Time’s Malady Book Two

By Odette C. Bell

They might be indentured now, but that doesn’t make things easy. Just the opposite.
Now they must stop the Governor from being assassinated.
It might prove impossible, but every move, no matter how desperate, will pull them further into the heart of this fraught tale.
Long before they’re ready, they’re swept out to sea and thrust into a battle to find the greatest treasure trove the earth has ever seen. They must find it first. For if they find it last, every pirate in the seas will claim the curses within and lay the world to waste.
To have even the faintest chance, Shera and Lee will have to do the impossible – they’ll have to stop arguing long enough to take a single step forward together. If they can do that, they’ll be unstoppable, for time will be in their very hands.
...
Time’s Malady follows a pompous wizard and his rare witch as they’re thrust into a battle to find out each other’s secrets. If you love your historical fantasy with magic, heart, wit, and a smattering of romance, grab Time’s Malady Book Two today and soar free with an Odette C. Bell series.
Time’s Malady is the fifth Trapped by Your Side series. In this world, witches can be indentured by strong wizards - if the wizards are stupid enough to try. Witty, fun, and fast, they'll appeal to fans of light historical fantasy and cozy mysteries.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Odette C. Bell
• Release date: Apr 29, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224126606

Book preview

Chapter 1

Shera

Lee was turning out to be… I suppose I couldn’t make my conclusion prematurely now, could I? Lee was turning out to be everything. Did you not understand that statement? Neither did I, and I was the one who said it. He was irritating, arrogant, precise, intelligent, sometimes wild, very athletic, and… so many things I couldn’t list right now, because I was still in the fight for my life.

We had just survived one of the most fantastic curses I’d ever witnessed.

We still hadn’t reached the Governor. And Lord knows what waited for us beyond him.

I wanted to go back to Lee’s sweet little cottage, to the room he’d created for me, even if it wasn’t exactly to my liking. I wanted to root around in the meat safe, preferably after filling it with every single cured meat I could find, secure some cheese and a loaf of bread, and relax in front of the fire. And I wanted a cat, even though he didn’t have one, one that could curl up on my knee in that sweet drawing room.

I wanted so much, but currently I only had one thing. Lee’s firm grip. He squeezed it around my wrist, switching grips with my own. Apparently he didn’t want me to be in the lead.

Fortunately for us, the vault was kept in the deep basements of the palace, so far below the actual palace, no one would have felt nor heard our terrible fight.

But it also meant there was quite some distance to travel before we reached the palace and the Governor.

How do you think that Silver Fingers will do it? Lee demanded, eyes quick as he scanned the corridor.

We came to a junction. We could head to the left or the right. He paused. I thought he’d pull up his timepiece – it was a crutch for him. He muttered under his breath without reaching for it, then picked the right path.

I inclined my head to the left and smelt once. Are you certain? I feel like this is a more direct path.

It is a more direct path but a more dangerous one. It will bring us into the servants’ area. There are many, many people who work for the Governor. He is a particularly demanding man.

But if it’s the fastest route—

We have to get in and get out secretly.

So you can go back to working for the Regent? Do you intend to do so covertly? It might be quite dangerous.

I intend… to decide what to do whilst on the run. It’s not an intention, to be fair – but a fact. Now, tell me how Silver Fingers is likely to dispatch the Governor.

As I’ve already said, I began thoughtfully, though once upon a time, I’d despised thinking about anything like this. Once upon a time…? I caught myself having that thought. I’d been Silver Fingers’s slave only three days ago.

I shook my head and concentrated. Lee was waiting, and a man like Lee didn’t wait long.

As I’ve already said, I repeated, he will send multiple different kinds of assassins after the Governor. They will vie for the mission. And if one fails, the others will not.

What kinds? You already told me he has weather witches.

They will assist, but not from the palace. They are valuable. He keeps all his valuable things on his ship.

I imagine it is a cornucopia of magic and treasure, Lee muttered.

That sounds like something a pirate would say, I muttered back. Treasure first, people last.

