Self-Same Metal Fantasy Sequel Saint-Seducing Gold
In February, io9 shared an excerpt from That Self-Same Metal, the debut fantasy novel from Brittany N. Williams—who drew upon her background as a classically trained actor to weave its Shakespearean tale. Things are even more perilous for her uniquely gifted metal-working heroine in the sequel, as this exclusive peek at Saint-Seducing Gold will reveal.
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Here’s a summary of Saint-Seducing Gold:
There’s danger in the court of James I. Magical metal-worker Joan Sands must reforge the Pact between humanity and the Fae to stop the looming war. As violence erupts across London and the murderous spymaster Robert Cecil closes in, the Fae queen Titanea coerces Joan into joining the royal court while holding her godfather prisoner in the infamous Tower of London. Now Joan will have to survive deadly machinations both magical and mortal all while balancing the magnetic pull of her two loves—Rose and Nick—before the world as she knows it is destroyed forever.
“It’s incredibly difficult to write a second novel because the stakes escalate when it’s a sequel,” author Williams explained in a statement provided to io9. “You have a crew of readers who you love and you want to exceed their expectations. I’m a stronger writer now than when I worked on That Self-Same Metal so meeting that challenge has been more fun than daunting. Joan’s struggles are worse in this book, so I think she’d disagree. You’ll see in this excerpt that she’s not done fighting for her life and the tactics she used to survive Auberon won’t necessarily help her here. Exciting news for readers, terrible times for Joan.”
Williams continued. “Working on this book was such an adventure. I spent almost all of my work time immersed in Shakespeare. I was playing Hotspur in Henry IV, Part 1 while I was writing the first draft then I was editing as I directed A Midsummer Night’s Dream then performing as Olivia in Twelfth Night. It was trippy and overwhelming to be surrounded by the bard from so many angles but it was also perfect timing. There’s a particular scene that was totally inspired—and written during—my rehearsal. I wonder if readers will spot it.”
Check out the full cover—the book design is by Chelsea Hunter—followed by an exciting excerpt (two words: goblin fight!) from Saint-Seducing Gold.
Chapter 9: Choke Their Art
Joan’s father eventually joined them in the sitting room, the shadow of guilt surrounding him a palpable thing. She’d seen James clasp his hand as they looked over a page together.
She hated for her father to blame himself when she’d been the reason Robert Cecil had invaded their home twice now. She wished she could repay the insults and threats he’d lobbed at her family but she doubted even one of the queen’s ladies could wield such power.
Her mother flitted between them all, noting who among their list was also a child of Elegua.
She paused, hands crinkling the paper she held. “We should have shared this with everyone in November,” she said abruptly.
“Mother.” Joan touched her mother’s wrists. “We thought there was no need because the threat was gone. But we can tell them now.”
Her mother nodded and unclenched her fists. Her expression remained tense but Joan accepted her small victory.
Despite the dark clouds of fear and shame that loomed over them, the family’s plan came together rapidly after the secretary of state’s departure. Avalee, James, and her parents would warn their community of both Cecil’s stolen knowledge and the escalating Fae threat using her mother’s doorways. Unlike Ogun, Elegua had spread his blessings to many within the city. Once word reached his children, they’d be able to pass it along using their doorway magic to move more swiftly than the wind.
Joan’s role was to retrieve her godfather’s Ogun pot from his workshop. She’d quickly offered to walk in order to reserve her mother’s abilities for their messages—though her suggestion held another purpose.
She feared what she’d find at Baba’s workshop since he had been arrested two months ago. She wasn’t prepared to transport instantly into the wreckage of his life. The long walk would allow her to brace for whatever she found. She rounded the corner of his street. His combined home and tailor’s shop came into view. An open sign hung in the door’s window and a warm light spilled out from behind the curtains. Something in her chest unclenched at the sight. Fear had kept her from coming to this place. The thought of the home her godfather maintained with such a fastidious eye for detail and cleanliness being left abandoned and in disarray had filled her with dread. Seeing it damaged would have made his absence so much more real. That possibility had dogged her steps even now, and she’d hesitated as she’d turned onto his street.
But everything was as it would have been if Baba had been there, and she knew she had Pearl to thank for that. Joan cautiously opened the front door, the bell above it cheerily announcing her arrival with a jangle.
“One moment, please,” a husky voice called out from behind a curtain that Joan knew led back into Baba Ben’s main workspace. Soon after, a woman, hunched with age, stepped into the main room. She had deep brown skin and stark white hair neatly braided and pinned around her head, and her entire being shone with the glow that marked her as one of the Fae.
“Ah, Joan.” Her eyes softened. “I’ve been hoping you’d come visit.” She held her arms out, and Joan leaned into her warm embrace.
