A sickly dark mage swaps bodies with a NYC ballet dancer to prolong his life. The dancer though has strong opinions and a bit of a necromantic bend on his philosophy in life now that he’s been isekai-ed into a fantasy world. Doesn’t help that he’s falling in love with the dark mage’s step brother.

Genres: fantasy, isekai, adult, lgbtq+

Lore Book

Chapter 1

Soul Transfer was not a spell I wished to be an unexpected recipient of. I also didn’t want to find myself blindfolded, bound in rope, floating who knows how high in the sky at the time I registered that baritone phrase flitting through my head. I could only hope that whoever transferred into my body didn’t land Gregory on the floor. I was in the middle of a Grande Jete and Gregory was going to catch. Whatever jerk took over my body had better be thanking me I’d been stretching for weeks to get that split perfect. Finding myself suspended, blindfolded, with blistering cold air rushing across my face, I wished I had left my tendons tight to spite the bastard.

Chapter 2

“You’re not joking. You’re seriously going to just leave me here?” I hissed between my teeth. Rowan and I stood in front of a pair of imposing doors. Laughter and the timbre of feet and music scratched along my nerve endings.

Chapter 3

“That witch was sure as hell tripped out on something. Are you sure you want to go along with a twenty-plus-year-old prophecy that was probably just the delusional ravings of a mushroom-hopped, senile, old lady?” I settled back into our nest of crates in the dungeon-like room. “Then again. Don’t want to ruin a good thing going. Who knows, maybe the guy your mom married after your dad was just looking out for you and her and had all the best intentions.”

Chapter 4

I hoped Rowan hadn’t heard the undignified squeak I made when I finally got those blasted briches down. Back in the castle, I had swapped tunics, but not the bottoms, whatever they were called. So, I hadn’t exactly had a moment to contend with whatever the good magician had blessed me with. Getting some pressing relief was significantly better, but why was it shaped like that? I sure as hell wasn’t about to ask Rowan. That or about the short fluff of a tail.

Chapter 5

The pub was a quiet, warm affair, more comfortable than I would have assumed on first passing the place. Rowan slid into a chair near to a smokeless fireplace and motioned me to the opposing overstuffed monstrosity masquerading as something akin to a loveseat.

Chapter 6

“If you aren’t gonna work, get out. Don’t come back!” Nina hissed at Farrow as she yanked away the platter in front of Rowan.

Chapter 7

The chuckle that followed me into the dark left my skin tingling. Maybe I’d gained some bit of respect from Rowan. I’d never hit someone before and my fingers throbbed enough to tell me Wallace hadn’t either. I didn’t really want to repeat the experience.

Chapter 8

I was sore, tired, and hungry again by the time we emerged from the woods on the opposite end of the castle from where we left off to the village.

Chapter 9

A soft mist speckled the warbled glass that had been inset into the old archer’s slots of Wallace’s room. A servant had left lit candles, leaving the colorful glass quivering. Rowan left Farrow and me to ransack the heir apparent turned wizard’s rooms while he went back to the storage chests in the basement to retrieve anything he could put his hands to. He told Farrow to get me to the stables and find his labra-dragon creature – Quamire, to know which burden beasts to load.

Chapter 10

Farrow greeted Rowan and gave me a wary once over. “How’d it go?”

I shrugged. “Think it’s fine. Looks like the party is going to continue for a while yet. We ready to get out of here before I get dragged back?” Rowan was studying me the same way Farrow was. I scowled back at Rowan for the look. “What?”

Chapter 11

I slowly came to the next day with some kind of sandwich in my mouth and the sun dazzling on a river. I drew in the scent of water creatures, not too dissimilar from the Hudson and tried to recall if I had been awake before this moment, or if I had woken up to someone shoving food in my mouth. After a moment of thought, I decided I didn’t know and it didn’t matter. There was food and a nice view. Rowan and Farrow were talking about what had happened back at the Inkwell and the assassins in the village.

Chapter 12

The roads blended together. And the flavorless gruel that sufficed for meals around the moments of meat Quamire caught for us became somehow even more flavorless as the days stacked up to become weeks. I had learned, after one morning of Farrow snapping at Rowan, that Rugoshi were herbivorous and eating meat would make them sick if they did it for too long. He grouched back at Farrow that even the Ungulates ate small amounts of meat here and there. Farrow wasn’t putting up with it and instead took on the business of hunting with Quamire. He couldn’t dress a dwiv as cleanly, but Rowan’s complexion improved gradually after.

Chapter 13

I couldn’t call it a voice. I couldn’t call it a sense or feeling. But it was there, here, everywhere and no where all at once. In, between, around, through that nothingness. And it commanded. It formed me; pulled and pushed and marked and marred until I was no longer. And in that moment of pure nothing, I drew on the name and gave it what it most desired: “Death.”

Chapter 14

I sat at the edge of a midnight black cliff, staring into an abyss that rippled with the blue of magic. Nothingness created a void near me. And we sat there, staring at the stars swimming in the deep.

Chapter 15

I woke to a kink in my neck and drool dripping down my cheek. The saddle was warm, but my back protested my funny position. I found my and Rowan’s travel cloak wrapped up around me and Rowan’s lowered gaze flicking away from me. “Was I snoring?” I grumbled from beneath the hem. That at least made sense to why I woke suddenly.

Chapter 16

It was another week before I got that new shirt, and we dragged our carcasses into an inn with the promise of a bath. Rowan dropped by the counter of the inn and handed over a small bag of clinks. The metal cascaded with more noise than I was ready for. I cocked my head at him. He gave me that kind of smile that had no happy emotion to it, just an acknowledgement that he saw me. Farrow ducked, not meeting my eye when I glanced his way to see if he had an opinion. He always had an opinion. I frowned.

Chapter 17

It was barely past noon and I found myself bone tired and shuffling through the sparse main street to a little cottage tucked between a livery and a blacksmithy. Knocking on the door, I was greeted by a tall Rugoshi, his curled horns gleaming with fresh wax. He looked to be later past middle age, but his features hid his true age well enough. I sighed, not sure what to ask.

Chapter 18

I tested my key in the lock and found that I had been given one that worked for both my door and their’s. A surge of anger seeped under my skin, threatening fire drops at the idea that they could be locked in with no way out. I stared at the wobbling orbs at the end of my fingers, willing them back into myself. What if a fire broke out and they were trapped in it? What if I was the cause? I leaned my head against their door and closed my eyes to listen.

Chapter 19

An evening and a morning passed. I ordered basins and pitchers of cold water brought up to the room. The maid who brought the first set was stunned to find that I had requested it for Rowan and Farrow and not myself. “Another two, if you would.” I requested as she stuttered at the door frame while I set the first pitcher and bowl on the table. I had managed to get blankets wrapped up on the two for the moment she was there.

Chapter 20

“Your neighbor suggested I come see you for a commission.” I ducked into the smithy. The man caught me off guard as I tried to figure out what he was, because he clearly wasn’t Yujin, Karamide, Rugoshi, or Twilig. I’d have to ask someone later. He had floppy fluffy ears and a fine nap of tawny and white fur. Burn scars across his arms had left a constellation of hairless spots in his hide.

Chapter 21

“Matchstick?” Rowan blinked at me in the early morning of the sixth day. His sweat had broken, the red flush to his cheeks gone.

Chapter 22

I returned to their room with the pair of collars I had commissioned from the tanner and the pies. “The apothecary told me this is the last free town before we go over the mountains toward Blij. Talking to the smith and the tanner. They both told me that it would be better to put you in collars if only to keep the people of the towns thinking you were fair game.”