. My mistake. Have another crumpet. The ones with the Oreos and cream are really good.”
Crispin would have asked what an Oreo was, but he was enjoying Aspin’s discomfort too much to interrupt the scene.
Aspin glared at Leo, then at Crispin, before going on. “In any case, I opened the doors, and her chambers were empty. All except for this one odd thing, sitting in the middle of her bed.” He pulled off the bag he’d slung over his shoulder and upended it onto the silver tray.
Both Leo and Crispin leaned forward to look.
“What is it?” Leo reached out for a touch.
Zzzzt.
“Owww.” He pulled back his hand as if he’d been burned.
It was… something. That much was clear. It existed.
It might have been fluffy. Or possibly sharp and jagged. It was black as night, or maybe white and gold, or perhaps black and blue.
He sniffed it. The thing definitely smelled like fresh-baked cookies. Or gasoline.
“I don’t know what it is. But it was the only thing out of place in the room. I think it’s a clue.” Aspin leaned forward and tickled under its… nose? Foot? Lateral fin?
It quivered and emitted a sound that was simultaneously like heavenly harp music and the ear-shattering clash of a thousand glasses breaking. Aspin blushed and ducked his head. “It seems to like it when I do that.”
Crispin stared at the Thing, but the more his brain tried to categorize it, the more it eluded his comprehension. “Thea will know.” He grabbed his portable assistant who, since meeting Leo, usually manifested herself in the shape of a human smart phone, and he pointed her at the thing. “Thea, what is that?”
“Give me a sec, boss. I was busy playing Houses and Humans with a dragon friend of mine…”
Subtext: leave me alone in my free time. Thea had become much more her own person since the Chaos cloud had infected her.
Crispin wasn’t sure he approved. But as long as she did her job…. “Sure. Whenever you’re ready.”
“Ready now boss. Let’s take a look-see… yikes! What in the four poky prongs of Forkton is that?” She vibrated in his hand, clearly disturbed.
“I was hoping you could tell us.” Thea was almost never stumped.
She whistled. “You’ve got yourself a Schrodinger’s Cat right there, boss. Now leave me be. I have a campaign to take the Kitchen to win.” Her screen went dark.
“Schrodinger’s Cat?” He’d never heard the expression. Crispin looked at Aspin, who shook his head.
Leo’s face brightened. “I know this one! It’s an old physics experiment or something. See, Schrodinger was this guy, and he had a cat in a box… only sometimes the cat was alive, and sometimes it was dead.”
“Is this another crazy morbid, human thing?” Aspin’s brow furrowed.
Crispin shared a rare look of understanding with his brother. “Probably.” To Leo, “Go on.”
“See, the idea was that something could be in two states at once. So this… Thing we have, it’s soft and sharp. Light and dark. Smells like Toll House cookies and Chevron.”
“Ah. That… kind of makes sense.” The Thing was an inherent contradiction.
“What is sense?” Minkis appeared before his eyes, hanging upside down on a vine that disappeared into the upper reaches of the treehouse. The squirrel spun around in a lazy circle, and when he spied Aspin, he made a mock hissing sound. “Nasty brother. Bad fae.”
“Welcome home, Mink.” Crispin rubbed the spot under Minkis’s chin that made the little rodent swoon. “This Thing down here.” He pointed at the Thing on the tray.
Minkis dropped unceremoniously onto the tray and took up one of the remaining crumpets, the one covered in rizzberry jam. He began to nibble at it and then leaned forward to sniff at the Thing. “Yes. Is strange Thing. Also, it like Leo crumpets.”
“What?” Crispin should be used to it, but Minkis wasn’t making sense.
Leo eyeballed the platter. “He’s right. The one with peanut butter lox is missing.”
The Thing rolled back and forth, opened a small aperture, and emitted what could only be described as a belch.
Minkis scooted backwards on his hind legs. “Rude Thing.” He finished his crumpet from a safe vantage point on Crispin’s lap.
“So what do we do?” Aspin’s shoulders drooped, and his mouth hung open.
Crispin had never seen his brother in such a bad way. He almost felt sorry for him. Almost. “We’ll go to the Oracle. It will know what to do.” That felt right.
Aspin and Leo looked doubtful.
“What? We always ask the Oracle when we need advice.” And the Oracle had brought him Leo, after all. Messy, loud-mouthed, burst-in Leo. Not that he regretted it for even a second.
“Isn’t the Oracle….” Aspin looked over at Leo.
“Squirrels?” Leo finished for him, glancing at Minkis. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. Huge thanks for bringing us together. But… squirrels?”
“Oracle knows all.” Minkis nodded, then reached for another crumpet.
“I mean, technically, Minkis is a little biased, don’t you think?” Leo picked up one of the last crumpets.
“Or he’s on the inside, so he knows.” Crispin nodded. It made perfect sense to him. “It’s settled.”
It baffled him that Leo wasn’t on his side in this. Even if, yes, it was a little strange that one of the most powerful prophesiers in the Connected Worlds was actually an unruly pack of bushy-tailed acorn-loving rodents. But when had they ever been wrong?
“If you say so. You are the King now.” This time Aspin seemed almost happy when he said it. As if he really meant better you than me.
Crispin felt all the blood leave his face. “Let me call in sick to the Office.” In truth, he did suddenly feel ill. He also hadn’t been looking forward to the added responsibility of being the boss, so if this delayed things a day or two, so much the better. He could afford to take a couple of days off. His solid organizational skills would have him back on top of his work in no time. I am the personification of order, after all.
And that’s when, with almost perfect comic timing, the Thing shimmered, blasted the room with a flash of light/slice of darkness, and Crispin suddenly found himself staring at himself through Leo’s eyes as a wave of Chaos washed over his soul.