Page 1 of Wizard of Most Wicked Ways

Chapter 1

June 13, 1851, Blaugdone Island, Rhode Island

Age was a peculiar concept for Owein Mansel.

He’d been born in 1624, and been spiritually conscious ever since, which technically made him 227 years old. However, the majority of that time had been spent embodied in a house on an island off the coast of Rhode Island, and houses were, by definition, not living. Of those 227 years, only sixteen had been spent as a human, so one might argue sixteen as his age. However, the body he now occupied—which had previously belonged to a boy named Oliver Whittock—was physically eighteen, as of five months ago. And so, when anyone asked after Owein’s age, he usually said that: eighteen. Though, truth be told, Owein generally avoided the conversation altogether, as he preferred keeping to that very same island that bore the house he’d once controlled, along with the handful of persons he considered family, only four of whom he was actually related to (by the blood of his first human body, not his second).

It was the second of these related persons who interrupted his reading ofFrankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheusby climbing over the jagged rocks off the southern coast with courage only a three-year-old could muster. Mabol Fernsby was three in every sense of the word, and would be turning four two weeks before Christmas. Though, asChristmas was still six and a half months away, Mabol had the tendency of insisting she was, specifically, threeand a half.

Owein glanced at the current page number before closing the book and resting it on his knee, patiently waiting for his nine-times-great-niece to pick her way over a boulder twice her size. She then, without fanfare, sat atop it, smoothed her skirt, and fluffed up her hair, unaware, or uncaring, that doing so only made it look more unkempt. Like father, like daughter. The waves of the sea rolled softly behind her, blue as her eyes.

Owein smiled. “And to what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I will tell you,” she said, her voice high and sweet. “But read first.”

Owein patted his book. “This is not the best novel for children.”

She waited, unblinking.

Sighing, Owein opened the book. “‘This trait of kindness moved me sensibly. I had been accustomed, during the night, to steal a part of their store for my own consumption, but when I found that in doing this—’”

“No,” Mabol said simply, and removed herself from the boulder, beginning to pick her way over stones and clover back to the house, which was only a distant square against the late spring flora of the island. Owein had settled closer to the Babineauxs’ home, which, from this vantage point, made a slightly larger square framed by wild willows.

“That’s it?” Owein asked.

“I came,” she grunted as she jumped over a stone, “to tell you you got a letter. Mrs. Beth brought it.”

Closing the book once more, Owein stood. Only one person ever mailed him letters with any sort of regularity; although William Blightree did reach out on occasion, he usually did so through telegraph. A little whistle of glee zinged through his chest. “And you didn’t bring it to me?”

Mabol, however, was too focused on her task to respond.

Shoving the book into the back of his waistband, Owein caught up to the child in two strides and grabbed her under her arms, eliciting a shriek of delight as he swung her up and set her on his shoulders, catching her scent of butter and gingerbread. She wrapped her arms around his head like a crown, ensuring his hair would be just as mussed as hers, not that it mattered. Owein’s hair already looked strange, which was one of the reasons his age often arose in conversations with others. After his soul had been moved into this body, the roots had grown in white, and white his hair had remained. Even his eyebrows and eyelashes were white. The same thing had happened when he’d worn the skin of a terrier, though only in patches. Likely, he thought, because the terrier’s spirit had shared that body with him, albeit dormantly. Nothing like the minute he’d spent sharing Merritt’s body, where it had felt like the flesh would burst apart from their mutual holding of it. He still dreamed of that pressure, that strangeness, from time to time. Owein wondered if the happenstance had created Merritt’s first white hairs or if he was simply getting old.

A whimbrel flew off as Owein came bounding down one of the well-worn paths on the island. Off to the north, a deer peered at him, watching with lifted ears and wide eyes, unmoving, determining only after he passed that he was not a threat. Whimbrel House grew in size, the late-spring sun glinting off the blue shingles of its roof, which made its yellow walls (he’d made them yellow some forty years ago, though experiencing color as a house was different than experiencing it with actual eyes) all the brighter. The railing on the porch had been newly painted white, the cherry door freshly polished. Chickens clucked from their coop off to the side of the house, and two quick yips from his dogs, Ash and Aster, announced their enthusiastic greeting of his return. The brother and sister terrier mixes—Owein had a fondness for the breed—rushed from the porch, bounding and panting. Ash sniffed his feet while Aster jumped on him, nose nearly colliding with Mabol’s right foot.

“Down!” she called, though the command went unheeded. “Down! Down!”

“They’re all right.” Owein squeezed her chubby calves. Nearly tripping over Aster’s backside, he let out a gruff bark, and both dogs retreated to the porch, suddenly more interested in each other than in him.

Owein was not notably tall, but he pulled Mabol off his shoulders before entering the house to prevent any chance thatshehad grown and thus might whack her head on the doorframe. She ran inside, through the lightly but tastefully decorated reception hall, and left into the green-trimmed living room. Owein listened for a moment, cocking his head when he did. As a dog, he’d been able to move his ears separately, and that keen, directional hearing was something he still missed. Regardless, his human hearing picked up the sound of footsteps, and he followed them through the rectangular dining room with its glass-faced hutch and the smaller, modest breakfast room to the kitchen with its dark hickory cabinets, where Beth had a large bowl on her hip and a whisk in her hand, seemingly unaware of the smudge of flour on her dark cheek.

“Letter for me?” Owein asked, only then wondering if Mabol had fibbed. It wouldn’t have been the first time she’d done so to get his attention, but given her distinct lack of interest in him upon entering the house, it was unlikely this time.

Beth glanced up. “Oh! Yes. I put it on your bed.”

A sudden clash of metal announced Baptiste, squatting in front of the oven. “It is still not hot enough! Why are you so cruel to me?” He smacked his hand against the exterior of the stove.

Beth set down her bowl. “Do you want me to fetch more wood?”

Sighing, Baptiste stood, towering over both of them. “No, wood will not do. I need ... what do you call it? Thewhooshwith the blacksmith?”

Beth smiled. “Bellows?”

“Bellows. I need bellows,thenI can do a propergratin dauphinois. This ... this will have nocaramélisation.” He pulled out a hot pan of thinly cut potatoes in cream and dropped it unceremoniously on thestove. He glanced at Beth again, then leaned over to wipe off the flour smudge with his thumb. The warmth in his eyes as he did so made Owein feel like an intruder, so he silently excused himself and wound back to the stairs, taking them two at a time up to his room.

He nearly ran into two children bustling by him, one who could barely walk and one who could barely run. The latter, Hattie Fernsby, giggled loudly as she went, her bottom half completely naked. She took after Hulda more than Mabol did, with her darker hair and hazel eyes. The former, Henri, was a perfect mix of bothhisparents: dark eyes, dark skin, dark hair. His recent mobility made it hard for the Babineauxs to stay on top of their tasks, which often led to him falling under Merritt’s easygoing care.

Beth and Baptiste had gotten married a year and a half ago, though only Owein had been able to attend the wedding. Hulda had just given birth to Hattie, making attendance difficult, as, thanks to ridiculous marriage laws in the United States, the Babineauxs had been forced to travel to Canada for a marriage license.

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