Hello, all. Unfortunately, the writing of book 2 continues to be much more difficult than the writing of book 1. I'm still hard at work, every day, writing, polishing, and editing, to bring it up to the quality and standard I've set for myself, but multiple rewrites and redrafts have continued to set me back. I'm feeling much, much more confident now than I have been in several months, and think I'm finally on the right track with it. But while I've gotten a fair amount done, it's nowhere near enough to start publishing the book.

To be exceptionally transparent, this entire process has sapped me emotionally and mentally, and I've lost a fair amount of confidence in my work that I'm only now starting to get back. Combined with a fair number of other anxieties and stressors, not the least of which moving across an ocean, and the result has been a significant slowing of my writing pace. If I started posting what I have now—especially since it all still needs a few more editing passes—I'd quickly outpace my own writing and end up having to take a hiatus. Since I'd rather not do that, I'm going to take a couple more months to get back into the swing of things, and to continue building up the backlog.

I won't be putting up a solid release date this time, but I will give you a rough estimate of June, maybe July. I know a lot of people are looking forward to book 2, and believe me, nobody wants me to be done more than me, but we're not quite there yet. Hopefully you'll find the wait worth it. ❤

However, I didn't want to leave you for another couple months with nothing to show for it. So while we wait, I've prepared a little preview for you. BIG DISCLAIMER: Everything you read here is subject to change, from the littlest typo to the largest plot beat. Maybe I'll have thrown this entire section out by the time I'm finally releasing the book, in fact, but for now... here's the first scene of the first chapter of Book 2 of Witch Hunt. Enjoy ❤

Focused on my current activity as I am, I almost don’t notice it.

Perhaps I should have been more alert. The air’s been getting colder, and the days shorter; a layer of frost has started to creep up the glass corners of the windows each morning. Hells, even a look at the calendar hanging to my right would have forewarned a warranted caution. Yet I nearly miss it.

It’s random chance that my eye flits from the antlered figure ahead of me, to the parlor window opposite us, as I’m hunched across our kitchen countertop. Though the cloud-dimmed daylight of noon doesn’t reach us, it still spills into the room, occluded by her horns. And there, through the window, falling from gray clouds opened wide to the earth below, a single snowflake glints once against the sun, dancing gently down on broken breeze. The first snowfall of winter.

It elicits a sigh of dejection.

Not from the snow itself, mind; in fact, it is a welcome sight. With it arrives my favorite time of the year, come to great Marble City streets and blanket the brick with muffling silence once more. Though most born-Marblans grow to despise the winter months, I’ve never shaken my love for the season. And not just for the snow—the shorter days are a blessing for my undead heart. And as one only recently learning to appreciate the little things—the lights, shining down the street for tonight’s festival, lift my spirits as well. The coming twelve day-holiday of Heimsfest, beginning midnight tonight with a grand celebration; it does little for me. But the lights, of both magical and electrical source, couched in paper lanterns and twinkling all the way through to the new year—gorgeous.

So no, this annoyance is not the result of winter grievance, nor is its source some foul memory or existential dread. No, it comes from a pettier place.

I’ve been proven wrong. Again.

Pulling away from the brush currently dusting our cheek, I sigh, “Gods damn it.”

Faylie gasps, then turns in her stool. She beholds the sight with a victorious pump of her fists. “No way!”

The first snowfall, on Rime’s Night. We both recognize what that means. I roll our eyes and start with a sardonic tone, “How are you even doing this?”

“Doing what?” Between her winter-rouged cheeks, her smile is eerily smug. She shrugs, innocently wiggling her shoulders. “I just happen to be good at predicting things. It’s not my fault you don’t believe me.”

She’s been making these over-confident predictions for weeks now. Some future event or likely happenstance that she insists will occur. It’s not always so mundane as the weather, either. I never did figure out how she knew that the mercenary they fought last week wore that helmet everywhere because he was cross-eyed. I’ve been loathe to admit that it’s anything more than random guessing, despite all evidence to the contrary.

We’ve even made it a wager a couple of times now. Which makes this latest correct prediction especially annoying, considering that I’m currently paying for one of those wagers at this very moment.

Across the countertop, various brushes, powders, creams, and bottles are laid out in a disjointed fashion, complete with kohl and various tubes of lipstick—a messy mise en place of makeover supplies. Faylie darts her hands back and forth over each and all, sporadically applying bits and pieces in what feels like random order. Some roll with momentum across the length of the counter, some are already on the floor. We’ll have to tidy up after we’re done, but I am, to quote, ‘not allowed to be a weenie about it’ until we’re done.