I’m not quite sure what you’re accusing me of, Shera, but there are very few things in this world I treasure. He said that… he said that while securing his fingers around my wrist harder.

And I could not help but put those two facts together, connecting them in my mind as if they were natural accomplices, as if they could never be separated again.

You haven’t told me what kind of practitioners he’ll send yet, Lee insisted.

Trained magical assassins. They don’t have magical specialties per se. He keeps them generalized, believing that makes them better at their tasks. And I suppose it does. They’ll be able to practice earth magic, fire magic, even a little bit of soul magic, I insisted.

Which makes them very dangerous, considering the number of ghosts that the Regent has working throughout the city. I’m a fool, he began.

But you’re fortunately a fast fool who knows how to run.

He looked at me pointedly, one eyebrow flattening, the other ticking up half a centimeter. Either that is a rather ineffective attempt to lift my mood, or a veiled insult. Which is it?

I suppose it can be both. This is no time to remonstrate with oneself. Silver Fingers won’t just send general practitioners. He’ll send some of his best pirates. Some of them don’t even possess magic. He outfits them with curses instead. Cursed swords, cursed daggers, even cursed flintlocks. They are walking armories. And they know precisely how to use those curses, even if they cannot practice magic themselves.

They sound like dangerous men. Who else?

He might send one or two of his snipers. They are terrifying women. I shuddered. I had met his group of snipers personally. When he had a mission he did not want to fail, he would send the Whites, as he called them. Ice witches originally, he’d soon found their cold, calculating minds were best behind rifles, not water.

There was something about practicing ice magic that enabled them to become the perfect snipers.

Silver Fingers had been marrying machines with magic long before anyone else had. It wasn’t necessary to match power with power. It was better to match power with skill.

They are all women? His eyebrow darted down and arched even higher.

Why is that so surprising?

I suppose it’s not. But at least it will help me identify them. Is that all? Would he send anyone else?

My mouth opened. It closed. I shook my head.

Tell me, he demanded, always efficient with his words when he wanted something done.

For a moment there, I was going to suggest that he would send his second-in-command.

And why did you change your mind?

The man is too valuable. Silver Fingers won’t send him, even though this seems to be important, I said that with authority. My mind rejected the mere possibility.

That was until Lee made me accept it. You’re forgetting something, he whispered.

I’m really not.

I’m afraid you are. If there’s even a possibility that your master believes you are here, he’ll send this man, won’t he?

Oh dear, Lee had a terrible point.

I could feel my back seizing, every muscle in my legs turning to jelly at the same time. Fortunately Lee didn’t have any intention of letting me go, and he pulled me along until we found a set of gray, old stairs. Clearly no one came down to this level of the basement, not unless they had to, and certainly not to do something as perfunctory as cleaning. Dust covered everything. Old cobwebs, so full of entombed insects, clung to the edges of the carved stone balustrades.

I could have grabbed hold of one for balance – and I needed to, considering I was still coming to terms with the thought the second-in-command might be on his way. I wouldn’t touch the dirty stone. Lee wouldn’t let my fingers escape his grip, anyway.

We rose up the stairs quietly. When I went to speak, he pressed a finger against his lip hard. From now on, only speak when it’s necessary. I sense people ahead.

Indeed, he was right.

We climbed the cold stairs but didn’t rise above the last one.

There were more decorations up here.

There were old paintings on the walls, so large, most of them were taller than the tallest man I’d ever met.

They must depict governors from the past. Everyone was stiff-lipped and severe. They all had wild, possessive looks in their eyes. You had to be somewhat of a madman to put your hand up to control Landsown of all places. This had always been a cursed city. It was something to do with the bedrock.

I shouldn’t say something, should I? I had met that bedrock. I’d woken it up, and presumably it was now smashing its way through the vault, consuming every other curse it could find.

Lee pressed a finger against his lips, kept low, folded his tall frame against the top stairs, and waited.

