The Shadow Master by Craig Cormick - sample chapters

But he had Lucia, who he would glimpse once a week at church, or at a city festival. His special friendship with her had sustained him through his adolescent years. Allowed him to play out in his head the long conversations they would have about life and how the world worked, and everything he had learned. But he would need to have a higher station for that to ever happen. He would need to be more than just an inbetween-floors apprentice.

And though Galileo might not appreciate that he used independent thinking to come to the decision, he had decided to steal the metal gloves and try them out. Use them to rise above his station. Use them to rise above the very city and climb Lucia’s tower. Science would help him understand what it was that drew him to Lucia so. It was something he needed to understand, though even after having been with her now, he could never hope to explain it to another. Even Galileo.

Now they had met. They had talked. They had touched.

Something wonderful had happened between them. It was so powerful that he felt that he had emerged into a changed version of his city. As he felt changed himself. He could still feel where Lucia’s skin had touched his. Could still feel the fluttering inside his chest where something had transformed.

He was both frightened and awed by it. And an invasion of the city, or a battle, seemed minor by comparison. He placed one finger to his chest, where he had felt the flesh open. It was more amazing than watching the metal gloves and all their cogs and wires melding with his hands and feet when he put them on.

He suddenly stopped walking. The gloves! He had left them in Lucia’s tower. He felt a sudden sense of dread. Heard the bells tolling disaster loudly. His feet felt very heavy as he made