From KITTY BLACK and REBECCA CRANE comes The Lost Prince, the next book in the ‘Everglade’ series, perfect for fans of Terry Pratchett and Diana Wynne Jones. Read on for an extract.

 

 

ABOUT THE BOOK

Wren Westerly is enjoying the peace and quiet of Meadow Court. And why wouldn’t she? Wren embraced her destiny as a fire-witch to defeat the Eater and save magic. Hurrah!

But a cryptic warning from Wren’s mother about the Everglade Witch has Wren thinking that magic is not as saved as everyone thinks it is.

Guided by a dream about a goblet and a lesson from a mer-teacher, Wren and her friends embark on a dangerous quest to uncover the truth about the Everglade Witch and what is happening to magic.

It turns out that defeating the Eater was the easy part …

Welcome back to the world of Everglade, where magic-kin are asleep, monsters are waking up and the fate of magic hangs by a thread.

 

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EXTRACT

 

 

Chapter One

‘I think we’ve made a mistake,’ said Wren. The gloom of the vast cave seemed to swallow her words whole. Wren’s back was pressed against the cave wall, and she told herself that the shiver skittering up and down he spine was due to the cold stone and nothing else. A soft glow permeated the darkness, thanks to the bioluminescent fungus growing in huge, flat discs. Long, pointed stalactites hung from the ceiling. Every so often, a drop of water would land with a loud plop! in a distant pool of water.

Blue and Wish, Wren’s best friends, stood beside her. The greenish-yellowish cast to the air made their familiar faces seem strange and distorted.

‘This was your idea. So that means you’ve made a mistake,’ said Blue, blowing a strand of curly red hair off her face.

Blue was head and shoulders taller than Wren, and stocky, with white skin and emerald eyes. She leaned against the wall and crossed her feet at the ankles, looking perfectly at home. The laces of her big, brown boots trailed in the grit on the cave floor. ‘You said I’d get to see a gigantic, terrifying creature.’ Blue waved a hand around. ‘All I see are pointy things, and mushrooms.’

There wasn’t much that bothered Blue, or scared her. Sometimes, Wren wondered if the reason Blue was always looking for adventure was because she was too relaxed. I wonder what that would feel like? thought Wren.

‘There was a pretty big beetle earlier,’ said Wish. ‘Some people might think of a beetle as a gigantic and terrifying creature?’ He tilted his head thoughtfully, his cloud of tight brown ringlets shifting. ‘If they were very small people. Who had previously had a bad experience with beetles.’

Wish approached the world from a different perspective than most, but always with a kind heart. He was lanky and a smidge taller than Blue. But where Blue stomped through the world recklessly, Wish floated above it. Wren did neither.

She fell over a lot.

‘Didn’t you say you had a plan?’ said Blue, raising her eyebrows at Wren.

‘I did have a plan,’ said Wren. She busied herself with a red wildflower that was threatening to escape her reddish brown braid. ‘It just …’ She trailed off, not sure that really, really wanting something to work out constituted an actual plan.

‘… wasn’t a good plan?’ supplied Wish. He craned forward to peer at Wren, his expression open and his blue-grey eyes sincere. The greenish light flickered over his deep brown skin.

‘Nope,’ said Wren. She blinked her hazel eyes and sighed.

‘It wasn’t.’

Wren felt like lately, all of her plans had been not-good. Not a single one had worked out, and she so desperately needed one to. She swallowed down the sour taste of disappointment.

‘I thought he’d be here,’ she admitted, scratching at a mole on her bronze skin. ‘He’s shown up every other time.’

‘To yell at you and tell you to never come back?’ asked Wish.

‘Yeah,’ said Wren. ‘But I didn’t think he meant it. He always shows up.’

There was silence. Wren stared around at the empty cave. He’s not here, she told herself sadly. Pressure pushed down on Wren’s shoulders, and she hunched forward, as if to take the weight of it.

‘It has to be you, Wren.’ The memory of her mother’s words echoed in her mind.

Sometimes, Wren wondered if the pressure would get too much for her, and she’d end up squashed beneath it; a Wren-shaped pancake, flattened by a pressure no one else seemed to see or understand.

‘Well,’ said Blue, slapping a palm against her thigh and pushing off the wall. ‘We’d better get back. May said she’d show me the new sword that Brutus made.’

