Linked

GILDED BLOOD: BOOK 3 RACHEL RENER © 2023 Lightning Conjurer Books, LLC All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Edited by Sara Lawson | www.sarasbooks.com Cover Design by Miblart | www.miblart.com Linked typography by Allegra Pescatore | www.facebook.com/groups/allegrasartalcove Fae Realm map and interior illustrations by Rachel Rener | www.RachelRener.com ISBN: 9798367132939 ASIN: B0B2FC4RQX Other Works by Rachel Rener: The Gilded Blood Series I. Inked II. Jinxed III. Linked IV. Synced The Lightning Conjurer Series I. The Awakening II. The Enlightening III. The Christening IV. The Reckoning The Complete Series Collection - (Free on KU!) The Girl Who Talks to Ashes The Little Morsel The Precipice of Sin (As part of the From the Shadows Anthology) Table of Contents Common Blood Types and Their Magical Classes The Fae Realm Map of the Main Continent Family Reunion A Cry for Kelp Mother Knows Best Spring Fever Provisions of Purple and Pink The Rise and Fall of the Summer Court Home is Where the Hearth Is Fire and Ice Termites For Whom the Bell Trolls Full Circle Cravings Don’t Shoot the Messenger A Taste for Blood Heads in the Clouds Lost in Translation The (Accidental) Lightning Conjurer By The Light of the Moons The Blight of Dawn Face Your Demons The Missing Link Set Sail Tainted Love What a Waste Note From the Author The Lightning Conjurer Series The Girl Who Talks to Ashes The Little Morsel From the Shadows Glossary For the Goyim Jíni Kelími’naz / Elvish Dictionary Acknowledgements About the Author Common Blood Types and Their Magical Classes *Magical Class applies only to fae born under the power of the cerulean sun. Humans with the same blood types only have magical ability if they are descendants of fae lineages. Even then, their magical potential is significantly dampened with every generation the fae ancestor has been removed. The Fae RealmMap of the Main Continent “Be careful when you cast out your demons that you don’t throw away the best of yourself.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche O, Mother, where art thou? I. Family Reunion “He’ll come for us, won’t he?” I asked, my eyes flitting to Sol’s distant tower – an ugly, black blemish that marred an otherwise radiant sky. “Yes.” Zayn’s fingers brushed against the angry red lines that almost bound me to his nemesis forever. “He will.” “So, what do we do now?” “Now?” he murmured, brushing his lips against mine. “Now, I reclaim my throne.” I gasped in disbelief. “Really?” “Yes. As my Runemaster apprentice, partner, and – I hope – future queen…will you help me?” I took a long, stunned moment to compose myself before my mouth fluttered open in a feeble attempt to answer… And then immediately snapped shut. Much like the screaming whistle of an out-of-control locomotive, the loudest, shrillest, most terrifying sound one could possibly hear in the Fae Realm shattered the air – a harbinger of peril and terrible things to come. “TALIA JUDITH KESTENBAUM, WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN?” Horrified, I whirled around to find a furious, murderous, purple-clad fae standing before me, clearly out for blood. My blood. “Mom?!” I shrieked, stumbling backward until I nearly knocked Zayn over. “What are you—no, HOW did you—” Her withering glare cut straight through me, hitting raw sinew and bone. Barely scraping past five-foot-two, my half-Jewish, half-banshee mother stood there like the unholy and terrifying creature she was, her purple orthopedic sneakers spread shoulder-width apart, manicured hands planted on hips, two bug-eyed Chihuahua sentinels rooted on either side of her. “Never mind the how – what the hell are you doing here?!” “What am I—what are you doing here?!” “MAKING SURE YOU’RE NOT DEAD!” Behind me, Zayn was squeezing my shoulders – not steadily, with calm reassurance, but quaveringly, with trepidation and horror. “Dee Dee, I don’t understand. How—” Mom shot him a look so petrifying, it actually made him take a step backward. “I’ll get to you in a minute. In the meantime”—she turned her glare back to me—“I have been looking everywhere for you! Driving all over Wynwood, half-hysterical, in the pouring rain, nearly skidding off the road and dying – dying! – only to find that you weren’t even at your apartment, even though you promised me you were going straight home!” The last part crescendoed into a piercing screech that made a nearby flock of pink seagulls scatter in a dozen different directions. “Mom, please, keep your voice down!” She was so far into the Jewish Mother Zone, I may as well have not even been there. “Once I’d driven all over your neighborhood to make sure you weren’t dead in some ditch, I schlepped all the way to the shop, where the lights were on, the door was unlocked, and it was a complete disaster area inside! But when I called the schmegegges at the police station, they informed me that there was a tropical storm outside and to call back tomorrow, after you’d been missing twenty-four hours. I said, ‘You must be joking! She could be dead in twenty-four hours!’” “Ma! For the love of God, stop yelling,” I implored, clasping my hands together, “and just tell us how you got here!” “I activated the tracker rune on your locket, obviously! After that, all I had to do was cast a Locator Rune—well, no, first I had to dig up the old Waystone my mother had stashed with the antique china—” “As much as I really, really want to hear the details of this story,” Zayn loudly interrupted, “we need to get away from this area – now.” His eyes darted to Sol’s tower, which