Time’s Malady Book Three

By Odette C. Bell

Things are worse than desperate – they’re impossible.
Silver Fingers has sent a curse after them, and it isn’t even his worst. He’ll fight them to get to the island first, and even if luck prevails, and they reach the Grand Vault, death awaits.
It doesn’t matter if it glitters like gold – it will still come for them. Even if Lee has destiny on his side. His family might once have been kings, but by the end of this tale, he will have lost his greatest treasure – the very witch indentured to his side.
For nothing in life comes for free – and never treasure.
...
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 Three 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: 9798215242339

Book preview

Chapter 1

Shera

I moved because I couldn’t help but move. I threw myself forward because doing anything else felt like waiting around to watch Armageddon fall from the very skies. I’d always had a sense of purpose, though it had of course been beaten down by Silver Fingers. But I’d never had this… I couldn’t describe it. Every time I tried, I realized it was pointless. I’d waste my mind and breath. Mind and breath that ought to be turned toward protecting Lee instead.

If you had taken the poor but bedraggled me who’d tried to indenture Lee and shown her precisely what it would entail, she would’ve run a mile. Even if it meant running back into Silver Fingers’s hands. The connection I now had to Lee was completely uncontrollable. It was complete. That was the most important word to describe it by far. It wrapped everything around me, held me to the spot, and told me I had to do this, even if it cost me my life.

As I saw those 10 strikes of lightning lance toward me, I squeezed my eyes shut, but I didn’t move. Lee couldn’t move in time, either. He reached me and wrapped a hand around my shoulder, but he couldn’t hope to wrench me back. The lightning struck my chest.

It pushed me up into the air. I was thrown to the side, almost off the edge of the ship. But the lightning hadn’t finished yet. It pushed deeper into my chest, played around my arms, and went to reach its lethal grip toward my heart. But a funny thing happened when it did. Something came from my wrist, a warning if you will, and it rippled across the lightning’s attack. It was almost as if the shadow of my curse recognized it.

Before the lightning could rip me apart, its lethal dance suddenly abated. It disappeared into the ends of my already burnt fringe.

I flopped down against the railing, hurt by the blow but not killed by it. Meanwhile, Lee finally reached me. Grabbing me by the arm, he twisted me around. It was clear from the shock blasting across his features that he thought I’d be dead.

I wasn’t. Yet. But while the lightning creature now knew it couldn’t kill me – which likely meant it came from Silver Fingers and Silver Fingers had recognized me through it – the creature would not have the same compunctions around Lee. In fact, it would now turn its full attention to him to get him out of the way.

I heard, heard alright as the creature twisted. It gathered more strikes of lightning from the storm. Even with the number it currently had, it was devastatingly powerful. There was this terrible hum in the air, and if my fringe weren’t so very burnt, it would be playing up around my face like cracking whips.

I went to open my mouth, to warn Lee of what would happen, but I didn’t have the time.

The creature barreled into him. Even just one touch by its hands would surely rip Lee’s skin from him. It would stop his heart. It would short that perfect brain of his. And then I’d have nothing and no one, and the indenturing mark that now connected him to me would mourn for the rest of my life.

As the creature wrapped its hands around Lee and his eyes widened with the startled fear of someone who knew they were going to die, I screamed, No, and wrapped my arms around Lee’s head.

I pressed our chests together in the hope that if the lightning creature attempted to impale him, it would pause before it impaled me too.

It bought Lee just a few seconds. That was it. Then the creature brought around his parasol.

Such a strange little object.

I hadn’t inquired as to what it was, but now I understood Lee’s particular upbringing, I had to appreciate it was likely a national treasure. And why wouldn’t it be? It could change into virtually anything. I hadn’t had that conversation with Lee, but I’d felt the magic within the parasol. It always itched, waiting to get out, waiting to transform into whatever you saw fit.

How would magic like that work?

I had my answer. For this curse to interact with it, there must be a curse in the heart of the parasol, too.

This was a grand time to fight but a terrible time to make long-winded conclusions like that.

It robbed me of my energy when I needed it most.

The lightning strike grabbed my shoulder and forced me back. I fell down to my knees. My hair tumbled in front of my face.

My body was still aching from where I’d been thrown against the railing.

As for the railing, these deep, dark, dangerous crackles blasted across its surface. The boards shook. Some of them even shook free, then bounced out into the wild, warring ocean beyond.

The storm had whipped up into a frenzy. It looked as if somebody was trying to make a meringue.

The peaks of the sharp waves certainly didn’t stay still. But they were just as dangerous as solid shields as they smashed into Dead Man Jones’s vessel. And as for the pirate, oh, he was beleaguered. I’d only just met him, but I’d never seen him like this. His head drooped forward, only one eye was open, and his beard flopped uselessly over his shoulders like a mast that had been severed from the base.

Almost… lost. Seconds, he gurgled as if he was already sinking beneath the waves. Seconds to save me.

If I didn’t save Dead Man Jones, we would be dead. You already knew what would happen to my heart if I didn’t save Lee. So there was only one option.

I twisted and flung myself, not toward Lee, but toward the parasol. The cursed lightning was still holding onto it, and why wouldn’t it be? If I was correct, and there really was a curse in the heart of that umbrella, it would be like holding onto a snack.

At any time, if the cursed lightning needed more power, it could simply absorb it. Which would be criminal. That parasol was a connection to Lee’s past. It was the only way we were going to get out of here.

I had grasped hold of that parasol a number of times, and critically, it had formed a hat for my very head. I understood how it felt, thought I even knew how to call to it.

I didn’t have Lee’s particular hand, but that was irrelevant.

