A Spinner Excerpt

To whet your appetites for Spinner's release date of September 9th, here's a teensy appetizer:

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“What is my payment?”

I am a statue carved from confusion. “Pay…payment?”

The spinner holds out a hand expectantly; his fingers are long and lean, chapped from the dryness of the straw. My gaze darts to the gold.

“No. Not that,” he says. “That is my work. It cannot pay for itself.”

“I don’t have anything,” I whisper. Nothing worth the treasure he spun.

He glances at the bracelet on my wrist. It is plain and the silver tarnished, but it was my mother’s. She gave it to me on her deathbed and since then I have never taken it off.

“That,” he says. “That will do.”

“This?” I ask, surprised.

I hold my wrist against my chest, fingers brushing over the surface. The price this simple band of silver would fetch could not hope to amount to that for even a foot of the gold thread. Let alone a room of it.

“Magic isn’t something that can be explained, it simply is. It takes while it gives. So” – the spinner steps closer, his outstretched hand demanding – “I have given you magic and now I must be paid.”