Of course, being made to look nice is hardly a penalty on its own. Though to be fair, if anyone was going to find having something nice done for her a punishment, it would be me. But this is only the first half of the deal.

I squirm in my seat, and say, “Can I not just pay you a dollar or something? We could just call it off.”

Faylie taps me on the forearm. “No moving!”, she spits, like she’s scolding a pet. “And no way! You said not to let you back out!”

With a harumph, I sit still again. I did say that, out of a foolish belief that this would be a good idea, somehow.

Perhaps I can still wriggle out of this. “Don’t you have enough on your schedule already?” I gesture around our flat, at the party trappings she’s already hung from half the building.

Paper streamers hang from the ceiling in rainbow colors, collections of helium-filled balloons stick up in bundles beside shelves and counters. A distressing amount of confetti and glitter wait in little boxes and cans to be spread into total anarchy across the living room. And a handful of string lights have been wrapped around the banister. The haphazard decorations are only half done, and I dread what she has planned for the rest; she had made distressing allusions to bringing this chaos downstairs to the apothecary. In fact, perhaps she already has—I was in the bath for quite a while.

Not that the occasion doesn’t demand the embellishment. The coming Festival isn’t the only thing we’re celebrating today, after all.

“That’s why we’ve gotta do it today! We’ve got your inspection thingy tomorrow, and we’re gonna be busy all week with solstice stuff after that!”, she says. Then she shunts herself from her seat, and steps into the living room. Sitting on an old dark oak console table is Alabastra’s record player, with a square base and a large brass tube like an unfurled flower. Faylie shifts the needle over the vinyl, and a slow and nostalgic piece of jazz starts to roll out of the phonograph like fog. “Now quit whining and dance with me?”

“Not happening.” The music is pleasant enough, but my feet do not turn that way.

She does a ridiculous little shimmy. “Are you sure?” At my unamused glare she continues, “Fine, fine. But you’re missing ou-out!” Her voice sings the last word. Then she does a spin, the sleeves of her wooly sweater buffeting with the motion.

Our jaw clenches, fighting against the laugh she always manages to get out of me in the end. In a self-distraction, I gesture to our unfinished face, drawing a circle in the air. “You forgot our eyes. And I am not letting you near me with a kohl pencil until you stop spinning.” Nobody is that good at multitasking.

Her momentum dies with a final wiggle. She sticks out her tongue. “So prissy…”

I scoff. ‘Prissy’. Ridiculous. I’m being maligned for the temerity to have standards and expectations.

But before I can protest, she puts a finger to my lips. “No peeking, Vampy.”

With the graceful hand of a card sharp, and the tender touch of a friend, Faylie draws lines over my eyelids. Her artist’s instinct crafts a painting of our drab and dull face, too often more like a flat stone than something pleasant or interesting. Of course, over the past month or so, I’d like to think I’ve learned a surprisingly decent amount; especially considering my mirror handicap. At the very least, I can do the very basics to make myself presentably feminine by my own hand. But Faylie is leagues better—easily the best in house between the four of us. Tegan doesn’t wear any at all, and Allie insists that all she needs is her eyeliner. And seeing as I’m only doing this in the middle of the day at Faylie’s behest, it was only right she put in the work.

I’m certainly not complaining about the final product, at least.

Faylie finishes with a touch of lipstick that coats a thick layer onto our lips. “Done!”

I open our eyes. The faun is looking up at us from the other side of the counter, a surreal amount of stars in her eyes. A smile tugs the corner of her mouth, and she twirls a lock of her brown hair, tangling it in knots around her finger. She’s been wearing her hair up lately, in a messy bun with curls framing the outside of her round face. She’s not the only one—Alabastra’s been wearing hers down, treating us all to a free-flowing cascade of platinum blonde that gets absolutely everywhere. But unlike our blonde, whom always changes her hairstyle in this manner around the cold season, Faylie’s switch is less tradition. The faun is simply always reinventing her presentation—I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen her wear her hair the same way for more than a month or so, and same goes for her fashion sense. A wild and unruly decor from the throne of chaos she rules her life from.

She hasn’t stopped staring at us. “What?”

“You’re just really pretty”, she says.

A furious heat overtakes me. “You’re— you don’t need to—”

“It’s not flattery, Marlowe.” She leans in closer. The freckles on Faylie’s faun face so closely resemble that of a doe’s spots, and she has this way of carrying herself that makes her seem lighter than air. “You’re really pretty. And getting prettier every day!”

When I try to get words out, all the sputters out of my idiot mouth is a jumbled series of lamentations that vaguely translate to ‘thank you’.

