Page 26 of Roadside Magic


  Night Shift

  Hunter’s Prayer

  Redemption Alley

  Flesh Circus

  Heaven’s Spite

  Angel Town

  Jill Kismet (omnibus)

  A ROMANCE OF ARQUITAINE NOVELS

  The Hedgewitch Queen

  The Bandit King

  AS LILI ST. CROW

  THE STRANGE ANGELS SERIES

  Strange Angels

  Betrayals

  Jealousy

  Defiance

  Reckoning

  PRAISE FOR THE WORKS OF LILITH SAINTCROW:

  Dante Valentine

  “She’s a brave, charismatic protagonist with a smart mouth and a suicidal streak. What’s not to love? Fans of Laurell K. Hamilton should warm to Saintcrow’s dark evocative debut.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Saintcrow’s amazing protagonist is gutsy, stubborn to a fault and vaguely suicidal, meaning there’s never a dull moment… This is the ultimate in urban fantasy!”

  —RT Book Reviews (Top Pick!)

  “Dark, gritty urban fantasy at its best.”

  —blogcritics.org

  Jill Kismet

  “Nonstop rough-and-tumble action combined with compelling characterization and a plot that twists and turns all over the place. Saintcrow . . . never fails to deliver excitement.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “Loaded with action and starring a kick-butt heroine who from the opening scene until the final climax is donkey-kicking seemingly every character in sight.”

  —Harriet Klausner

  “Lilith has again created a vibrant, strong female heroine who keeps you running behind her in a breathless charge against forces you just know you would never be able to walk away from completely unscathed.”

  —myfavouritebooks.blogspot.com

  “This mind-blowing series remains a must-read for all urban fantasy lovers.”

  —Bitten by Books

  Bannon & Clare

  “Saintcrow scores a hit with this terrific steampunk series that rockets through a Britain-that-wasn’t with magic and industrial mayhem with a firm nod to Holmes. Genius and a rocking good time.”

  —Patricia Briggs

  “Saintcrow melds a complex magic system with a subtle but effective steampunk society, adds fully fleshed and complicated characters, and delivers a clever and highly engaging mystery that kept me turning pages, fascinated to the very end.”

  —Laura Anne Gilman

  “Innovative world-building, powerful steampunk, master storyteller at her best. Don’t miss this one… She’s fabulous.”

  —Christine Feehan

  “Lilith Saintcrow spins a world of deadly magic, grand adventure, and fast-paced intrigue through the clattering streets of a maze-like mechanized Londonium. The Iron Wyrm Affair is a fantastic mix of action, steam, and mystery dredged in dark magic with a hint of romance. Loved it! Do not miss this wonderful addition to the steampunk genre.”

  —Devon Monk

  “Lilith Saintcrow’s foray into steampunk plunges the reader into a Victorian England rife with magic and menace, where clockwork horses pace the cobbled streets, dragons rule the ironworks, and it will take a sorceress’s discipline and a logician’s powers of deduction to unravel a bloody conspiracy.”

  —Jacqueline Carey

  GLOSSARY

  Barrow-wight: Fullblood Unseelie wights whose homes are long “barrows.” Gold loses its luster in their presence.

  Brughnies: House-sidhe; they delight in cooking and cleaning. A well-ordered kitchen is their joy.

  The Fatherless: Robin Goodfellow, also called Puck, the nominal leader of the free sidhe.

  Folk: Sidhe, or clan within the sidhe, or generally a group, race, or species.

  Ghilliedhu: “Birch-girl”; dryads of the birch clan, held to be great beauties.

  Grentooth: A jack-wight, often amphibious, with mossy teeth and a septic bite.

  Kelpie: A river sidhe, capable of appearing as a black horse and luring its victims to drowning.

  Kobolding: A crafty race of sidhe, often amassing great wealth, living underground. Related to goblins, distantly related to the dwarven clans.

  Quirpiece: A silver coin, used to hold a particular chantment.

  Realmaker: A sidhe whose chantments do not fade at dawn. Very rare.

  Seelie: Sidhe of Summer’s Court, or holding fealty to Summer.

