My one-time roommate Claire had inherited the house from her uncle, and when she went off to bigger and better things, sheโd left it in my care. And it needed a lot of it. Most importantly, it needed a new roof. There was a worrying stain on the ceiling of my bedroom that had started out roughly the shape of Rhode Island, but now looked more like North Carolina. Another few more days of rain and it was going to be Texas. And then it wouldnโt be anything at all because the battered old shingles were going to cave in on my head.
Karen ChanceYou will die a worse death if you do not leave my domain,โ a voice thundered down from the third story of the old tenement. โI am a servant of the Sacred Fire, the wielder of the flame of Arnorโโ โSo I should call you Gandalf?
Karen ChanceHeโs a war mage. Theyโre almost impossible to kill.โ He scowled. โEven on purpose.
Karen ChanceYou are nothing like Christine!" he said, in my face. "She was a responsibility, a mistake I made when young and foolish, and from whom I came to believe I would never be free!" "Then what am I?" I challenged, staring up into blazing sapphire eyes. "A joy.
Karen ChanceIโm beginning to sense a theme,โ Mircea said, tossing his suit coat over a buckskin-covered chair. A moose head with huge, outspread antlers loomed over it, its bright glass eyes looking oddly lifelike in the low light. Mircea took in the room, his expression slightly repulsed yet fascinated. โI believe there is only one thing to say at this point.โ Whatโs that?โ Yee haw,โ he said gravely, and took me down like a rodeo calf.
Karen Chance