Welcome back to Love Bytes! A couple of years ago, I promised you steampunkery and I’m finally at it! I’m currently writing a young adult Gaslamp Fantasy (working title “Ella’s Law”) with a heroine, of all people!

Writing a female main character is new to me and, truth be told, I’m nervous about it. My saving grace is that I have an awesome role model to follow in Sara Ella. While Ella is shy, like Sara, she is not to be toyed with. She is on a mission and she won’t be dissuaded irrespective of the challenges she faces… the most annoying of which is falling in love.

What is gaslamp fantasy, you ask? Gaslamp fantasy is Steampunk‘s more magically-inclined cousin. It’s a subgenre of fantasy with a setting that is clearly recognizable as the real-world 19th or very early 20th century. The key difference between gaslamp fantasy and steampunk is that steampunk focuses on alternate developments in technology (and need not have any magic at all), while gaslamp fantasy focuses on supernatural elements (and need not have any technology that didn’t actually exist). Yet, the two can overlap, especially with Magitek and in Phlebotinum-Induced Steampunk.

Please do not confuse gaslamp fantasy with “gaslighting” which is a form of psychological thriller.

In Ella’s Law, Ella’s world is one set in an Edwardianesque era, but in an alternate universe: one where the fae rule the earth. It’s an action-packed adventure, contains a heartrending moment or two, but I promise a happy ending.

I’m also continuing my work on Grotesque… which seems to be turning into quite the epic story.

Ella’s Law draft blurb:

Time stopped during the Edwardian era. No one knows exactly when because there was no one left to ask. Dark and foreboding, 16-year-old Ella’s perilous world is ruled by the High Court of Fairy. The only queen in existence is ruthless, labefaction runs rampant, and steam powers what is left of the world.

Had Ella been born of the High Court, she would have been expected to do nothing more than pour an elegant cup of tea, wave a wand, and catch a rich partner. Alas, she was not, and her capabilities lay outside the walls of Fairy in the Roguelands—so named because one had no alternative but to be rogue—if one survived. Regrettably, most did not.

Ella is the reluctant defender of strowlers and rufflers—who really are not—and being a young fae of resources and cunning intellect, she is determined to turn fortune on its head by restoring magic to the Roguelands. She transforms herself, and soon a mysterious new leader rises and renascence ensues.

When she meets Law, a forest scoundrel, she realizes her talents encompass more than the mere protection of outcasts. They may, in fact, help her realize her dreams… but sometimes the closest friendships suffer the greatest tragedies before fortune befalls them.

Ella’s Law unedited excerpt:

Gathering of Supernatural Leaders

Great Palace, high in the clouds over London

Sixteen-year-old Ella spied the gathering, unseen from the balcony above. Sir Hopperton Sprocket, her mechanical parrot, ever-perched on her shoulder.

“What are they saying?”

“If you’d shut your beak and pay attention, you’d hear them, Sprocket,” she hissed.

High King Darling of the Seelie Court all but levitated from his seat, his furry jet brows knitting in anger. “The humans have filled the earth with metals! They travel in great flying machines of iron, steel, and brass! There are rumors of a thing referred to as an automobile! A four-wheeled metal device powered by steam to travel along the ground! Human disease explodes in the cities and humans are dying! Our only hope is human children and even they now work in the factories! They no longer laugh, they no longer believe in us! The humans have fled the fields! Agriculture is on its deathbed and our mounds have died! We’ve been forced into the clouds to save ourselves from blasted metals! Unless we find a way to abolish them, we’ll continue to fade! We simply won’t survive! You are our queen! We need protection! We demand you do something immediately!”

“What do you propose?” Great Queen Sira asked in a steely voice.

“A spell to rid the humans of metals!”

Cheers and shouts filled the great chamber.

Queen Sira glanced at Llyr and her nervousness quavered on the air. “Absurd. We’re forbidden to tamper with the humans’ existence.”