I had learned a thing or two about curses under Silver Fingers’s reign. Not all curses were the same. Some curses – okay, most curses – were in it to destroy, to consume, to do as much damage as they possibly could. They took their vile programming and bonded with it completely. But not all curses were like that. Just as not all things that hide in the shadows are bad.

One must have a critical mind when they encounter all magic, regardless of its origins, to find out precisely what it wants. And importantly, precisely what it is capable of.

If you find the right mellow curse cast by somebody who hadn’t really had their heart in it, you could use it, in many ways, like good magic.

Yes, you might have to feed it. But the curse wouldn’t want blood and guts and crushed-up bones.

You could feed it other smaller broken curses. No one would ever miss them.

Those facts didn’t matter. The fact the curses were good did.

And good curses, just like bad curses, want to go to the person who can make the most out of them – who can take them to where they really need to go.

By now I was most certain that the Regent had consumed the massive curse in the Governor’s basement. It would’ve chosen him because it would have sensed that he could take it to where it needed to go.

And I was telling you all of this, why?

Because right now, in the single second I had left, if I could confirm to the parasol curse that I could take it where it needed to go more than the lightning curse, it would come to me.

There was a large question there, wasn’t there? It was bound to Lee. It already had a unique connection to him. If he couldn’t call it back from the curse’s hand, what hope did I have?

I had the hope of a pirate slave who’d managed to escape against the odds. I had the hope of a witch who’d paid attention to every lesson on curses her master had inadvertently taught her. And I had the hope of a temporal practitioner who could take even the faintest spark and spread it out, making the most of it.

I lunged toward the parasol, not the cursed lightning and not Lee, even though his eyes told me this was it.

They locked on me with this sad certainty. I stared across at them. But I did not stop moving toward the parasol.

As for the parasol, the cursed lightning grasped hold of it harder, constantly sending little sparks down the umbrella’s handle and across the waxed fabric.

I imagined it was taming the curse within, especially considering it could sense its original master was about to die.

The taming would stop. The fight would start.

The lightning curse would not be able to fight both me and Lee at the same time. Or at least that was the idea.

I grabbed hold of the ornate brass capping on top of the umbrella. Then my fingers treacherously slipped off several times, and I grunted, yanking back with all of my might. In my heart, I focused my attention, grasped hold of my hope, and used it as a weapon.

Curses don’t care about words, not as much as they care about intention. They can sense the energy within somebody and certainly where it’s directed.

And I told it, without words, screaming as loud as one can when they don’t use their throat, that I would give it what it really needed.

Just when I thought everything was lost, I felt it move toward me. It was only a jolt. It meant that the cursed lightning had lost hold of it.

I was right. The curse couldn’t kill Lee and fight me at the same time. The curse’s gaze swiveled toward the umbrella.

It gave Lee, regardless of how tired he was, the chance to elbow it.

It was a well-timed move from a practitioner who knew multiple different spells. He currently cast water magic. Smart, because there was so much rain bucketing down from the clouds above, it was in ample supply.

There was a wet splash as his elbow impacted the cursed lightning’s stomach.

The curse let go of Lee.

Though the curse would be under strict instruction to kill Lee and capture me, the curse itself wanted the parasol. Yes, at some point Silver Fingers really would reassert his control over it. For now, I had a chance. Slim, barely there, the kind of chance that feels like a wisp of cloud you sight on the horizon only for it to disappear. It doesn’t stop it from existing. You just have to try harder and travel higher to see it.

Lee fell down to his knees with two wet clunks. His head flopped forward, and his shoulders caved. I thought he would soon black out.

But long before Lee could fall unconscious or worse, he took a brave step forward.

There was a crack of lightning overhead, but it was far too high up in the clouds for it to dart down and be reabsorbed by the curse. It just flashed, giving Lee all the illumination he needed to look fearsome indeed. His eyes finally opened. He sprang forward. Not at the curse, but at me.

Wrapping his arms around me, he clearly figured out what I was doing, and he intended to help. He didn’t speak, and he didn’t have to. Oh, he didn’t have to. All I required was his presence locking around me, his intentions clear. Lee—

Redirect everything you have into pulling the parasol back. I trust you, he added.

Trust? I hadn’t questioned that. I would never question that. From the second we’d become indentured, I’d known how Lee thought.

For a moment, I let that thought settle, possibly settle all the way down to my heart – then I twisted. I compressed my features, realized, in part, I was fighting Silver Fingers, and redoubled my efforts then tripled them. I pulled back with all my might. My shoulders shook, but so did Lee’s. Together, we could wrap ourselves around one another, forming walls of protection for one another, and pull.

Meanwhile, the storm went wild. Flashes of lightning darted through the clouds, only a few low enough that they could be redirected into the curse. The rest lit up the ship. And oh was the vessel in trouble.

More boards kept popping out of the railing and the deck. One pinged close by, struck my knee, and almost sent me hurtling over the side of the ship, but Lee doubled down on holding me. We only have moments— he began.

10 seconds, Dead Man Jones said, and the ship terrifyingly lurched. Not just the deck. No. It lurched down into the waves. For just a second we were below them.

I stared in horror. I could see the boards that had been thrown off the ship sinking through the water table. I even glimpsed some surprised fish.

But it didn’t last. Soon the ship shot up above the surface.

Five… Dead Man Jones spluttered. He was incapable of controlling his lips long enough for the rest of the sentence.

I could figure out what he wanted to warn us of. We had five seconds. Which meant four seconds now. Which meant three….

Before I could be pulled down under the waves of terror – and before I could be pulled under the real waves – Lee just shot me a look.

He’d always been regal, or at least arrogant. I suppose I’d never seen what was underneath.

He had this energy about him that said no matter what happened, he would have to fix it. You might not equate that with royalty, but there was the concept of noblesse obligé. That it wasn’t enough to be at the top. To be at the top, you had to have