Half Title

Title Page

Dedication

To Mom and Dad, for setting the course and making sure I never strayed far from the path

Part One

Chapter One

Henry Leach the Eighth held the wand between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand with a delicate touch. The Wandmaker’s Guidebook lay open beside him on his bed, propped against a pillow. The moon-and-stars pattern of his sheets framed the book, forming a natural extension of the page on which the constellations were illustrated.

He frowned as he focused, a pair of tiny thought lines bunched at the bridge of his nose. The book and bedsheet became one as his concentration intensified. It would work this time! He knew it would …

“Whatcha doin’, Henry?” Brianna’s shrill voice cut right through his concentration.

Henry yelped as he jumped off the bed, instinctively tightening his grip on the wand, afraid of dropping it.

“Get out, Brianna. This is my room.” He squeezed the words out in a hush. At eight years old, Brianna was like a loose tooth that would never quite fall out—attached by an invisible thread, useless for doing anything, yet refusing to go away.

“Try and make me.” She folded her arms across her chest. Henry looked down and imagined roots sprouting from her bare toes, embedding themselves in the carpet.

He relaxed his grip on the wand and gazed at it, wondering, What if it really is capable of doing amazing things? For all his practice, he’d seen no evidence that the wand was anything more than a fancy-looking stick, but maybe—just maybe—there was a little magic in it. All he needed was a little bit, and he could make her disappear.

“Let me see that,” Brianna demanded as she reached for the wand.

Contamination!

His guidebook had explained the consequences of letting the wand out of his possession. Contaminated wands did bad things. And while he wasn’t certain exactly what it took to contaminate a wand, he was pretty sure his sister could do it.

Henry quickly snatched the wand out of her reach and hid it behind his back.

“I’ll tell Mom you’re not sharing.” A devilish smirk teased the corners of her mouth.

If there was anything more annoying than the way she snuck up on him, it was her tattletale voice, always threatening him with some parental punishment for crimes he didn’t commit.

Henry wanted so much to believe there was magic in the world. What harm could it do to try?

The first full moon of spring hovered outside the window in a country-clear night sky. Henry focused on his wand and waved it over Brianna’s head.

“Brianna is a pain in the rear.

Make Brianna disappear!”

He finished with a flourish and snapped his wrist, hoping to give the spell extra power.

Nothing.

Well … not nothing.

Brianna’s smirk disappeared.

Her bottom lip puffed out.