“An equitable resolution! The humans have tampered with ours!” King Jeffrey of the Unseelie Court squealed, his belly jiggling like Jell-O. His hideous pastimes among the humans were well known to the supernatural. His evil forays—not to mention, his appetite for human babies—had embittered their peril among the humans.

“You would do nothing short of condemning us to the hellhounds of the wild hunt,” Sandalio, king of the werewolves, said evenly. He turned to Queen Sira. “What of Lady Ella’s inventions?”

Queen Sira bristled. “My niece has an insipid mind and will never produce anything of value in that chamber she refers to as a laboratory.”

Ella’s anger rose. She was anything but ignorant and had fashioned many a useful device, some of which the queen herself used.

“How dare you suggest a crossbreed to resolve our problem,” King Darling sneered at King Sandalio.

Not terribly original, Ella thought with contempt.

“How rude!” Sprocket exclaimed.

“Hush!” Ella hissed again as she returned her attention to the proceedings below.

“She’s nothing but a three-pence mongrel!” King Jeffrey shouted.Queen Sira’s anger became large on the air. “Need I remind you, Jeffrey, it is a member of my family of whom you speak?”

Court members cringed at his words and fell silent as the air thickened in anticipation of Queen Sira’s foul temperament. “Use that term or anything remotely like it again when referring to a member of my family and I’ll seal your mouth shut for a year and cast you from this gathering.” She turned to the conclave of court families. “I agreed to this unscheduled gathering out of courtesy and to hear viable suggestions with respect to our dire circumstances! Rather, I have heard nothing but puerile, derogatory criticism of Ella’s unfortunate pedigree! Put your feeble minds together and suggest something viable!” she shrieked.

King Sandalio leaned forward in his throne-like chair. “As I see it, Ella being part human is to our advantage. She has a comprehensive understanding of both human and supernatural constitutions, and a creative mind. If memory serves, she has also had the occasion to observe the humans’ practices in the sciences and medicine. Who better than Ella to aid us in this time of ruinous need?”

High King Darling made to speak and Llyr silenced him with a raised hand. “Ella be the only of ye who can visit the human without peril. She study they ways. She be intimate with they science. Ye will give she due on me say-so.” The sea god had the ability to decimate their existence in the blink of an eye and the members of the gathering fell silent. Except for King Jeffrey.

“It’s only a matter of time before you no longer have the power to lord over us! What then, Sea God? What happens when all cease to worship you?” Jeffrey flouted.

Heightened murmurs filled the air.

Llyr ignored Jeffrey.

High King Darling mustered his courage. “Although stated rather impolitely, he has a point, Llyr. What happens to us when you’re gone, and our demise is left in the hands of a hybrid?”

Llyr’s blue eyes narrowed on King Darling. “I not be fadin’ in ye time of existence.”

“He lies!” Jeffrey yelled. “I say we worship another! One who will change our fate!”

Murmurs became shouts and slurs, and some stomped their feet.

“If left to you, Jeffrey, supernatural and human alike would worship the Dark,” Sandalio criticized.

“Exactly!”

The chamber fell into an uncomfortable silence once more.

High King Darling gathered himself again. “This gathering is to discuss our immediate peril, and not whom we worship.”

“With a mongrel in charge of our metal sickness, we must discuss whom we worship! We’re fools not to worship a god who will change our fate! Chthonians are more powerful than Primordials because the humans still believe in them! I say we worship one of them!” Jeffrey ranted.

Murmurs filled the vast chamber and Llyr’s irritation rose on the air. The room fell silent under the sheer weight of his unrivaled power. “Ye be a mooncalf to think a Chthonian more powerful than a Primordial, and ye do well to recall that ye existence be bound to whomever ye worship. Do ye truly wish ye great queen be bound to one of the Dark?”

The audience erupted with varied shouts and questions. “Nay!” “Aye!” “Will it help us?”

Disappointment filled Llyr’s face. “Ye will give Ella she due lest ye suffer me wrath,” he said solemnly.