‘No, she didn’t,’ said Wish. ‘I was there. She said, “Blue, stay away from the armoury. The new sword that Brutus made has nothing to do with you.”’

Blue grinned. ‘I didn’t say it was a direct invitation.’

‘Um,’ said Wren. She dragged a sneaker through the dust.

‘About getting out of here …’ She cleared her throat. ‘It’s not something that’s quick. Or easy.’

More silence. Wren raised her eyes from her sneakers.

Wish and Blue were both staring at her.

‘It’s just that this is a kind of magical-cave-place, y’know?’ Wren explained in a rush, her words spilling out and butting up against each other. ‘The exit moves around. I never know where to find it. And sometimes it can take a long time. A really long time.’

More staring. More silence.

‘Are we trapped?’ asked Wish. ‘Underground?’ He grabbed his feathers from inside one of his bunny slippers and began shuffling through them. It was what he always did when he was worried about something.

‘No, we’re not trapped,’ said Wren firmly. ‘Well, maybe we are. I’m not sure.’

‘You usually come here on your own. There are three of us this time. I’m sure we can find a way out pretty fast,’ Blue pointed out.

‘Exactly!’ said Wren, latching onto the suggestion like it was the last cookie at a picnic. ‘We’ll find a way out!’ Her voice went higher. ‘It’ll be fine!’

It was in that precise moment that all the light in the cave disappeared. The glow from the fungi vanished as suddenly and completely as if someone had switched them off at the wall.

Wren made a small noise in the back of her throat. She could hear Wish and Blue breathing nearby.

It was dark.

Very dark.

Wren closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again, finding no difference between the two states. A word floated into her mind: comprehensive.

Wren had learned the term earlier that week, when she, Wish and Blue had looked after the baby squirrels. One of the kits had gotten overexcited and thrown up on the rug.

When May had shown up with a mop and bucket, she’d said, eyes watering: ‘Oh my, that smell is comprehensive, isn’t it?’

Which meant, Wren had decided, everywhere, but in a really disturbing way.

‘We seem to be in the dark,’ said Wish, after a few moments.

‘Yep,’ said Blue.

Wren swallowed. ‘That’s okay, though, isn’t it? It’s just the dark! None of us are scared of the dark, right?’ She gave a forced chuckle.

‘Not me.’

‘Or me.’

‘I’m definitely not.’

‘See? We’re fine!’ said Wren. She did some quick addition in her head. ‘… all … four … of us.’

A throaty laugh sounded from behind Wren, somewhere near the roof of the cave.

She turned around and looked up.

A small blue flame hung suspended in the darkness above her.

There was the sound of rushing wind – like something gigantic and terrifying was taking an equally gigantic and terrifying breath in – and the flame flared.

Frantically, Wren reached out to where she thought her friends were and grabbed. Her fingers closed over Wish’s t-shirt and Blue’s forearm.

‘Get down!’ she yelled, dragging them to the ground beside her.

There was a series of thumps as they all hit the floor.

And then, a ROAR.

Wren rolled onto her back, her eyes wide, as fire blazed in a brilliant red arc high above her head.

The fire poured from the throat of a huge dragon. His sunset-coloured scales shone in the fierce light. He thrashed his tail from side to side, the bronze spikes along his back glowing in the glare of the seemingly endless fire streaming from his wide-open mouth.

‘Heaps better than a beetle,’ whispered Blue in satisfaction.

**********

The Oracle, the dragon who was the voice of the Fates, closed his mouth with a snap, cutting off the fire. The discs of fungus began to emit light again. This time, they seemed to glow a bit brighter, like they were trying harder than they had before.

Wren stared up at the looming Oracle.

His head and neck gleamed with vibrant red scales that lightened to orange around his chest and turned yellow towards his legs. He stretched his long, snaky neck down towards Wren and pulled his lips back to reveal large white canines.

‘What did I tell you to do last time?’ he demanded in a slightly nasal tone.

‘To go away,’ said Wren, with a sigh, climbing uncomfortably to her feet.

‘And what else?’ snarled the Oracle.

‘And never come back,’ said Wren, her voice on the edge of petulance.

‘And what is it exactly that you’ve done?’

Wren threw her hands out wide. ‘I’ve come back!’ she said.

