Page 1 of Heir of Uncertain Magic

Chapter 1

November 2, 1846, Blaugdone Island, Rhode Island

Merritt had just slipped back into a state of dozing when the voice of a mouse jolted him to alertness.Hide hide. Hide. Hide hide. Hide. Food? Food? Hunt. Hunt. Hide.

Groaning, he pushed the heels of his hands into his eyes. Every night.Every nightsince escaping Silas Hogwood’s lair this had happened. Like that damnable man had cursed him. Like visiting the magicked haunt had jolted the ability he’d only had a trickle of previously. Merritt had lived thirty-one years of his life sleepingjust fine, but the moment he formally met Silas Hogwood, the voices would not leave him be.

Andwhy was he so hot?

Merritt ripped off his shirt and chucked it across the room, sighing as coolness prickled his skin.

Hide hide hide.

Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiind.

“Not you again,” he croaked, scowling at the window. The gauzy curtains were drawn, but he could see the shadow of the red maple just outside, its boughs shifting gently in the breeze. That blasted tree pestered him more than anyone, Owein excluded.

He covered his ears, but of course, that didn’t help. Communion spells weren’t auditory—they went straight into his brain, and he hadn’tyet found a way to shut them out. It wasn’t a constant flow of plant and animal speech, thank the heavens, but it did increase at night. Perhaps because his guard was down. Or maybe everything on this blasted island was nocturnal.

Wiiiiiiiind,the tree whispered.

“Yes, I know.” Merritt whipped the blanket off, trudged to the window, and yanked back the curtains. The island was dark, save for the light of the moon and stars and the distant glow of a lighthouse. He couldn’t see much of anything, but he could hear all of it.

Streeeeetch,wheezed the grass.

Wiiiiiiiiiiiind,repeated the tree.

Coooooold,sang ... a cricket? He wasn’t sure on that one.

The voices spun and banged in his head, awakening a familiar headache that no tonic could dull. Merritt pressed his forehead to the cool glass of the window, trying to think about something else—his book, Hulda, the laundry, politics—but the voices pierced through, regardless.

For the love of heaven, shut up.

He pleaded. Prayed. He was so tired. Two and a half weeks of this, each night progressively worse than the last, and he was so, so tired. He banged his forehead against the glass. Once, twice, three times. Stopped counting and just banged, which worsened the headache, but if he could just shake the voicesloose, maybe he could get a few hours of rest tonight. Just a few hours—

Bang. Bang. Bang.

“Merritt?”

The mental voices quieted as an auditory one pricked his ears. He pulled back from the window to see Hulda in the doorway, holding a candle, wrapped in a robe for modesty. Had he been so loud as to rouse her?

“Again?” she asked, sounding tired herself.

Merritt rubbed his eyes.It won’t stop,he tried to say, but his voice didn’t come. Muteness was a side effect of communion. An infuriating side effect.

He turned back to the window and punched the glass, hard enough to hurt his knuckles but not enough to break it.

He screamed a string of silent obscenities at the window and everything beyond it.

“Oh dear.” Hulda pushed the door all the way open and stepped in. Paused when her candle illuminated him. “Oh dear.”

Merritt met her eyes, which were trained on his chest. He looked down.

Right. Where had he thrown that shirt?

He couldn’t apologize, so he just waved a hand and tromped to his bed, flinging the blankets aside, scouring until he found the thing hanging off his trunk. He shrugged it back on. Snatched a notebook off his bedside table and perched on the trunk, writing with a pencil. Hulda came closer to better see.

I guess we’re even now.

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