Laura Gilman - Soul of Fire

Jan let her hand rest on the notebook, looked up at the unknown star formations that wheeled and shone over the Center, and nodded. She had seen too much to discount chance.

“So, what now?” she asked. “I’ve got no job, no home, no—” she started to say no friends, but that wasn’t true. That wasn’t true at all.

The Huntsman chuckled, as though hearing her thoughts.

You couldn’t undiscover. You could only keep discovering.

“I think I’d like to go home now,” she said.

“Back where it all started, are you?”

Jan scattered the rest of her muffin on the ground, watching the pigeons peck at it. She didn’t look up when AJ sat down on the bench next to her.

“You can’t go back. You can only go forward. Isn’t that right?”

It had been this bench, in the Green, where AJ and Martin had first broken the news to her, about Tyler being elf-napped, about supernaturals and preternaturals, about what it would take to get him home. Everything that had happened had started here.

“If I’d known then...” The lupin hesitated.

“You’d have done exactly the same.”

“Yeah. I would have.”

She wanted to hate him, blame him. Instead, she wiped her hands on her jeans and watched the pigeons.

A hand touched her shoulder, fingers cool, bringing just the hint of green water and brine to her nose. She reached up and let her fingers cover Martin’s, acknowledging him there without turning to look.

Her best friend was a homicidal serial killer who occasionally had another form, and her other best friend was...missing, presumed having an adventure.

“Tyler’s left,” she said. “Taken a job in California.”

“I’m sorry.”

She wanted to say that it was okay, but it wasn’t. There was a gaping hole inside her heart, worse even than the first time, when she’d thought he’d walked out on her, that he’d run off with another woman. Knowing that the man she loved, loved her but couldn’t be with her...that was an entirely different kind of pain. She wasn’t strong enough to wish him well, either.

“I’ll survive,” she said instead.

“Yes.” AJ was smiling, she thought, although she didn’t look sideways to check. “Yes, you will.”

* * * * *

“Do you believe in magic?

You will when Gilman’s done with you.”

—New York Times bestselling author Dana Stabenow

“Readers will love the Mythbusters -style fun of smart, sassy people solving mysteries through experimentation, failure and blowing stuff up.”

—Publishers Weekly (starred review) on Hard Magic

“Layers of mystery, science, politics, romance, and old-fashioned investigative work mixed with high-tech spellcraft.”

—Publishers Weekly (starred review) on Pack of Lies

“Innovative world building coupled with rich characterization continues to improve as we enter the third book of this series.”

—Smexy Books Romance Reviews on Tricks of the Trade

“Gilman spends a good deal of time exploring—and subverting —the trope of the fated-to-happen relationship.

Readers will find this to be an engaging and fast-paced read.”

—RT Book Reviews on Dragon Justice

“Gilman delivers an exciting, fast-paced, unpredictable story that never lets up until the very end. There’s just enough twists and turns to keep even a jaded reader guessing.”

—SF Site on Staying Dead