The leprechaun was hiding behind a fern that was much too small for him.
“Eh, teh heh,” he said when the two girls discovered him.
“Where’s me pie?”
There was no pie.
There were, however, two girls with a wish to spend and very little practice thinking through consequences.
The red-haired one leaned forward so quickly her curls bounced.
“Okay.
Money, flight, invincibility?”
“You always say that,” her dark-haired friend said.
She adjusted her glasses and eyed the little man’s green hat.
“Think bigger.”
They were both young enough to believe that bigger was a direction rather than a warning.
The redhead studied the light caught in the clearing, the drifting seeds, the impossible little stranger.
Then she grinned.
“We wish for flying balloon powers!
To never get hurt!
Just imagine how fun that would be.”
The leprechaun’s smile slipped.
“Don’t say ol’ Lincoln didn’t warn ya.”
He snapped his fingers.
For one breath, the whole forest seemed to inhale.
The girls rose from the moss, weightless.
The redhead laughed.
Her friend grabbed her wrist, and then she was laughing too.
“I feel floaty!”
“Yep,” Lincoln said.
A pair of balloon animals formed beneath them, glossy and bright, carrying them between the trees.
They disappeared into a storm of color.
Lincoln watched until they were gone, then lowered the brim of his hat.
The girls would later describe that afternoon as the beginning of a long, weird journey toward witchcraft, selfishness, and sky sorcery.
They would also agree on one point.
It was awesome.
All of the books are set in the same fictional universe.
They’re all connected