magical guardians

Jenna, the main character of the Distant Horizon series, is somewhat notorious for eavesdropping when it comes to trying to gather information.

Today I’ve got a few excerpts of her doing just that… or trying to. 😉

In case you haven’t read Distant Horizon yet, here’s an example of what I mean. To catch you up on what’s happening, Jenna is standing outside of her grandfather’s office, listening in on a private conversation between him and the rebel’s mission leader, Jack.

There was a pause, and this time, Jack’s voice was quiet. “Next time, if there’s even the hint of danger, tell me. Or have Inese do whatever she does and give me a heads up.”

A bit of metal clanged behind me and I jumped, but the hallway was clear.

Must’ve been the vents.

“I do my best,” Pops said. “What about the kids? How’d they do on the field?”

“Well, Lance has a good hand with swords, and he’s exactly the type of guy we need right now, but he’s inexperienced and brash.”

Pops snorted. “You’re one to talk. What about Tim?”

“Besides being Community, he’s a good kid with a good heart, and he managed to hack the Camaraderie’s communications without them batting an eye. I didn’t get a chance to see his shooting skills, but if you want to get Crush on the ground again, Tim should be able to run navigation without a problem.”

Pops cleared his throat. “And my granddaughter?”

I pressed closer to the wall.

Jack grunted. “She needs Inese to teach her to gather intelligence without being caught.”

“What do you mean?”

“Given that she’s been listening for the past five minutes…”

Heat rushed to my cheeks as the door swung open. Jack smirked. “Come in, kid. Your ears must be burning.” I stared at him, mortified, but he waved me in and pulled the door shut behind us.

Pops stroked his beard, evaluating me. “How long have you been out there?”

“Since you were arguing about the reason you sent Gwen to Guatemala,” I said sheepishly.

Jack patted my shoulder. “See? What’d I tell ya? She has a knack for the sneaky spy stuff. All she needs now is some training.”

Pops fixed him with a glare and sipped at his coffee. “I’m guessing you have questions about the mission?”

“Actually—my parents.”

Pops motioned to a chair with his coffee mug, and I sat, twining my fingers around the pendant’s chain in my pocket. “I want them to know I’m alive, and what’s going on in the world. The beasties, the powers. Everything.”

Anyway, her tendency to try overhearing information she’s not supposed to know continues in Fractured Skies... though she hasn’t quite learned how not to get caught.

To fill you in on this excerpt, Jenna has just left the room where she has been eavesdropping on someone she’s not sure she trusts. She’s trying to gather information about the people she’s currently stuck with.

I stepped over Quin’s legs into the other room. He still stared at the wall, his expression blank. I bit my lip, and then slid down next to him. “Hey.”

“Done eavesdropping?”

I stared at him. He hadn’t moved an inch, save to speak. His hands were clasped over his knees, his chin tilted toward the glass window in the ceiling. His black hair was cropped less than half an inch from his ears, the most Community-oriented hairstyle I’d seen in a while, though he wasn’t Community. He had a rounded face, a smooth, beardless chin, and a lean form. His tunic hugged his chest but gave his arms space for movement.

“You heard me?” I wrapped my vines close. This guy could easily beat me in a fight. Hopefully Pops was right to trust him.

“Didn’t hear you,” he corrected me, still staring at the window. Aside from the reflection of that creepy blue light, there was nothing of interest outside. “You walked by, but once you went to the other room, they didn’t acknowledge your presence. I figured you were trying not to be seen.”

“Um…” I closed my mouth, not really sure what to say. “Does it… I mean—”

A small smile formed at the edge of his lips. “I’m not mad at you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“She’s your partner, so I didn’t know—”

He snorted, still staring at that confounded window. “She’s my sister, and I’m a mercenary. Mercenaries eavesdrop.”

“I’m not a mercenary,” I protested, vines quivering with annoyance. Months ago, they responded to my thoughts at a snail’s pace. Now they responded to all my thoughts.

“I didn’t say you were.”

I scowled. “You implied it.”

“No. I meant only that if I eavesdrop, I should not be angry when others eavesdrop.”

I blinked. Someone who worked for the Camaraderie who talked sense?

