Pale Lights and Patreon Changes

Hello again!

I'm back from my break with another series for you to read, as promised. The first book of Pale Lights, titled 'Lost Things', will be debuting on 26th just as planned. It's been pretty great to work on and I hope you'll be as taken with reading the series as I have been with writing it!

With a new series I'm also making a few changes, both to the Patreon and the update schedule. I'll be updating once weekly, on Fridays, with chapters equal to or larger than the 'large' chapters of the Guide. (That is to say, 5k words or more.) 

It's a smaller amount than usual, I'm aware, but that's because there's some pretty exciting stuff in the works for A Practical Guide to Evil that requires me to spend time on the series still. I was hoping to have announcements to make over the break, but it'll have to be a little longer yet.

As for the Patreon itself, instead of extra chapters or the votes being a patron now grants you access to three advance chapters on the Patreon site. In practical terms, you'll be three weeks ahead of the public site. For those of you worrying of gated content, there's nothing to worry about: it's all going on the public site eventually, this is only reading ahead.

I've also introduced membership tiers instead of leaving the old system, as it makes it easier to regulate who has access to what and allays some concerns about fairness. 

That's the sum of the changes, though, and while I've got you here I might as well make it worth your while. The first two chapters of Pale Lights are already out on the site, but here's an early sneak peek of the third!

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The Bluebell was a sturdy old cog, its sail painted the black of the Watch.

Tristan was the first to arrive, which went against him. The sailors on watch were asleep at their posts, napping on crates yet to be loaded, and they’d not been pleased to be woken up. Even less pleased had been their officer, a one-armed crone named Celipa who’d had to be fetched from her bed since she was the one with the roster.

“You look like you’re fresh off the street, rat,” she glared.

“You have the eyes of an eagle, tia,” Tristan flattered. “A rat is what I am, and like one I will disappear quietly into your hold should you let me.”

Her mood was not improved, sadly, and neither was his since Fortuna was now snickering behind him.

“If his name isn’t on the roster, throw him into the sea,” Celipa ordered her men. “I don’t care if you beat him first. Or take his cabinet.”

By the unpleasant smiles on the face of those two well-built sailors, he would be beaten bloody given half a chance. Charming. It was still better than to stay out in the Murk and risk the Hoja Roja catching his tail. They wouldn’t stop at bruises.

“Who are you supposed to be, rat?” the crone asked.

“Tristan Abrascal,” he charmingly smiled.

She was, again, visibly unimpressed. Her lips quirked into a nasty little number as she trailed her finger down the roster, sneaking an expectant glance at him, but then she froze.

“On there, yes?” Tristan pressed.

The old woman looked him up and down, disbelieving.

“Whose brat are you?” Celipa asked. “You must have blood in the black.”

“My blood is buried shallow, tia,” Tristan replied, smiled turned sharp. “May I come aboard or not?”

The crone snorted, but he knew put-on when he saw it. Something had spooked her.

“Go on, then,” Celipa said. “Down in the hold, you can claim a cot if it’s on the ground.”

“Much obliged,” the thief smiled.

She turned to spit into the waters of the Shoal.

“If I see you try to get into a crate, rat, you’ll get that beating you just ducked,” the crone warned.

It was not the warmest welcome Tristan had ever received, but it was far from the worst. The cog was mostly empty, its crew out in the city, but an armed man pointed him down the two sets of stairs to the hold after eyeing him suspiciously. There were a few sailors sleeping in cots down there, but otherwise it was only a few crates and empty room. Cogs were trading vessels, he knew, but this one looked made to ferry men instead. Tristan stepped about quietly, looking for an empty cot with a wall at its back. Fortuna had been pleased with the amusement of watching him get browbeaten earlier, but now that it had passed the goddess was remembering to be offended on his behalf.

“At her age,” Fortuna mused, “it would take only a slip to break her hip.”

“So I can sprain an ankle before taking the trials?” Tristan murmured, careful not to wake a sailor as he shrugged of his cabinet’s leather straps and set it down. “I think not.”

The luck always went hardest after him when it was used to hurt another.

“Every slight should be avenged, no matter how small,” Fortuna said, tone disapproving.

He rolled his eyes at her. Even destitute gods breathed arrogance, never learning the beggar’s virtues. It was in their nature, Tristan had come to suspect, and the nature of gods did not change. Fortuna was the same now as when he’d first met her, nothing more than a terrified boy on the run. The years they’d shared had changed her not a whit.

“I’ll think on it,” he lied.

She huffed at him.

“Sometimes I think your blood is cold as a lizard’s,” she complained. “Does nothing move you to revenge?”

Tristan smiled, thinking of the five names carved into the marrow of his bones. His List.

“Only the one thing,” he answered. “And it is very far from this boat.”