Excerpt: The Necromancer Diaries

Day 2

CRASH! I love the sound of glass shattering. Especially when it's a vital bit of one of Wensel's boring and smelly experiments. Even better, the liquid bits spilled over onto the knocked over lamp and caught on fire.

The trickiest part was to make sure to do it all by accident. Well. I did say I'd tell the truth in here. The truth is, it's not that hard to make yourself forget, just for a moment, where your sleeve is, and to reach just a little too broadly across the table for the sample bottle Wensel is impatiently asking you for.

Impatient? He won't be worrying about that for a long time now, let me tell you.

"Addy! What have you done, you fumble-fingered oaf of a lab assistent?" Wensel only turned to look after he heard the crash.

"Sorry, sir, won't happen again, sir." I was already in there with the dish rag, wiping up the spill and smothering the fire.

Wensel snatched the remaining intact wooden rack away from me, the tubes rattling as he clutched it to his chest. "I should sack you and hire one of the Queen's lot. She could spare someone for me. Someone easier on the eyes and on my nerves!"

"Yes, sir." I get the hand broom and brush the shards of glass into a dust pan. He won't replace me. He doesn't trust the Queen. He'd never let one of her "spies" into his precious laboratory. But I might be in for some bruises later. I watch him out of the corner of my eye.

Wensel sighs. I get a lot of that from him. He sets the rack down on the other table and drops back onto the stool, facing me this time. He rakes a hand through his hair. It comes down to his shoulders and could seriously stand a good washing. He clears his throat in that way that means he isn't going to beat me with his walking stick this time. "I shouldn't blame you for your clumsiness. I know you can't help it. Can't help being...you know..."

"Yes, sir." I bite my tongue. He can't help being a patronizing git, either. They don't have many of my race here in this world. Just me, in fact.

"Right. Get on with it." Wensel waves a hand. A few moments later he's off again up the stairs. The library, probably, to consult his notes and log this latest mishap in his books.

"That went well, don't you think?" I just mutter the words under my breath without looking at the row of glass jars on the back shelf. I don't need to look. I can feel their eyes on me. Especially the dwarf. Sviar. He's watching me. This was his idea, after all.

But he won't say anything to me, not even after Wensel leaves the room. Is it something about the arcane arts that makes people paranoid?

Sviar only speaks to me when I'm asleep. Dreams are deniable, he says. No one can prove anything that only happened in a dream.