Once we get to Starless Night, however, Jenna has a whole new tool for eavesdropping… telepathy. Granted, she’s not always aware she’s using it (and she does have a pesky brain seed that keeps trying to take over and loves using it for her) but the more the seed influences her, the better she gets.

Here, in this excerpt from the beginning of Starless Night, she’s still not that great at using telepathy to read minds.

It doesn’t help that, perhaps, there’s more to the butler than he lets be known.

Though Lady Black droned on, her butler observed me with a cutting blue gaze. Uneasiness flitted through me.

Something about that butler…

My thoughts strained to reach his surface thoughts. Why did he make me so nervous? Tell me who you are…

I slammed into a steel wall of nothing.

You may call me Stuart, Miss Nickleson, he responded, his mental voice chillingly precise. I am Lady Black’s butler. And you will find that I am not so generous as the ambassadors regarding who I allow into my head. If you have a question, you need only ask. I am quite forthcoming on a good many topics.

I swallowed hard, ducking my head so I didn’t have to see him watching me. I’d done it again—tried reading someone’ s mind without thinking about how I didn’t want them reading mine.

And that’s it for Jenna sneaking around today and eavesdropping today!

Do you have any favorite characters with sneaky skills? 🙂

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Sneak around with Jenna in the Distant Horizon series!

Book Cover for Distant Horizon, with a gold title. A young woman faces a sterile white hallway with faces in the doors. She has vines around her arms.

Book cover for Fractured Skies with gold text. A young woman in a coat faces a wintery, pink-tinted forest. She has vines around her arms.

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Happy reading and writing!

In both the Glitch saga and Distant Horizon series, we see the mention of “time stones,” strange artifacts protected by a mythological guardian. While they’re only researched in Glitch, (and used as bait to lure the rebels into a trap), Jenna and the Coalition of Freedom, a ragtag team of rebels, are a bit more adventurous with these things in Distant Horizon. They have a hands-on experience with a time stone in the first book, and continue to deal with these stones in Fractured Skies.

Here’s a peek at their introduction to one of the guardians in Fractured Skies:

(SPOILER WARNING! – There are two characters present here who aren’t introduced until the beginning of Fractured Skies, so if you don’t want to know who is involved in this scene from later in the book, you may want to skip the quote block).

I grabbed the radio from my pocket. “Inese? Where are—”

A portal appeared in front of us with Inese, Dad, and Lance tumbling through. The portal closed and Inese—with the stone—skidded to a halt, staring at the statues. “Here, too?” Her eyes widened. She clutched the stone to the black body armor of her chest with one hand, her pistol in the other.

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“Lance,” Inese snapped, “portal to the car, now!”

“Sure thing.” Lance wiped perspiration from his forehead as another portal swirled in front
of us. “Let’s go before that mummy comes back.”

“Mummy?” Lily yipped. “The mummies are alive, too?”

“They’re not exactly living,” Lance muttered.

“They’re spirits,” Dad clarified, breathing hard. Dark purple rings colored the underside of his eyes. Inese disappeared through the portal. The rest of us followed them to the museum roof. Dust swirled around us, revealing the location of the car in faint, shifting sand. I yanked the edge of my turtleneck shirt over my nose. Inese slammed the driver’s door shut behind her and the car went visible. I hopped in. Lily dived in behind me and yanked the door shut. Outside, trees bent against the wind, leaves whipping across the roof as the sky turned a deep, rouge red. Dark yellow dust clouds rolled in the sky, crackling with electricity.

“Inese…” Dad pointed into the distance. “That’s not a statue.”

Bright, white light traced the outline of a giant lion with the face of a man. It stepped through the cityscape, purple lightning wrapping around it and flaring in bright streaks. Lily’s jaw dropped. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Lance shook his head. “After the mummies, nope. Not kidding.”

A deep, resounding voice pounded through my head, overriding my thoughts.

Return the stone.

I froze, my hands clenched on the edge of the seat. The voice of the guardian echoed in my head. A thick blanket of dark sand blasted the windows, obscuring the sphinx.

As seen here, one of the guardians has the appearance of a sphinx. Each one references a different mythology, and each one has a different set of powers: