The Wardbreaker
4 primary works
Book 1
When you have an exceptional talent, you're gonna attract the wrong people.
First of all, I don't consider myself a thief. I'm a finder. I find things people have lost, things people have had stolen from them. The only problem is, some people don't appreciate the distinction; especially once I've broken past their protective wards and... stolen from them.
Enter, Asmodius. I may have stolen from him recently, and he may have found out it was me. When his henchmen catch up to me and bring me before him, he gives me a choice. I can face the consequences of having stolen from one of the most powerful magical families in New York City, or I can work for him. It turns out I have a gift he's pretty keen on exploiting, and as long as I play ball, I get to keep my head.
But there's another problem with that: this guy is a legit crime boss, and what he wants me to do for him is suicide at best. The worst part? He puts his infuriatingly attractive son on babysitting duty to make sure I'm keeping up my end of the deal.
Despite the arrogant, controlling shadow hanging over me, I have to put together a team to help me pull off the most dangerous heist in history.
Either way, I'm probably dead, so I may as well have a little fun while I'm at it.
Book 2
I have an exceptional talent, and it's going to get me killed.
Let's be honest, things haven't exactly gone well from me ever since I stole from Becket, the red-eyed Demonologist. You could almost say that single act of dumbassery started this whole mess. But even though I'm a mage, I can't exactly reverse the course of time, so here we are.
We're hiding.
Why? Because a big-time crime-boss is out there, waiting for us to make a mistake that'll let him clamp down on us like a hungry wolf on the leg of a wounded deer. Now, hiding sounds easy, right? You get to shack up somewhere with a fireplace, a couple of books, and a whole bunch of mage friends? Not quite. You see, we've kind of been forced to shack up with Becket, and he doesn't keep a horde of cats as pets like a normal person; he keeps demons, and it's creepy as hell.
But even if I could live with the demons, I can't sit on my hands and do nothing. The scroll we retrieved from the Magister's vault is fraying, and if I don't enter the Tempest and find my Guardian soon, it'll probably turn to dust and we can kiss any hopes of learning more about the drowned Queen's treasures goodbye. I have to get my act together and do this, because I'm the only one who can. The problem is, the Tempest isn't opening its doors for me, and I'm running out of time.
The weight of the world is on my shoulders, and I don't know if I can do this, but I have to try.
Book 3
I have a thousand year old scroll, but I can’t read it, and the answer lies in the muck.
I’m gonna level with you. The situation is less than ideal. We have the drowned Queen’s scroll, sure, but none of us can read it. Whoever wrote it enchanted the scroll to prevent just anyone from knowing what they’d written. That’s not exactly good for me.
I need to know what’s on it.
The only problem is, I can’t break the spell. None of us can. The only way to read the scroll is to secure a rare substance known as Aetherglass, and in order to do that, we have to ask Magister Eliphas for help. Remember Eliphas? The person I stole the scroll from in the first place? The only thing I have working for me is the Magister’s insatiable curiosity. He wants to know what’s written on the scroll just as badly as I do. Maybe that’s enough to secure his help, maybe it isn’t, but I have to try.
Meanwhile, none of us have heard from Asmodius—Axel’s crime-lord father—and that’s making us all nervous. We’re still shacked up with Becket and his demons, and as long as we’re under his care, we’re safe. But that can’t go on forever, and when tragedy strikes, the sands of time truly start falling. If we want the tool we need to read the scroll, we’re going to have to dive into a deep, dark place to get it.
A place where no one does anything for nothing. A place where no good deed goes unpunished. A place where virtue and decency go to die like wounded animals.
Book 4
The mad Queen's crown opened a door to a place I was never meant to go back to. Now I may never leave.
A couple of months ago I set foot in the Tempest for the first time. It should've been the last. My Guardian had closed the door to the realm of magic forever, but the Queen's took me back, and now everything's upside down. All I want to do is destroy the crown, but she won't let me.
The Queen is alive, or maybe she's dead - it's not totally clear. But she still exists, she's been imprisoned for thousands of years, and now she wants to get out.
Summoning the crown bound us together somehow, and I spend my every waking moment worried she's going to find a way to take my body before I can figure out how to destroy the crown. I know I don't want to ever wear it again, but I keep trying to. The worst part is, she's not the only one trying to get to me.
I'm fighting a war on two fronts, I'm running out of time, and I'm losing.