**BOOK 1 IN THE TALES FROM DROMISSE SERIES**
Silvia considers herself the luckiest woman in all Dromisse. Her soon-to-be fiancé, Duncan Ora, is a candidate for Light Within, the greatest gift that the Almighty Gale can bestow upon someone. Then a ra...
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"If you bring him back with magic," Hazel says, surveying the charcoaled lump of William strewn across one of her grimy tables, "he'll be the same bitter old man who tried to kill you. It would take some hefty enchantments to alter him otherwise."
Duncan shifts his weight back and forth on his feet. His eyes flit to the dark walls of the lab, ricocheting everywhere but his father's burnt husk. It wasn't murder, it was self-defense—but then why did he enjoy it? —no, stop thinking like that! He reaches up and jams his fingers into his scar, the pain yanking him back into reality. "You said there were creatures that were collections of ideas."
"You want to make a muse of your father?" Hazel taps her dry lower lip. "I could probably do it." She rolls her neck and then sinks into a chair with three legs. "Why do you even want to undo this? This is the sort of chaos that will help you grow stronger. You might even be able to break out of this prison."
Duncan grinds his jagged teeth. "He's my Pa."
"No, not really." Hazel shrugs.
Duncan's lips fall open. His mouth moves, but no sound comes out for a few moments. "Ma would be heartbroken. I can't ..." He closes his eyes. "Please bring him back. However you can, bring him back."
"Fine." Hazel tosses her hands in the air. "It might be a few hours. And I'll need your input. I don't know what he was like well enough to recreate him."
Duncan nudges aside mechanical junk and settles on a nearby table. Nausea roils in his stomach, oozing up his esophagus like vile vinegar. "That's okay," he says. "I'll help you. I want to change him a little bit, anyway ..."
A few hours pass in relative silence. Something in the room whirrs electrically, but Duncan can't identify what it is. The sound makes his bones bubble with antsy lightning. He watches Hazel as she sits on the three-legged chair with her eyes closed, still as the dead.
Hazel's sunken eyes fly open. "Okay!" She thrusts herself out of her chair. "He should be back, now." She staggers forward and rifles through her icebox, snatching out a transparent sack that is bloated with richly scarlet liquid. Duncan watches as she attaches the bag to some kind of wiry coatrack. She jams a needle into her arm. A snaking tube runs from the bag to the needle, and it slowly floods with redness
Duncan tastes iron in the back of his mouth. "Are you—"
"Fine." Hazel lets out a barking laugh. "I'll have to say, I wasn't expecting concern from Rimis when I undertook this endeavor."
"I don't care what you think I am," Duncan says. "I ... I care about people. I do." Then why did he enjoy killing William? Why did he enjoy it, why?! That jitter, that spark, that pulse, and that BOOM! It felt so good to lose himself to the lightning, the storm, to let it out.