‘Just once,’ said the Oracle, his eyes raised towards the ceiling, ‘once, I wish you’d listen to me.’

‘That’s not really Wren’s strength,’ commented Wish. He carefully tucked his feathers back into the side of his bunny slipper before climbing to his feet.

Blue was already upright. She bounced excitedly on her toes. ‘You almost killed us!’ she told the Oracle brightly.

‘Oh, good, you’ve brought friends,’ said the Oracle, giving Wren a flat stare. ‘To what do I owe this intrusion?’

‘You know why I’m here,’ said Wren. She tried to inject as much determination into her voice as she could. ‘I need to know about the Everglade Witch – who they are, what they want, and what they’re doing now.’

The Oracle blew out his cheeks, sending a gust of warm air towards Wren. ‘I’ve already told you, several times – I cannot answer your questions.’

‘Why not?’ asked Wren. ‘You know things, don’t you?’

‘I know lots of things,’ said the Oracle regally.

‘Then why don’t you give me answers? Why don’t you tell me what to do?’ Wren begged.

‘I am the voice of the Fates! I do not go around handing out answers like cookies!’ The Oracle flicked his scaly wrist as if he were skimming stones.

‘That’s not how you hand out cookies,’ said Wish, looking concerned.

‘My mum told me I had to defeat the Everglade Witch, but I don’t know how,’ said Wren, trying to keep the whine out of her voice.

‘The answer to that is so simple even you should have figured it out by now,’ said the Oracle, giving Wren a patronising look.

‘Well, I haven’t. So why don’t you just tell me?’ she said. ‘You do something. Or, you do nothing. Or, you do some things, but not others. Your thread is your own,’ said the Oracle.

My thread? thought Wren, frowning. ‘That’s not a real answer,’ she said out loud. She put her hands on her hips. ‘It doesn’t count.’

‘Make your own choices, Wren Westerly. And stop wasting your time in my lair,’ said the Oracle, glaring at her.

Wren opened her mouth to ask the Oracle another question, but he cut her off with a swish of his taloned hand. A whiff of sulphur hit the air.

‘No more questions! I am too tired for this.’ He dragged a scaly hand across his eyes and appeared to stifle a yawn.

‘Why are you tired?’ asked Wren.

The Oracle gave her a scathing look.

‘Fine,’ she said with a sigh. ‘No more questions.’

‘Your path is your own,’ said the Oracle. His eyes bored into Wren’s. ‘Please go walk it. May those stumpy things you call legs take you far, far away from me,’ he added.

Wren looked down at her legs. ‘You didn’t need to say stumpy,’ she muttered.

‘It was a choice,’ the Oracle acknowledged with an incline of his head. ‘You should try it sometime. The exit is over there.’ He pointed with a long, burnished-gold talon.

‘You won’t find me here again, so don’t bother coming back.’

Wren looked back up at the Oracle. The question ‘Where will you be?’ was on the tip of her tongue.

‘No questions!’ snapped the Oracle. His tail lashed, raising a cloud of dust.

Wren rolled her eyes and trudged towards the exit, her shoulders slumped.

‘Cheer up!’ said Blue, nudging Wren with an elbow. ‘It could have been worse!’

‘How?’ asked Wren.

‘Well,’ said Wish, tapping his cheek with a finger. ‘The beetles could have insulted you too.’

 

Read our article with Kitty Black about Everglade: Rise of the Witch

 

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kitty Black is a children’s author living in Perth, Australia. With a background in psychology and education, Kitty knows how important stories are for everyone. She is the author of numerous picture books. Everglade is her debut middle grade book. She lives with her partner and two children who are excellent at providing both noise and inspiration, although rarely in equal amounts.

Visit Kitty Black’s website here.

Follow Kitty Black on Instagram here.

Read more about the ‘Everglade’ series on the Simon & Schuster website

 

ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR

Rebecca Crane is an author, illustrator, and visual development artist. She was born in Scotland, grew up in Australia, and spent time in Indonesia before moving back to the UK to study Illustration at Edinburgh University and Character Animation at Central St Martins in London. She’s currently based in the Yorkshire Dales where she spends her time writing and drawing, or otherwise likely to be found in a bookshop or antique market trawling the shelves for curious little treasures and black and white photos.

Visit Rebecca Crane’s website here.

Follow Rebecca Crane on Instagram here.