(Image was AI generated by Canva’s Magic Media app)

“Well?” said Lady Bright. “What did you find out?”

Her apprentice curtsied. “It was as we have heard, madam.”

Lady Bright raised her eyebrows, and Amberlina flushed and blinked. She began again, first straightening her back, folding her arms in front of her at her waist, and taking a deep breath.
“My lady,” she began. “On your instructions, I attended a gathering at which Mr. and Mrs. Ddraennan had been engaged to play. Their performance was magical, and I mean that in every sense. I could see the mage power cascading off their voices and off the sound of Mr. Ddraennan’s lap harp.”

“And is it true?” asked Lady Bright. “Are they a mage pair?”

“It is true, madam,” Amberlina replied. “They can charm the birds from the air, I swear it. Their music is the stuff of the old legends.”

“They were using it to enchant, then,” Lady Bright said.

It was a statement and not a question, but Amberlina answered anyway. “The music was a form of enchantment, my lady. It caught us up in its spell, and we could do nothing but listen. But they did not use it—well, at least last night when I watched, they did not use it to take any kind of improper action. It was merely, if you will, enchantment for entertainment.”

“Enchantment for entertainment.” Lady Bright was far too polite to snort, but Amberlina fancied that was the intent of her expression. “We have it on good authority that Mr. Draennan, at least, was a member of the Welsh resistance group, the Red Dragon. And his wife has sympathies.”

“Is his wife not a cousin of the dragon lord, my lady?”
“Yes, which is precisely why we cannot be confident in his belief that they can be trusted.”

“You think they will use their music to bring about revolution or French invasion or Welsh freedom?” asked Amberlina.

“I think we cannot be certain that they will not,” Lady Bright said. “However, I agree that the evidence so far appears to support the dragon lord.”

Lady Bright’s apprentices talked among themselves, and Amberlina knew she was only the latest to have been sent out to find out what the two bards were doing as they roamed through England in their caravan. All of the others had had the same experience as Amberlina: a pleasant afternoon or evening, listening to bards who could cause a song to come alive in every one of a listener’s senses, while not in any way being influenced to think one thing or another, to support one cause or another.

Lady Bright took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. “They seem to be innocent, Amberlina. That is what you’re thinking, is it not?”

“Yes, my lady.” There was no point in saying otherwise. Lady Bright would know if she lied or even gently shaded the truth.

“You may be right.”

The senior mage’s words were a surprise. Once she decided to investigate something, she seldom let it go until she was proven right.

Lady Bright showed her perspicacity when she chuckled. “You are thinking that I never give up until I’m shown to be right. However, in this instance, Amberlina, I have suspected all along that the Ddraennans are exactly what they claim: a mage pair dedicated to their music. Certainly, nobody I have sent has sensed anything else. We shall continue to keep an eye on them, but I do not believe that they will be a problem. With Napoleon on the rampage through Europe and building an invasion army to threaten England, we have many more urgent matters to consider. I shall not forget Mr. and Mrs. Ddraennan, but unless something happens to change my mind, I shall not spend further time on them.”

In a Regency world where magical gifts mean power and status, they struggle to find a place…

Persephone Thornton is in her cousin’s house to spy on him, for he is England’s dragon lord and her father died while on a mission for Wales. Sephie does not expect to actually like her Cousin Jasper and his wife Delia. Nor does she expect her Welsh contact, one of Jasper’s gardeners, to give her the secret to using her mage gift without it twisting into something undesirable.

Taliesin Ddraennen was raised by the Welsh resistance, and has been spying for them since he was sixteen. He has never before been partnered with a lady from the English aristocracy. Seeing past her thorny nature, Taz quickly comes to admire her resilience and intelligence.

When a spell to eavesdrop on the dragon lord’s meetings is discovered and blamed on Sephie, he refuses to leave her behind. Their escape leads them into England’s ancient forests and the arms of the fae, where they discover the true nature of their mage gifts, which have always twisted to give flawed results.

On their return to the outside world, their newfound connection will be immediately put to the test, when Taz is asked to choose between Sephie and Welsh freedom.

With war all around them and peace seemingly impossible, they must find the path that allows them to choose one another.