THEORY OF MAGIC PB – JP ROTH-SABINE RICH

Die, die the hand is mine, to be human, is to live your life in the blind. “There was mud in my mouth, my knees dripped blood onto the uneven pavement little spatters of crimson rain. I bit down on my fist. I wouldn t cry, it would only distract me from running. Ahead of me, a little girl is sleeping in the alley, her hand clenched around a bundle of forget-me-nots. The moonlight spilling on her pale skin turns her from innocent to wraith. Two days ago, I was her, a forgotten face in a sea of the living dead yet I was different. At night I would shed my human skin and go back to my own kind. Go back to my world with wings of light to carry me through the sky, where no element, flame or weapon forged could claim my life. That was two nights ago, I am a fairy no longer. Tonight, I am human…and if they catch me, I will die.” On the day the god Cronus was born, it is said, the earth quaked and screamed at its core. The cliffs bordering the sea crashed together, flames shot into the open sky. Each flame carried a Seelie fairy. In their blood flowed the magic of the old worlds and the fire of immorality. The Unseelie were formed in the ashes that fell to the ground, they carried no flame and could die. The ruling gods struck an accord with the Unseelie who protested their fate: Every hundred years, a Seelie fairy must be human for three days, in that time, the Unseelie could hunt their immortal flame, and gods would close their eyes. A princess of firelight and next in line for the Seelie throne, Selyara is a girl who wants only freedom. Given no protection, she must face three days as a human, alone. Lavara sits on the Seelie throne as queen regent until Selyara has completed and survived her human trial. If Selyara dies, Lavara will take the throne. On the first eve of her humanity, Selyara stands under the moon, trying to accept the fact that, like so many ancestors before her, she may not survive the hunt. Brought up in the ways o