Ebook and paperback: https://books2read.com/TheThirdWish

Spies, aliens, trolls, wizards and a disowned prince use a time machine, to improve their place in history, but Levi Jacobs stands in their way, despite having just lost his parents in war. Will he stop them or will the time travelers kill his father at a pivotal moment, on which the fate of the galaxy hangs?

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#PennedPossibilities 1018 — MC POV: Tell us about the first time you felt shame.

[Bolt:] By this, I think you mean humiliation being caught having done something foolish†. At the age of thirty, I realize I've been immensely stupid and foolish but was too prideful to see it. You have to admit it to be ashamed, right? I'd say that first time was at 17 when I paid my hard save allowance as initiation fee and went through the initiation flights testing for the Hauler's Guild, only to be told when I passed with a good score that they did not admit women. Worse, the men showed me where it was written in the guidebook given me, the one I'd stupidly not read because I thought I knew it all. I felt so ashamed, I told none of my friends in the flight and track club, pretending not to hear them, running when I realized they made a small party for me, finally getting angry with them. If you heard I'd cried, you're wrong. I'm more ashamed now that I threw a brick through the Guild's window and then rolled a van down the hill…

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†Bolt is defining this because shame and shaming are loaded words, sometimes with moral connotations. Moral connotations would never occur to her.

[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]

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#WordWeavers 2026.05.18 — If your antagonist had to arrange a contest they knew they could win, what would it be?

Rainy Days is the main series antagonist who appears in most stories. She would find it pointless to arrange a contest she knew she could win. Unless she were fighting an actual enemy and winning would be the point, her philosophy being you always win wars unless losing better suits your goals; such a contest wouldn't be friendly as this question implies. Rainy Days arranges contests most often to teach one or more of her many (often unwilling) students, occasionally to test and learn something about them. She'd be overjoyed were one to beat her, ecstatic to find someone she could eventually rely on, maybe one day replace her. Most often, however, she's sparring with her pretorians, whom she inevitably beats. (There are scenes with them injured after training). She does not spar with them in expectation that they might grow able to best her. She does this so they are familiar with what she can do and thus can best protect her blind spots and vulnerabilities. They are her bodyguard, after all.

Encountering the devil-girl in the current WIP, Rainy Days'' contest would emphasize thaumaturgy. She wants the devil-girl to succeed her. Rainy Days wants her as a student as the devil-girl demonstrates a talent for the arcane that might actually exceed Rainy Days.

The devil-girl is convinced Rainy Days is evil. She will think she's going to die.

[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]

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