Last Wish

Helen Harper

Contents ( 24)

LAST

WISH

BOOK FOUR OF THE HIGHLAND MAGIC SERIES

HELEN HARPER

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Other titles by Helen Harper

Chapter One

‘What do you get when you cross a goose with a mouse?’

I frowned. As much fun as cheesy jokes were, I was trying to concentrate. ‘This isn’t really the time, Bob.’

‘Ohhhh,’ he flounced. ‘So it’s alright for you to force your poor excuse for humour in our faces but when one of us tries to do it…’

A passing troll halted and glared at him. ‘Chieftain. If you wish the imp to be disposed of, then I would be more than happy to oblige.’

Bob gasped in outrage. ‘How dare you! You great lump! I’m a genie, not an imp.’

The troll’s gaze grew even more disparaging. ‘You all look the same to me.’

Flitting up to the troll’s face, Bob reached inside his tiny jacket pocket and drew out an even tinier glove. He reached out and slapped the troll across the nose with it. ‘I challenge you to a duel, sirrah.’

The troll swung his heavy head towards me. ‘Chieftain, shall I…?’

I rubbed my forehead. ‘No.’

He nodded once. ‘Very well.’

Bob and I watched him amble off, shuffling with a heavy gait towards the mansion. ‘Yeah! Run away like the coward you are!’ the little genie shouted.

‘Bob,’ I said tiredly, ‘give it a rest.’

‘S’not my fault,’ he mumbled.

I shook out my hair. Effectively trapped here within the Adair lands, we were all going stir crazy but it didn’t change the fact that there was still work to be done. I had to gain control over my magic; the fate of thousands of people across the Veil might depend upon it, not to mention everyone here behind the Adair borders.

I refocused on the patch of ground. I was getting there. Faint threads of power snaked through my veins and I felt rather light-headed. There was a hiss and the hard ground began to crack. Green shoots pushed their way upwards all along the largest fissure. Yahtzee.

‘You’ve still not answered me, you know,’ Bob said. ‘What do you get when you cross a goose with a mouse?’

I bit the inside of my cheek. Just a little bit more … beside my toe, a bud was already beginning to emerge.

‘A moose!’ Bob started to cackle, the sound penetrating my skull to the exclusion of anything else.

I exhaled loudly and straightened up. ‘I don’t get it.’

‘Duh!’ He spun up and twanged me between my eyebrows with his fingers. ‘Goose combined with mouse makes moose. It’s all about blending the letters.’

‘I understand that part,’ I said through gritted teeth. ‘But where’s the funny?’