The Magician: An Epic Dark Fantasy Novel: Book One of the Rogue Portal Series by Courtney Herz Page B

spoke.
                  "Connor, I love you. Some day you'll understand."
                  "DAD!" he cried.
                  But nobody could hear him.
                  And then, unable to stop it, unable to look away, unable to do anything but watch and scream a silent, soul-rending scream, he witnessed the single incident that had driven his entire life up until that point toward the brink of madness.
                  He watched his father slip over the edge, watched the noose snap his neck like a twig, sending it angling in a shattered, disfigured way. Watched, helpless, as the banister cracked - the crack that had glared at him for years, a constant reminder of a past he was helpless to stop. His father struggled, tensed, and then went limp, swinging only from the momentum created by the fall.
                  "NO!!!"
                  Still, Connor couldn't hear his own screams. He heard a ringing, as though a thousand bombs had gone off silently, without his knowledge, and he saw two dark forms appear from either side of the staircase, one from the kitchen, and one from the living room.
                  They were formless and dark, without faces. Each of them carried a head in their hands. Ghastly, faceless heads that were at once grotesque and ethereal. A deep laugh emanated from the bowels of the house, and the darkness with which he was so accustomed settled in around him like a sheath.
                  An elderly woman appeared in an amethyst plume of smoke and made her way over to a note lying on a stand by the door. No...there were two letters. She held them up, one in each hand, and examined them as though they were a foul insect of disproportionate size, sneering as she did.
                  In a scrawled, unsteady handwriting, the names Connor and Julia were written.
                  "Well, well, well. This is certainly sweet," the old woman said, with a voice much more youthful than her appearance allowed for.
                  With a swift flick of her wrist the letters disappeared, and she dissolved into the monotone laughter that had preceded her.
                  "I wouldn't have done that, Eleanor," said a familiar voice.
                  "And I wouldn't make a habit of telling me what I should do, Theodore."
                  The woman turned swiftly on her heel, transforming immediately into a tall, slender woman with a flowing black dress, sharp features, and waist-length black hair. She wore a cape-coat made entirely of black feathers that fell to the floor and drug across it as she walked. On her hand she wore a black ring with an amethyst center that glowed fiercely.
                  "Well, I don't listen very well. You could have left him that much."
                  "I could have," she spat, "but what's the point of that? Going soft on me?"
                  A silhouette in a top hat emerged, just visible from beneath the staircase.
                  "Of course not. But there's necessary brutality and unnecessary heartlessness, and you've long forgotten where the line between them is."
                  "Maybe you should learn that there is no line."
                  "I've learned that much is true for you."
                  The figure stepped out from beneath the staircase, still cast in shadows of the walls and the two creatures that now flanked the tall woman - Eleanor. They came together until each represented a point in what could have been, in a human game of connect the dots, a diamond.
                  "I don't like your tone," she said.
                  "And I don't like your attitude. What's your point?"
                  "Just because you...shall we say...creatively maneuvered your way into your position doesn't give you the