We could hear people but couldn’t see them, and they certainly couldn’t see us. They darted to and fro between rooms further up the corridor. Strained voices soon filtered back to us. Why is the Governor insisting on eating outside on the balcony in a storm like this? It’s madness. Why not cancel the party?

Because it’s madness, and that’s what he is. Don’t try to find any sense in it. Just finish this as fast as possible before the lightning begins, someone said with a thick northern accent.

I heard the sound of old tables being dragged around.

I inched out of cover, lifting my head just a fraction. Lee let me, which meant it must be safe.

I saw a flash of scullery maids dragging a table in the opposite direction.

They didn’t glance my way once.

When they were gone, I was the first to rise to my feet.

Lee followed soon. His timepiece was out – it was always out – but now it was clenched in a cast-iron grip. The balcony would be a fabulous place to assassinate someone. These Whites, just what distance can they operate over?

Over a kilometer.

He looked at me wildly. Rifles do not have that kind of power and certainly not any accuracy over such a distance.

The Whites freeze their bullets, marry their magic to the pellets, and guide them.

He shuddered. Terrifying indeed. This… he trailed off.

It won’t be impossible, Lee. Where are we in relation to the ground floor? We must reach it, scale the side of the building, get to the balcony, and destroy it.

He paused, his lips half open, then squeezed them closed. That is a mad plan, somewhat madder than having dinner on a balcony during a lightning storm. If we scale the outside of the building, we will be spotted.

Not if we do it with our backs to the sea. The assassins will already be in the building. I imagine the Regent has found a way to let them in. This is our plan, I concluded.

I waited for Lee to argue. He didn’t. So indeed, this would be our plan.

I smiled slightly.

This will get us killed, he muttered noncommittally.

Hopefully not as quickly as the other plans, though. I referenced other plans, even though he’d never shared one.

We quickly raced along this corridor, reached another set of stairs, paused, rose up, and, when no one was around, finally arrived on the ground floor.

This was the trickiest part of the plan of all.

It was also the most fraught. Outside, I could hear the storm. The wind now raged. In between, it moaned and screamed. It made every noise a storm should not. It sounded more like a person, like some vengeful god had been twisted and spun into clouds, lightning, and rain.

A god would not be inhabiting the storm. But Silver Fingers weather witches most certainly would be.

I had a moment when my fear got the better of me. It was only a second – I would swear that fact to you. So how was it that Lee knew? How was it that he immediately swiveled his gaze over to me, his watchful stare checking on me from foot to head?

I’d never met a more perceptive yet imperceptive person at the same time. There were giant gaps in his ability to see the world. Then there was enormous precision in the rest of his sight that made up for them.

Do not worry. This will be over forthwith, he promised with a clenched fist around his timepiece.

There was the sound of scurrying footfall. Before my heart could leap into my throat, Lee opened his pocket watch, spun the second hand to the left with a quick twitch of his thumb, and strode toward an open door. There, within, was a paused scullery maid, her gray-white skirt halfway up around her knees, her leg tipped forward, mid-step.

Her face was pressed with the kind of consternation you would get if your master was quite as pompous and senile as the Governor.

Lee strode right past her.

He paused.

She had a key ring around her neck. He reached over.

Though this was not the time, my morality got the better of me. If you steal it from her, she will get in tremendous trouble.

Not as much trouble as if her master is murdered. And don’t worry, I have no intention of stealing it. He selected the most important-looking key, something carved from gold with brass filigree around the edges. He slid his fingers down it and momentarily pressed it against his clock face. I had no clue whatsoever what he was up to. And he had no intention whatsoever of telling me, even as I asked.

Once he was done, he swung to the left, reached the door, opened it, and ushered me outside. It led to a very small courtyard between sections of the palace.

I had glimpsed the palace from afar. It was a truly impressive building. It was built up along the coast, to the east of the docks. It would command a tremendous view of the bay and the ocean beyond. You would see every storm, but you would also bear their brunt.

If you want height, if you want a commanding view, you will get the wind, too. And as we walked out into this