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

“Aha!” Steel held upa rusty metal box. “Come help me decorate the tree.”


“The tree?” Hank held in a sigh as Steel dragged the tree out from the corner by the wall with the bars and levers. As he did, the smell of pine filled the cabin, and as much as Hank wanted to deny liking it, the scent was pleasant. They’d never had a tree as he grew up. His mother sneaked in a wreath some years, but that was it.


“Here. hold this.” Steel gave him the box and sank down on the floor in front of Hank. Paralyzed, he watched as Steel crawled under the bed, his arse at perfect display from where Hank was sitting.


Hank yanked his gaze away from Steel’s buttocks. “Sure...with what?”


“Take this.” Steel pushed out a heavy thing with a lot of screws and three legs. Hank stared, he took in the hole in the middle and how the screws were arranged to keep something in place. Below was an iron bowl decorated with shiny brass cogs.


Chapter 12