Trick or Treat! News & a Special Treat for Gryphon fans!

"You're seriously making me wear this?"

Helloooo, all you dear ghosts and goblins, witches and wizards, monsters and assorted magical creatures! Halloween is here at last, along with a goody-bag full of news about various topics from the E.G. Foley world AND...a little something for YOU. How does your very first peek inside the pages of THE SORCERER'S ARMY sound? Woot!

​​Watch the vid to hear the latest bullet points & then scroll down to read about 5 pages out of the middle of the long, very long, long tome that is still bubbling away in our cauldron. It's a fun, fairly humorous passage and, don't worry, any spoilers have been REDACTED.

Much love!
Gael & Eric

A few pages taken from Part 4 ~ England, late 1870s.
Chapter 34:
Pumpkins v. Turnips

With the Dark Druids doing their best to take over the blasted world, the last thing he and his friends needed was to start squabbling amongst themselves. It was stupid.

Besides, there were jack-o-lanterns to carve.

And so, when Hallowe’en dawned the next day, Jake cast off all his tangled confusion to try and bring everyone back together, at least somewhat.

Aye, and he knew just the thing for it, too.

From the moment he looked out his bedchamber window, still buttoning on his striped tan waistcoat for the day, a roguish smile crooked his lips.

Finally, the sun had decided to break through the gloom. He could hardly believe it. It was the first time he’d seen it in days.

For now, a soft thready mist swirled over the palace grounds, but the eastern sky was pink and peach and gold, overhead, a pale delicate blue.

Perfect, Jake thought, his heart lifting. He could already tell the bright misty morning was going to develop into a gorgeous autumn day.

With building excitement, he finished getting dressed, pulled on his boots, and raced off to carry out his plan even before breakfast, beckoning Red after him. The roguish feeling grew as he swung astride his Gryphon.

“Let’s go, boy!”

After all, despite the heaviness of all the current crises, Jake hadn’t forgotten about the contest he’d devised between the English and the Yanks.

Pumpkins versus turnips!

He grinned as he told Red their destination and made up his mind that, today, he would simply enjoy being a kid mucking about with his mates in whatever time remained before the bloody apocalypse exploded. Why not?

Everyone knew Halloween was a day for mischief, even the Gryphon. Red let Jake talk him into flying back to that farmer’s pumpkin patch they’d spotted from the air coming back from the train tunnel.

Jake made him land in the apple orchard nearby, where he could hide among the trees.

Then, wearing a wicked grin from ear to ear, Jake sneaked off alone into the field and nicked eight plump, jolly pumpkins for himself and each of his friends: me, Dani, Archie, Izzy, Nixie, Maddox, and Brian.

He even stole one for Red, since animals liked to eat the things. Brian said pumpkins had a mess of seeds inside, so it made sense that the Gryphon’s eagle side would at least enjoy that. It could be his Halloween treat.

Red, of course, did not entirely approve of this thievery, but it was just a few pumpkins, and besides, pranks were as much to be expected as restless ghosts on Halloween. (Speaking of which, Constanzio was still miffed at him about the train.)

As an afterthought, upon remembering Aunt Ramona making him pay back the London shopkeepers he had stolen from long ago, Jake reached into his pocket and scattered a few gold coins atop the soil to pay for his contraband before he left. Maybe the farmer would think they had sprouted from a few magical seeds.

The only witness was the scarecrow.

In any case, Jake learned something new that morning: Flying on a Gryphon’s back while levitating a small squadron of pumpkins through the sky was no easy feat.

He hoped none of the local peasants saw him. They knew strange things happened in these parts, though most of Merlin Hall’s magic stayed hidden by the dome.

Seeing a boy pass by on a Gryphon with a formation of pumpkins flying beside him like geese might’ve sent a sane mumper over the edge.

Jake carefully shepherded his little flock of floating pumpkins through the canopy of trees as Red descended into the woods.

Then, using his telekinesis, he set them all down gently in the same pretty glade by the brook where he had drunk the firepower. Jake swung off Red’s back, gave his Gryphon a grateful pat, then ran to arrange the pumpkins for his friends.

Behind him, Red padded over to the stream and took a long gurgling drink.

Laughing under his breath, Jake placed all the pumpkins in a row for the carving contest, trying to match which of his friends ought to go with which pumpkin.

The tall ugly one was obviously for Maddox. The narrow, slightly crooked one with the over-tall stem had to be for Arch. It only needed a pair of glasses and it would be the perfect portrait of the boy genius, pumpkin-wise.

Dani’s was the cute, round, roly-poly, very orange one, while the perfect looking gourd had to be for Isabelle—only, she’d have to ignore the healed-over gash in the back of it and carve a smile into the smooth side.

As for the Yank, the largest pumpkin would be for him.

Ha! Jake thought mischievously. Let’s see what he can do with a proper pumpkin canvas. Even a brand-new Guardian ought to be good with a knife.

