The Twelfth Enchantment

By K.L. Noone

Prequel to The Magician

Garrett Pell, Second Sorcerer of the Middle Lands, is just trying to build a school. Unfortunately, he’s also got missing mage-students, disobedient goats, and a Grand Sorcerer who likes to disappear. Not to mention the distracting presence of the attractive local prince, who keeps mysteriously turning up right when Garrett could use a hand.

Prince Alexandre de Berri knows perfectly well that he’s the youngest and least talented of his brothers. But his father, the king, wants to be on good terms with the magicians, and Alex is good at making friends -- so he’s been ordered to do exactly that. But what began as a royal command turns into very real feelings, and all Alex wants is to solve Garrett’s problems.

Alex’s father isn’t happy. Garrett’s school still needs help. And Alex and Garrett will need to make a choice. But, together, they just might be magic.

• Language: English
• Publisher: JMS Books LLC
• Release date: Jul 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9781685502126

K.L. Noone

K.L. Noone loves fantasy, romance, cats, far too sweet coffee, and happy endings! She is also the author of Port in a Storm and its upcoming sequel, available from Less Than Three Press, and numerous short romances with Ellora’s Cave and Circlet Press; her fantasy fiction has appeared in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Sword and Sorceress anthologies. With her Professor Hat on, she teaches college students about Shakespeare and superhero comics, and has published academic articles and essays on Neil Gaiman’s adaptations of Beowulf, Welsh mythology in modern fantasy, and Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels.

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The Twelfth Enchantment

By K.L. Noone

Published by JMS Books LLC

Visit jms-books.com for more information.

Copyright 2022 K.L. Noone

ISBN 9781685502126

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Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com

Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

All rights reserved.

WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review. This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It may contain sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which might be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published in the United States of America.

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For Patricia A. McKillip, for all the magic.

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The Twelfth Enchantment

By K.L. Noone

Chapter 1: Water and Ice

The goats of the Magicians’ School had eaten all the cabbage again. Two of the prospective students had, without explanation, vanished like dandelion-fluff with the spring breeze. And the ice-house refused to stay cold. Garrett Pell, Second Sorcerer of the Middle Lands, rubbed the spot between his eyes exhaustedly and pondered the desirability of a hermit’s life. In a cave. On a rock spire. Without a ladder.

You said to tell you, Jennet said, about the ice-house. Because we should eat the cheese. Can we eat the cheese? Short, golden-haired, pretty as an illustrated manuscript, she’d been selling dreams and charms and fortunes that came true more often than not, down in the Dark Quarter of Averene’s capital city, when the Grand Sorcerer had wandered distractedly by and swept her up into his wake.

Cheese, Garrett echoed. Yes. Fine. I’ll be right there. He had been attempting to catalog the nine scrolls Lorre had unceremoniously dumped on the table, histories of magical herb-lore which Garrett was fairly sure had been stolen from the Royal Library in Kiersk. One of them had a Library seal, which Garrett had pointed out. Lorre had said, shrugging, "Magic belongs with magicians, and they weren’t using these," and Garrett had opened his mouth to explain private property yet again, and had watched his Grand Sorcerer turn into a dragonfly before his eyes.

The breeze, with some sympathy, whirled through the arches of the open window. The window was open because it had no glass as yet, because Lorre had promised to do that and hadn’t.

Garrett exhaled, found a stone to anchor the scrolls—the would-be magicians’ library had many rocks, at least, left over from the raising—and in doing this accidentally knocked his pen off the table, and then swore silently and creatively for several seconds while picking it up. And then made sure that his expression was perfectly composed when he looked back up at his hovering apprentice. Is Quen around? Because if he’s not busy—

He’s clearing out the water, Jen supplied. Her fellow apprentice, one of the four who hadn’t vanished, had aquatic gifts, to a degree. Because the ice melted.

Why didn’t anyone tell me before it got this far—no, never mind. That wouldn’t help. How’re your dreams? Are you sleeping well enough? They emerged from the room that would be the library into the long shaded walk with old-fashioned columns, one of the bits of work the Grand Sorcerer had done himself when raising the half-finished School. Garrett, not for the first time, brushed a hand against the closest column, basked in the resonance of polished curving stone, the sun, the heaviness.

Better, Jen agreed. With your shields on top of mine. It’s helping.

Better isn’t perfect. I’ll see what else I can do. Glimpses of the future are confusing enough when they’re not tangled up with dream-logic. There might be something in one of the histories of wild magic.

It’s really almost all under control, Jen said, with an expression that suggested that she thought her Second Sorcerer should not add yet another apple to his metaphorical teetering apple-cart. Really.

Sunlight flickered