Queen Sira turned to him, “Ella’s contraptions most certainly will not save us.”

Llyr turned intense eyes to her. “Ye challenge me wisdom? Do ye truly mean to, Queen?”

She swallowed hard and turned away, his ruthlessness plain as a metal-spiked aura around him.

High King Darling began to plead. “Llyr, please, you can’t expect us to abide half-blood filth.”

Silence rang in the chamber like a gong, tension heavy on the air.

“Ye do well to curb ye tongue, High King. Ella be no more unclean than ye own princess.”

Murmurs grew, and someone shouted, “The princess be full fae!”

“Aye, she be, but she not be bred of ye sweet Seelie Court. She bear a taint, eh, High King?” Llyr’s tone was soft but rife with derision.

High King Darling flushed a bright yellow and evaded the question. “At the very least, you must permit us to put forth alternative ideas for consideration.”

Llyr was thoughtful for a long moment. “So mote it be.”

Queen Sira was certain no one knew what to do. Thus, Llyr had condemned the realm’s only hope for survival to a part-human creature. She gathered her composure and stood. “I hold the preeminent right to put forth a solution. Kings and Queens of the High Court, keep that in mind when presenting suggestions for consideration. This gathering is closed and sealed under oath of silence.” She departed with a cursory bow to Llyr, but to no other monarch in the gathering.

On a stool at a high table in her laboratory, Ella sat with her head in her hands and despaired. She wished King Sandalio hadn’t advocated for her.

Keenly fascinated by the near-forbidden subject of science, and disgusted by the turgid, dreary ways of the supernatural, Ella had devoted herself to the study of the humans’ knowledge since she’d learned to read their letters. Thereby, she was more than a little acquainted with the very alchemy that could be applied to everyday life. Yet she hadn’t the vaguest idea what to put forth as a remedy.

Metal sickness was a dreadful condition that settled in one’s very essence and then ate at it until you went properly mad. By human clocks, it took all of six weeks to bring one to the brink of fading. Not a single soul had found a way to treat it, let alone cure it.

Worse yet, the supernatural, steeped in the arcane, were unwilling to change, and even more unwilling to advance social order. Their existence had stalled in charms, spells, enchantments, and the like—magic, the basis for all beliefs, was slowly killing them. Their inability to adapt to metals, a perfect example. They wouldn’t accept a treatment or cure that didn’t include magic even if she could put forth a suggestion.

In the end, the gathering had solved nothing. Their destiny now lay in the hands of the spell casters or some god’s arbitrary change of fate, for she had yet to discover a remedy for the faults in the constitution of the supernatural—either inherited or acquired.

See you back here next month on Sunday, June 17^th! And thanks for reading my books!

About Cody Kennedy

Cody is an author who lives, most of the time, on the east coast of the United States. Cody also writes adult mystery thrillers, fantasy, science fiction, and romance as Aisling Mancy.

Raised on the mean streets and back lots of Hollywood by a Yoda-look-alike grandfather, Cody doesn’t conform, doesn’t fit in, is epic awkward, and lives to perfect a deep-seated oppositional defiance disorder. In a constant state of fascination with the trivial, Cody contemplates such weighty questions as If time and space are curved, then where do all the straight people come from? When not writing, Cody can be found taming waves on western shores, pondering the nutritional value of sunsets, appreciating the much-maligned dandelion, unhooking guide ropes from stanchions, and marveling at all things ordinary.

Cody’s Facebook, Twitter @CodyKAuthor, Pinterest, Tumblr, Google+, Ello,
Goodreads, Medium, Booklikes, and read my free serial story, Fairy.

Find Ash on blog, Twitter @AislingMancy, Facebook, Google+, Goodreads, Booklikes,
Dreamspinner Press Author Page, and Amazon
and Ash does respond to emails because, after all, it is all about you, the reader.

Safe and Slaying Isidore’s Dragons are being translated
into French for a December 2nd release!

Pssst. Click on the captioned title of each book to read the first chapter!