  Selkie: A sealskin sidhe.

  Sidhe: The Fair Folk, the Little People, the Children of Danu.

  Sluagh: The ravening horde of the unforgiven dead.

  Tainted: Possessing mortal blood.

  Twisted: A sidhe altered and mutated, often by proximity to cold iron, unable to use sidhe chantments or glamour.

  Unseelie: Sidhe of Unwinter’s Court, or holding fealty to Unwinter.

  Wight: “Being,” or “creature”; used to refer to certain classes of sidhe.

  Woodwight: A wight whose home or form is a tree, whose blood is resinous.

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Welcome

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1: Vengeance

  Chapter 2: The Savoigh Limited

  Chapter 3: A Stranger’s Bed

  Chapter 4: Birth

  Chapter 5: A Very Thin Shield

  Chapter 6: A Goddamn Good Bit Of Luck

  Chapter 7: Bravado

  Chapter 8: Din R

  Chapter 9: Summerhome

  Chapter 10: A Small Kindness

  Chapter 11: Silent Luck

  Chapter 12: His Fill

  Chapter 13: A Lover’s Knot

  Chapter 14: Fair Robin

  Chapter 15: Changeling No More

  Chapter 16: Dirty Work

  Chapter 17: Plague

  Chapter 18: A New Animal

  Chapter 19: Well Dead Before

  Chapter 20: Carnivale

  Chapter 21: Bright Nail

  Chapter 22: How Craven

  Chapter 23: Healed, Not Forgotten

  Chapter 24: Dozy Intuition

  Chapter 25: A-Horse And A-Hound

  Chapter 26: A Memory Attached

  Chapter 27: The Gobelin

  Chapter 28: A Face To Match

  Chapter 29: Freely Given

  Chapter 30: Seek Any Cure

  Chapter 31: Bad Juju

  Chapter 32: Ask And Begone

  Chapter 33: Invited Guests

  Chapter 34: Believe No Man

  Chapter 35: Some Way Through

  Chapter 36: Be Welcome Here

  Chapter 37: God’s House

  Chapter 38: Little Dove

  Chapter 39: Findergast’s Mercy

  Chapter 40: Wondrous Turn

  Chapter 41: A Little Bird To Rescue

  Chapter 42: When You Are Mad

  Chapter 43: What I Have Wrought

  Chapter 44: Home To Visit

  Chapter 45: Hunger Forgotten

  Chapter 46: Scorn

  Chapter 47: How I Die

  Chapter 48: Nightmarish Goodwill

  Chapter 49: The Gallow Who Did It

  Chapter 50: Another Castaway

  Chapter 51: A Poked Anthill

  Chapter 52: Did Your Part

  Chapter 53: Two Problems

  Chapter 54: Then Leave

  Chapter 55: A Fair Price

  Chapter 56: The Same At Night

  Chapter 57: Any More Than I Hate Myself

  Chapter 58: A Body To Explain

  Chapter 59: A Service To Perform

  Acknowledgments

/>   Extras Meet the Author

  A Preview of Wasteland King

  A Preview of Blood Call

  By Lilith Saintcrow

  Praise for the works of Lilith Saintcrow

  Glossary

  Orbit Newsletter

  Copyright

  Copyright

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Copyright © 2016 by Lilith Saintcrow

  Excerpt from Wasteland King copyright © 2016 by Lilith Saintcrow

  Excerpt from Blood Call copyright © 2015 by Lilith Saintcrow

  Cover design by Lauren Panepinto

  Cover illustration by Dan Dos Santos

  Cover © 2016 Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permission[email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Orbit

  Hachette Book Group

  1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104

  orbitbooks.net

  orbitshortfiction.com

  First ebook edition: January 2016

  Orbit is an imprint of Hachette Book Group.

  The Orbit name and logo are trademarks of Little, Brown Book Group Limited.

  The Hachette Speakers Bureau provides a wide range of authors for speaking events. To find out more, go to www.hachettespeakersbureau.com or call (866) 376-6591.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  ISBN 978-0-316-27786-0

  E3

 


 

  Lilith Saintcrow, Roadside Magic

 


 

 
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