{"id":10158,"date":"2018-08-09T11:40:11","date_gmt":"2018-08-09T11:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jonathanmoeller.com\/writer\/?p=10158"},"modified":"2018-08-09T11:40:11","modified_gmt":"2018-08-09T11:40:11","slug":"excerpt-thursday-cloak-ghost-blood-ring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jonathanmoeller.com\/writer\/?p=10158","title":{"rendered":"Excerpt Thursday: CLOAK & GHOST: BLOOD RING"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s Excerpt Thursday! This week’s excerpt is from CLOAK & GHOST: BLOOD RING<\/a>, the crossover novel where Nadia Moran meets Caina Amalas.<\/p>\n

###<\/p>\n

\u201cYou’re very open with me,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

Caina took another sip of coffee, and I followed suit.<\/p>\n

\u201cThree reasons,\u201d she said. \u201cOne, if this goes the way I think it will, you\u2019re going to find out all about me anyway. Two, if that little \u2018light show\u2019 last night is any indication of the Congressman\u2019s friends, I\u2019m going to need help finding proof against him. Three, I already know quite a bit about you.\u201d<\/p>\n

I scowled. \u201cSuppose you researched me, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Caina shook her head. \u201cNo. I just paid attention. Watched the details.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat sounds like bullshit,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

Caina set down her coffee cup and leaned closer, the cold blue eyes unblinking. I suddenly felt uneasy under that stare, as if there was nothing I could hide from it.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou just got married,\u201d she said, her voice quiet, \u201cand you miss your husband terribly. He\u2019s probably out of the country. He\u2019s also a wealthy man, familiar with violence, and one with considerable force of personality. Your magic is much, much stronger than normal for a human, but you learned or obtained that power in highly traumatic circumstances. You exercise a great deal, but have trouble eating, and suffer from chronic insomnia and nightmares.\u201d<\/p>\n

My unease increased. All of that was exactly right.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, bullshit,\u201d I said, trying to hide the unease. \u201cI was on the national news. You just looked me up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t yet,\u201d said Caina, \u201cand I know all that from talking to you. I\u2019ll prove it.\u201d She pointed at my hand. \u201cYour wedding ring. It\u2019s new, not worn at all. That means you were recently married. You keep touching it because it reminds you of your husband.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay,\u201d I said. \u201cHow did you know he was rich and familiar with violence?\u201d<\/p>\n

Caina smiled. \u201cAn educated guess after talking with you. You wouldn\u2019t marry any man for whom you had contempt, which means no one weaker than you. You might have married for money, but that would be pointless since if you wanted money, you could just Cloak and steal it. Probably your husband is a confident man who is either in the Wizard\u2019s Legion or an independent mercenary contractor of some kind. As for the fact that he\u2019s rich, your coat is new, and it\u2019s an expensive brand. Your shoes aren\u2019t new, and they\u2019re fairly worn. The logical inference is that he bought the coat for you, and its cost didn\u2019t concern him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the nightmares and insomnia?\u201d I said, voice quiet.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s nine in the morning, and it\u2019s already eighty degrees out, but you\u2019re wearing a sweater and a pea coat,\u201d said Caina. \u201cWizards sometimes suffer from a form of PTSD where they keep drawing on their magic and make themselves cold. Combined with your powerful magic, that is the obvious conclusion. Nightmares and insomnia are also a common symptom of PTSD.\u201d She sighed. \u201cI hate to say it, but your bloodshot eyes and the dark circles beneath them are additional evidence for that. You also look rather underweight, which means you have trouble eating. I don\u2019t know whether it\u2019s connected to your other difficulties or not, but it seems likely. Then again, it could just be bad gut bacteria.\u201d She shrugged. \u201cHow much did I get right?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of it,\u201d I said, staring into my coffee. \u201cYou\u2019re a very dangerous woman.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d said Caina. \u201cI do apologize. I always regret unsettling people like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, you don\u2019t,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

She smiled. \u201cIt never hurts to be polite.\u201d<\/p>\n

-JM<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s Excerpt Thursday! This week’s excerpt is from CLOAK & GHOST: BLOOD RING, the crossover novel where Nadia Moran meets<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10100,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cloak-games","category-the-ghosts"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pZ6ri-2DQ","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jonathanmoeller.com\/writer\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/BNCloakGhostBloodRing.jpg?fit=800%2C1200&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathanmoeller.com\/writer\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathanmoeller.com\/writer\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathanmoeller.com\/writer\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathanmoeller.com\/writer\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathanmoeller.com\/writer\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10158"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathanmoeller.com\/writer\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10159,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathanmoeller.com\/writer\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10158\/revisions\/10159"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathanmoeller.com\/writer\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathanmoeller.com\/writer\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathanmoeller.com\/writer\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathanmoeller.com\/writer\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}