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by Fred Gracely (Author), Gill Donovan (Editor)
"Be thankful for the Verlokken who lives in your town, but maybe a few streets over or a couple of blocks down..."
Goffren (Goff in modern times) is the "ghost of Slaathwick," an orphaned teenage Verlokken boy with a complex and treacherous relationship with the magical realm. It causes him to end up in the thick of the worst of it, and he drags anyone foolish enough to be friends with him along for the ride. People stay clear of him, and he stays clear of them, living alone in a small broom closet in the Royal Kitchen with his pet rat, Felix. He'd found a family once, a brief stint of feeling loved and happy, but a Verlokken doesn't get to be happy. It ended in a horrible tragedy, thanks to him. Now, he keeps to himself, determined to never let that happen again.
When he reluctantly forms a friendship with a boisterous girl who performs at Royal Festivals and a stoic boy who is an apprentice Royal Magician, he pulls them along on a perilous effort to solve the mystery of strange murders at shimmering Castle Charmont and children being abducted from Slaathwick village and the outer Wicks.
On their fast-paced and treacherous adventure, they are almost eaten by a giant sea creature, barely escape a dark wizard's castle, are nearly killed by winged lizards, flee from a wizard-hating mob, travel through magical portals, and are marked for execution. Ultimately, in his darkest hour, when all hope seems lost, Goffren must cast his fate to the wind and embrace the full, immense, terrifying extent of his Verlokken nature as his only hope of avoiding horrible tragedy. Again.
