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

“First you have to find today’s door.”


Of course?“It’s the sixteenth today?”


“Yes, dear, it’s the sixteenth today. We have five days to get to Rovaniemi or your father will demand his money back—”


“Dad doesn’t have any money. He’s always spending it on things like this. Since Mum died he’s been living with Polly, my sister, and she is pretty good at handling him, but she needed to go on a trip. A friend of hers recently became a widow, and she said she’d go there and help her out during Christmas, for the kids’ sake, you know?”


Steel nodded, and Hank ran a shaky hand through his hair, then touched the brass funnel in hopes of it having grown smaller. He’d never been one to babble, but his nerves made unimportant, soul-killingly boring words pour out of him. He couldn’t stop them despite knowing Steel would see what an idiot he was once he’d uttered them.


Chapter 11