There is still magic to be found. Even in the bleakest of places.<br><br>Hank Goodenough has spent his entire life in the smoggy streets of London trying to keep his head down and not to get noticed. Not an easy feat when you’re the tallest one in the room and have a brass funnel protruding from your head. When he finds himself laid off work once again, his dad wants to drag him away on a crazy quest. Before he can figure out how to get out of it, he finds himself on a steam-driven airship in search of Odin, the old Norse God, and is sharing a room with Captain Elazar Steel, a man strutting around on one high-heeled boot and one peg leg.<br><br>Steel doesn’t care that the winks, smiles, and small touches he and Hank share might get them hanged once they land on the ground again. He is determined to show Hank there is magic in the world and that there is no better place to be than on his balloon ship steering towards the Arctic Circle.

Eight Feet of Magic

Hank shivered—probably due to the chilly air crawling in through the brass opening into his brain...probably. The thin copper net inside the shaft kept most grime out, but it did nothing to stop wind or cold. A couple of times a year he went to see the doctor who had put it in to have it properly cleaned, but that was nothing he wanted to think about now. Instead, he replayed Steel’s wink in his mind and took a step to follow him.


Leaving the snickering crowd behind, they entered the galley. There was no food prepared.


“Demetrius!” Steel’s heel and wooden stump drummed over the floor.


Demetrius was rubbing the sleep out of his eyes as he rose from the narrow couch where he’d been sleeping. “I didn’t know what you had planned for us...Captain. Are we airborne yet?”


Hank bit his lip. This was how it’d always been. Demetrius made up plans and then sat back and waited for others to carry them out for him.


Chapter 8