This is a travesty.

Right. Our idiot mouth.

Fear grumbles in the back of our mind.

“Now go get changed!”, orders Faylie. “The new outfit—chop, chop!” She claps to accentuate.

Playing up my indignation, I drone, “You’re not in charge of me, you know.”

“Actually, I am!” And like she’s reciting from a book, Faylie sticks a correcting finger into the air, and her tone becomes surprisingly bureaucratic. “According to Faery Law section ‘Deals, Wishes, and Wagers’, coda 37-dash-three, the ‘Bet Principle’… due to unspecified antes, the loser of the wager must follow the whims of the winner of the wager to the winners satisfaction. Or in other words—you have to do whatever I say.”

My face drops. “That’s not funny.”

“Marlowe… didn’t anyone ever tell you not to make deals with a fae?”

Of course, she’s almost certainly joking. I couldn’t imagine Faylie of all people having Faery Law memorized, if such a thing even exists. Which, I have my doubts on. But her smile doesn’t give away a thing. With a roll of our eyes, I turn and enter my office.

My bed sits harshly jutted against the corner, squeezed next to my desk. Along the opposite wall, my dresser does the same to my office cabinets. It was perhaps a silver lining that I’ve collected very few personal effects over the years—fitting two rooms worth of belongings in it has already made this room feel cramped and overcrowded. It’s not helped by the fact that my wardrobe continues to expand at a rapid clip.

With haste, I strip myself of the scratchy and uncomfortable button-up and slacks I’ve been wearing. I’ve kept only a few of my old clothes, for the time being, to serve as my work uniform. Pretending to be one ‘O’ Bromley when facing customers is substantially more effort now that I know that that’s what I’m doing. It is not a pleasant arrangement, but it’s for safety reasons. And it’s not as if I’m the only one in the world who has to don a false mantle of civility from nine to five. My vocational persona just happens to be of a different gender.

But today, that norm is the very one we’re violating.

‘If Alabastra forgets, then you have to spend a work day as yourself.’ That was the bet, and these are the rules. Though Faylie was kind enough to give me an out if I wasn’t ready, I managed to talk myself into thinking that this would be good for me.

And by talk myself into it, I do mean literally. Fear was the deciding vote. I’m happy to oblige my other half, even if it means crossing over my own lines. I don’t quite understand her insistence on daring steps forward, but I suppose I’ve always been cautious like that.

Boring, more like.

Yes, thank you, Fear.

She can call me boring all it likes; she certainly doesn’t seem to mind my creature comforts. Especially my new ones.

I start to get dressed. With the winter comes a sensation I haven’t felt in a long time—cold air on my skin, and the resulting shivers. Undeath has long made me resistant to such sensations, but lately I just can’t seem to help it—the world is affecting me. In all senses of the phrase. I’m feeling again. It is a strange sensation; how much of the dulling of my personhood can even be attributed to vampirism? So far it seems masculinity was the greater curse. I did worry the first few weeks that the potion wouldn’t work on me the way it had for Alabastra; thankfully, they proved to be unfounded. My skin is softer. I smell different. My face is changing, and I swear my hair has never looked better.

It’s astounding, honestly; one little change in biochemistry, and I no longer feel like I’m at war with myself. I’m being reshaped from the inside out; jagged muscle and tissue of shale and dead brush, softening into something more tolerable. Not to say that I actively like myself, but now I think I can see a path there where I couldn’t before. I can’t believe it took me this long to get over myself. How could I have ever denied I wanted this?

Not to mention the best change of all. I was resistant to the need for a brassiere until the very last moment—and honestly, still, there’s really hardly anything to write home about, and likely won’t be for some time, if ever at all. But I acquiesced after an unfortunate incident with the banister a few days ago. And though it’s not much, it’s the necessity of it that feels best of all. The rules of being myself are rewritten daily.

I finish getting dressed, careful not to disturb Faylie’s hard work, and admonish myself for the foolish sentiment. An undead creature of the night, captivated by the prospect of possessing breasts. I’m becoming truly rather mawkish.

When I exit the room, Faylie’s still spinning around like a madwoman. I’m starting to worry she’ll knock something over. “How do I look?”, I ask, pulling her attention.

She turns, and huffs in delight. “Oh, Vampy…”, she says, cocking one hip out.

“I mean the spell, Faylie?”

“Fine…” She spins a card in her hand, and enchants, “NOVUS PERSONA.”

