Free Spindle (Two Monarchies Sequence Book 1) by W.R. Gingell Page A

startled but not displeased. Poly felt rather than heard the constant stream of wonder and fascination running through his mind, and thought sourly that it was all right for Onepiece– he had magic. He had a good chance of avoiding anything Luck could throw at him.
    She was still darkly considering the unfairness of life when there was a silent kind of pop! inside the sigil circle, and Onepiece was no longer a puppy. Instead, a thin child of about five years old hung helplessly in the air, huge brown eyes gazing around him in horror and shock.
    He threw back his head and howled, pedalling clumsily with limbs that were unfamiliar and useless, and Poly reached for him without thinking, her antimagic hand snatching away the floating sigils and catching the dirty child before he could fall to the ground.
    Luck watched her with a detached kind of interest and said: “Huh. I didn’t expect that.”
    “Change him back,” said Poly quietly.
    Onepiece’s hands tried and failed to cling to her, the fingers weak from disuse and lack of practise, and she cuddled him closer, one arm supporting the scrawny backside and the other around a back that showed far too many ribs. His howl didn’t cease, but softened into a constant, keening whine that was further smothered in her neck, where Onepiece had buried his head.
    “He’s not a dog, Poly.”
    “I don’t care,” she said, in a voice like flint. Heat was building from her shoulder to her fingertips, and Poly found herself flexing the fingers of her antimagic arm. The spiral blazed around her arm, a white-hot heat that somehow managed not to burn her.
    She said to Luck again: “Change. Him. Back .”
    Luck took one step backwards, for once very much awake, his eyes watchful and green. There wasn’t a hint of magic to him, and Poly thought with a fizz of surprise that she had really startled him. The fizz caused the antimagic spiral to lose something of its heat, but she wasn’t sorry to see it go. She curled the arm back around Onepiece.
    Luck relaxed slightly, exuding magic cautiously, and Onepiece quivered in Poly’s arms, bare skin rippling into fur. When the change had finished, her armful was considerably lighter and Onepiece’s nose significantly wetter where it pressed against her neck.
    She said to Luck: “I need an apron. One big front pocket, please.”
    And when it was done, and Onepiece was sniffling quietly in the pocket, because Luck was still silent and now quite pale, she said: “Sorry.”

Chapter Five
    The next morning, Poly woke heavily, slowly, and unconvincingly. She yawned, fighting off the cobwebs of a dream that had seemed menacing at the time but was becoming more ridiculous the more awake she became. Onepiece was still curled up in her pocket, but when she stirred he poked his nose into the morning air and imparted the pleasing intelligence that he wanted to pee on a tree.
    Poly lifted him out of her pocket and sat up, passing a weary hand over her face. Luck was sitting at the other end of the shelter, his legs stretched out in front of him. His magic was still tangled in skeins of brown and gold, but although he was pale he also seemed quite cheerful.
    His eyes were on her, as if he’d been waiting for her to wake up, and when she sat up, he immediately said: “I need to look at that curse of yours again.”
    Poly resisted the urge to ask why, since she was certain he wouldn’t tell her anyway, and decided not to give Luck the chance to find her ‘difficult’ today. Accordingly, she heroically held her tongue on the subject of her growling stomach and didn’t make a fuss when Luck’s scrutiny of the curse consisted in cupping her face with his hands and peering intently into her eyes as he had done before. She did sigh faintly, but Luck didn’t seem to hear and after a while Poly got the impression that he was no longer quite there behind his eyes. It didn’t seem to be a very important point until it occurred to her to wonder: if Luck