Grinning like a jack-o'-lantern himself, Jake rolled Brian’s pumpkin through the light weeds sprinkling the ground until the hefty gourd took its place at the end of the row.

This left a small, hard, dark orange pumpkin for Nixie. Jake picked it up and gave it a light rap with his knuckle; it sounded tough inside. Aye, that should suit her.

As he placed it on the ground beside Maddox’s, he wondered if he should inform his friends that he had chosen their pumpkins based on their personalities.

Probably not.

He thought it was funny but everyone was so tetchy these days, it was hard to tell how they’d take it. Besides, if it was a pumpkin-personality contest, the sad-looking gourd left to represent him was nothing to brag about.

It was a very ordinary, boring-looking sort that would have blended into the pumpkin patch and probably been chosen by no one. Smudges of dried mud dirtied its pimply orange surface. It had a few nicks and even a small gash where a crow must’ve pecked it.

When Jake placed it down next to Brian’s robust, prize-winning specimen, it looked even sadder. It tweaked his secret jealousy toward the Yank about Dani O’Dell and all the time he got to spend with her in classes and training drills.

Jake scoffed at himself as he straightened up, dusting off his hands after placing the pumpkins where he wanted them.

That’s just stupid, he told himself. Brian was a right proper chap and Jake (in his saner moments) could see with his own two eyes that the two were only friends.

Still, he thought—arching an eyebrow at his own startling inspiration—maybe there was something he could do this very day to make sure that Dani knew she could never choose anyone but him.

Not that he really thought deep down that she ever would.
But she mustn’t.

For if she did, he would be, in a word, devastated.

Jake knew, after all, that he wasn’t the perfect beau. He drove her up a wall with frequent regularity. He asked too much of her all the time, strained her patience with his moods and his occasional brushes with death, and sometimes, he took her for granted simply because she’d always been there and he knew she always would.

But the lass meant everything to him. Her steady affection was the one sure foundation under his feet in this mad, wobbling world. Especially now, after recent disasters.

Jake never said it out loud, but he...he…

His face blazed hot even thinking the word that unmentionable word. There was no one else even there to mock him, yet he’d managed to feel mortified all by himself. All I know is that if I ever lost her...

He shuddered and thrust the unthinkable thought away, turning to his thirsty Gryphon, who was still standing by the stream, looking very noble with his front paws perched on the large, flat rock at the edge of the water.

Jake saw Red’s hawkish stare tracking a large trout through the stream. “No, boy! We’re not done yet,” he called.

Red turned to him with a feathery scowl.

“First, turnips. Then breakfast.”

“Becaw?”

Jake smiled. “You’ll see.”

As Red hopped gracefully off the rock and prowled across the clearing toward him, Jake took a moment to glance around at the glade.

How different it looked compared to the last time he’d been here. It was much lovelier than he remembered from that perilous night he’d changed his fate by [REDACTED!].

The woods had been dark and slightly sinister that night, with only the moon playing over the black, whispering trees.

​But now, soft morning sunlight filtered into the glade, reawakening all the rich jewel colors that had drowned in the grayness of so many long dreary days in a row.

Finally, Autumn returned like a queen wearing her golden crown. Ruby, topaz, garnet, and amethyst. Jake’s stare traveled over the parti-colored leaves scattered all over the ground. Many still clung to the boughs arcing overhead. His gaze traveled on as though he’d never seen a forest before.

It was beautiful. Emerald moss sprawled like luxurious green velvet over the cool roughness of gray rounded rocks while the brook sang and murmured. The white-trunked birches had claimed the best spots beside the water, but mushrooms had sprouted up among the gnarled roots of an ancient oak tree with knobby brown bark.

It looked like the sort of tree where pixies should live. Indeed, the whole clearing looked magical.

In fact—Jake turned slowly, wonderstruck—this looked just like the romantic sort of place for a boy to kiss a girl for the first time.
If he had the nerve.

This time, he felt the blush start all the way down somewhere beneath the folds of his neckcloth and burn its way slowly up his face. His heart pounded, daftly.

But maybe it wasn’t the worst idea in the world.

There was a war coming, after all. He could die. (If he didn’t die of awkwardness first, merely attempting the notion.)

I don’t know…

Jake suddenly felt jumpy, nervous, eager, terrified all at once. Scandalized and slightly panicked.

He wasn’t sure he had the nerve.

If it went wrong...blimey. It could make things weird between them forevermore. And Lord forbid she take offense! Her five semi-criminal elder brothers would beat him into jelly. Not to mention the lass had a mean right hook of her own.

Probably not worth it, he decided, half relieved, half disgusted with his own cowardice. Then he fled the glade, hastily returning to his Gryphon and thoughts of carving jack-o-lanterns only.

This was a day for fun with his friends, that was all...

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HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Psst!
THE SORCERER'S ARMY Cover Reveal Coming Soon!