A week to go: ‘Isla’s Oath’ teaser

Isla’s Oath comes out in a week. A WEEK! I have no idea where the time went, but that kinda snuck up on me! To celebrate (and to hide my panic), I decided to share a teaser. Because everyone loves to be teased, don’t they?

If you’re interested in preordering, here are some handy links…

Amazon US | Amazon UK | Amazon Australia | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | iBooks

Excerpt from Chapter Six

“I’m so sorry, Dad! I overslept.”

He glanced at his watch. “It’s almost eleven. It’s not like you to sleep so late.”

“I know, I know. Late night.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Dominic?” Although his tone was neutral, anxiety clashed in his aura, too bright for first thing in the morning.

Wincing, I glanced around, wondering where my aunt was. “No. Other stuff.” This keeping secrets thing was hard work. “I’ll tell you later. Do you mind waiting while I get ready?”

“Not at all. Your cousin’s out in the shed; I’ll go see what he’s working on.”

The shed was Ryan’s art studio. I didn’t go out there anymore, because there were several shelves of Dad’s ironwork along the back wall. I used to store his dozens of gifts to me out there, having no use for that many candleholders and coat hooks. Since my eighteenth birthday, when my duinesidhe heritage manifested, I had extra incentive. Proximity to that much iron made me lose my lunch.

Dad had offered to take the ironwork back. Sarah told him not to. “It might come in handy. You know, for stuff.”

Probably thinking of the duinesidhe that attacked him, Dad had agreed.

Refreshed after a quick shower and with minty-clean teeth, I went out onto the back porch. “Dad! You ready to go?” There was no answer, and anxiety made me grip the railing in tight hands. Only a couple of months ago I’d found Ryan passed out in the shed. “Dad? Ryan?”

“Here.” He stepped into the shed doorway and beckoned me. “I think you need to see this.”

I shook my head, staying where I was. “See what?”

“Ryan’s latest painting.”

“Can he bring it out?” I asked plaintively.

“Oh. Right.”

There was a murmured conversation in the shed. I clenched my jaw with impatience. After a couple of minutes, Dad and Ryan filed out and up onto the porch. They weren’t carrying the painting. “It’s too wet to move,” Ryan explained. He had a smudge of paint on the side of his nose, and his face was pale. “But I took a photo on my phone.”

“Clever.” I smiled.

He didn’t smile back as he handed me the phone.

At first the photo, small as it was, appeared to be an abstract style uncharacteristic of Ryan’s work—his usual preferences were either realism or comic book. The photo was comprised of curving yellow, red and orange lines, with a black shape underlying them. I shaded the phone’s screen from the sun’s glare and zoomed in to get a better look.

My eyes widened. Flames encompassed the entirety of the painting, from edge to edge, licking at the black sticks of trees and rolling across familiar ground.

It was Mount Taylor.

“Do you think this is an aislinge vision painting?” I whispered. A cold ball settled in the pit of my stomach, its tendrils of ice seeping through my body.

He nodded.