Her visage shifts into a vampire adorned in striking and intense makeup, ruby reds and darkest blacks contrasting against her pale white skin. She wears a homely little outfit, with a high-waisted brown corduroy skirt and matching bolero jacket, a ruffled white blouse, and big silk bow hanging from the neck. There are still plenty of critiques I could lobby—vestiges of a lingering doubt that won’t quite quit. But taken as a whole, I just see… me.

Faylie thankfully has learned to scale her illusions up, so I am standing eye-to-eye with myself. In lieu of a mirror, she still makes for a highly fidgety reflection, but at least she’s gotten better at following my various head turns and closer inspections.

“Thank you”, I say, and she drops the spell. “And my voice?”

“What’s wrong with your voice?”

I stare. “Faylie. I am not looking like this“—I point at our throat—”With a voice like this.”

She pouts, and gives the game away. “Ugh. That spell is hard. Why can’t you just do that thing Allie taught you to do?”

“Because I’m horrible at it. The spell, Faylie, or I’m calling it off.”

Faylie shirks under our tightening glare. “Oh, fine. You’re such a fusspot sometimes.” Around her hand spins a tarot card. Its face is familiar to me—a woman on a high seat, scepter in hand. The High Priestess raises from her seat in spectral emanation, and Faylie casts, “VOX EXTERIOUS.”

There’s a buzzing feeling at the base of my throat—the muscles pulled piano string taut. I stand up a little straighter and say, “Thank you.” And the voice that comes out is very different indeed from the paltry imitation of the last five minutes. It’s light, and rich, and it bites like winter cold, and sounds feminine without excess mirth or rhythm, and it’s mine. More my own voice than anything that’s ever departed my lips before. “Was that truly so difficult?”

“You try casting it then, smarty-pants!”

Our arms cross. I take on an audacious smirk. “Maybe I’ll learn how—just to show you how a professional would do it.”

My comment stops her in her tracks a moment. Then, with a massive grin, she coos, “This voice makes you so sassy!” Faylie turns, and talks back to the jazz with a swing in her step. “You sure you don’t wanna join me?”

“Not in your lifetime.” I say that, but I can feel Fear chewing on the idea. She doesn’t seem to want to take the reins for it, but she is a touch annoyed that I’m not acquiescing, either. She only seems to truly enjoy being at the forefront in high-stakes situations. Otherwise, it’s all still a little much for her. Too much light, too much sound. She’s not used to taking it all in at once, all of the time, unless there’s the sharp focus of adrenaline to ground her.

But if she wants to do things like dancing, she can’t have her cake and eat it too. Her grace in battle would translate nicely, I’d think; it’s not as if I’m suddenly going to get over my two left feet.

The faun sighs, “Guess you’ll just be missing out…” And she puts a dramatic hand to her forehead as she twirls, “Oh, so alone…”

“You’re ridiculous”, I tease. And though I don’t dare move my feet, I do let the music enchant my upper half, back and forth to the melody. I let the rhythm carry me to the kitchen, where I start to make us some coffee. And as the water boils, and I take the moment to clean up after my messier friend, I’m struck by my incredible luck.

It’s still unbelievable to me, that I get to just… have moments like these. I’m allowed to simply be a woman, with other women in my life that tolerate my presence. The thought just makes me giddy. I’m not particularly prone to letting such feelings show, mind. But the fact that I have them at all is its own blessing. I’m outright appreciative. It would have been unthinkable, only a few months ago, that I’d be enjoying my day, with my friend and living-mate Faylie Nevis, and that I would only barely be thinking about how I didn’t deserve it or that it would all be ruined soon.

Cease at once.

Right. Fear has been insistent that I quit the negative self-talk cold turkey. If not for my sake, then certainly for hers. She makes a strange sort of life coach, but two girls sharing one mind make do. It only seems fair—now that someone has to actually listen to my thoughts, it’s not exactly right to subject her to such constant misery.

I mean, truly, who would want to listen to that?

Though I cannot help the old doubts creeping in, especially as the hour of courage draws near. What if I’m found out; seen for what I want, rather than what I have? 

But that’s what Faylie’s here for. A gentle hand to guide my steps. And another behind her back, ready with a charm spell should anyone make a fuss—a regular who recognizes me, or a hateful sort who sees right through me. I have my friend by my side, and my other half to lean on. I am as prepared as I could be. For once, without reservation, I am going to have a good day, and nothing, nothing, is going to ruin this for me. 

CRASH 

There’s a loud clatter from somewhere downstairs.

Gods. Dammit.

Book 2 coming soon. The world is a scary place right now, so I hope, eventually, when I'm finally ready, to bring you a little light. Thank you for reading. ❤