Juneau

Copyright 1 Copyright © 2023 Calliope Stewart All rights reserved The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher. Cover design by: Calliope Stewart Editing by: Bookends Editing Chapter Images by: @tinygorilla (Mandi) Copyright 2 The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by fines and federal imprisonment. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in, or encourage, the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Dedication “Time is the longest distance between two places.” —Tennessee Williams Contents Prologue 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 Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Chapter Twenty-Four Chapter Twenty-Five Chapter Twenty-Six Chapter Twenty-Seven Chapter Twenty-Eight Chapter Twenty-Nine Chapter Thirty Chapter Thirty-One Chapter Thirty-Two Chapter Thirty-Three Chapter Thirty-Four Chapter Thirty-Five Chapter Thirty-Six Epilogue Other Works by Calliope Stewart About Author Prologue The man stared deep into the glowing stone basin, frowning at whatever he saw within. “It just doesn’t make any sense,” he muttered as he reached inside, brushing glowing strings out of his way as he searched through the basin. “None of it makes sense.” He had spent the better part of a decade in a magical slumber, shoring up his magical reserves in order to be able to finally do the kind of spells that he needed to in order to find her. Now, as he stared into the basin full of human lifelines, he was having trouble figuring out which string led to the woman he was looking for. She should have been easy to find. Her lifeline was one that was out of time, just aching to be tugged and put to rights by his nimble fingers. But there were four total lifelines that were unique from the others, as if they didn’t quite fit into the flow of time and space like every other line did. The man needed to find the woman, the omega, that he was looking for. He also needed to do it soon. The echoes of war were finally booming on the horizon. If the man wanted to fix the future he had foreseen, he needed to bring the omega that was out of time to him or else all would be lost. “Just pull a string,” he told himself as a nervous sweat dotted his brow. There were only four of them and his magic reserves were now overflowing, so he could risk making a few wrong decisions. His magic sparked at the end of his fingertips as he slid them between softly glowing lifelines, reaching for the nearest oddity. It pulsed warm under his touch. The man closed his fingers around the middle of the lifeline and pulled. Suddenly, Chapter One Boston — 1915 “Juneau Elizabeth Wilde, I know you are not tracking mud onto my freshly cleaned floors,” the sound of Maria, our housekeeper’s, voice echoed through the house as I tried and failed to creep up the grand staircase unnoticed. I paused, glancing over my shoulder at the floor that I had just traipsed over, and winced because I had indeed left muddy tracks on the polished tile floors. I had snuck out for a morning walk in the rain, and upon my return, I found that my usual re-entry point—the kitchen—was bustling with all of the extra staff that had been hired on to help with the annual Wilde Gala. Because of that I was forced to come in through the large double front doors of the mansion. I had been so sure that I had made it without being noticed by anyone, but my muddy shoes were about to do me in. I turned, hoping that I could make it the rest of the way up the stairs before Maria rounded the corner, but her voice quickly made me stop mid-step. “Juneau!’ Maria was standing at the bottom of the steps with her fists perched on her plump hips. The woman was a head shorter than I was with a face weathered by years of hard work, her orange hair wisped wildly out from under the white ruffled cap that she always wore on her head. “Your dress! What have you been doing, child, rolling around in a mud-puddle with the pigs?” Maria asked, her face flushing with irritation as she took in my disheveled appearance. Maria had been with our family for as long as I had been alive, she was the fixture in our household that had kept things running smoothly even after my father died ten years ago. My mother relied on