Preview

Dedication

I dedicate this story to my niece Patricia Coppinger Eckeles with-out whose support I would have not persisted in writing my stories.

Foreword

This story is in what I call the Abrigal Silverlocks universe. I say universe not series as you only need to read one book before any other and that is the Chronicles of Abrigal Silverlocks. That is the first story I wrote and chronologically is the first. Sometime in the future I plan to write the story about her flight from San Francisco at the time of the 1906 earthquake and how she caught a ride in the private Pullman car of a man she thought might be Merlin, the Great and Ancient Wizard.

It is from that time that Abrigal learned the secret of living a long life. So the story would seem to be a natural one to tell. But this story is just one of many that are part and parcel of Abrigal's Universe.

Prologue

In a little known corner of Abrigail Silverlocks Universe she sits browsing through her fan mail. Unlike most authors, she could not put off reading her mail. Ever since she wrote her book and then used multiple spells, or geas to get it published she had been duty bound to protect the thousands if not millions of apprentices she had accidentally bound to her.

Thank the goddess that some of them worked for Homeland Security and were now helping her to locate and mentor the ones that were really learning. The biggest problem with the new apprentices was that most of them were children. But her big fear was that one of the new apprentices would slip through a crack somewhere.