Joan let herself enjoy Pearl’s hug for a long moment before pulling away. “They haven’t tried to arrest you too, have they?”
“Oh, they have, child, but every time they’re here, I get them so turned around they forget what they’ve come to do.” Pearl snorted out a laugh.
Joan grinned back at her. She should’ve known Pearl would use every bit of Fae magic she knew to keep Baba’s home safe in his absence. The love those two shared was as deep as any bond between mother and son. Joan wondered if this was the first time they had ever been apart. The thought broke her heart even more.
“I need to retrieve Baba’s . . .” Joan paused, reconsidering her words.
She knew Pearl would never intentionally betray Baba but Titanea might not give the old Fae woman a choice.
“I need to retrieve something,” she said simply.
Pearl nodded, her gaze conveying her understanding. She glanced at the door to the workshop before waving Joan back toward it. “Go find what you’re looking for.”
Joan heard the creak of the knob behind her and rushed through the curtain into the back room just as the bell announced a customer.
“Good day, ma’am,” Pearl said. “How can I help?”
Joan lost the rest of the conversation as she moved through her godfather’s workshop. Candles illuminated the large space brightly, a necessity for the delicate art sewing, cutting, and embroidering. That Pearl kept it so well lit in Baba’s absence warmed Joan’s heart and pained her in equal measure. A massive mirror trimmed in intricate swirls and twists of silver and gold leaned against one wall. Joan ran her fingers across the metal as she passed it and felt it sing to her softly. The Sandses had gifted the piece to Baba Ben two years ago; Joan’s father had even let her do most of the metal detailing along it. She’d fashioned and refashioned the swirl of Ben’s name that ran along its top about seven times before she was even mildly satisfied.
But the work had been worth it for the joyful look on Ben’s face when they’d delivered it. Her chest felt tight, and she forced herself to keep moving.
She needed to be quick with her task. She shifted around his long worktables, covered in fabric and unfinished garments and organized in a loose H shape. Her skirts, too wide to pass easily, knocked a bolt of gold velvet to the floor. Joan cursed and knelt to pick it up.
“You’ll find nothing here! Leave this place.” Pearl’s angry voice carried into the workshop.
Joan felt the heat of Ogun’s presence blaze to life in her chest as Pearl’s body came flying through the curtain. She slammed into one of the tables, rolling across its top and dropping to the floor with a grunt. Her form shimmered and shrank, her face becoming wider and rounder as the tips of her ears elongated into sharp points. She locked suddenly emerald eyes—their true color—with Joan, who still crouched behind another worktable.
“Run—that goblin doesn’t know you’re back here,” Pearl whispered as the curtain was ripped away from the doorway.
Joan glanced up as another short form stepped into the doorway, the top of its head barely clearing the height of the tables.
The creature shifted into the light, revealing pale blue skin stretched over a wiry frame and a head like a large toad with bulbous eyes perched on top. “Your misplaced loyalty is disgusting,” it sneered in a flutelike voice.
“Leave this place,” Pearl said, pushing herself up to her feet. “You’ll find nothing you seek here.” She gave Joan a pointed look before she moved out of sight.
The creature laughed like the clanging of bells. “I followed the girl here. You’d die to protect a mortal?”
There was the skittering of feet on the rush-strewn floor and Pearl disappeared completely from Joan’s sight. Pearl shrieked. Fabric tumbled to the floor as the goblin slammed her down on one of the tables. Something squelched and Pearl cried out again.
Joan flicked her wrist. Bia launched from her arm, enlarging to full size. She snatched the sword from the air as she leapt to her feet. “Get out of my godfather’s shop.”
The goblin looked up from where it crouched half atop Pearl and sneered at Joan.
“Release Pearl and leave this place, as she said.” Joan sent iron flowing from her fingertips and down along the sword. She stepped closer, touching the sharp edge against the creature’s neck. “The next point I press won’t be with words.”
She doubted this Fae would still want to fight when Joan already held it at such a disadvantage. If the creature surrendered and let them be, Joan wouldn’t follow after it.
The goblin’s gaze shifted along the blade then then locked on Joan. A long tongue shot out, tasting the air as the rest of its head turned to follow. It was much smaller than Joan, its frame lean and wiry, but something about the creature—
It batted Joan’s sword away and dove for her. Joan stumbled back as the impossibly heavy weight of the creature rammed into her chest. The goblin’s long fingers stretched toward Joan’s throat. Joan blocked them, flipping Bia to slice across its arms. It leaned back and Bia cut through empty air. The creature wrapped its legs around Joan’s waist, throwing its weight backward and flinging her across the room.
Joan slammed against the opposite wall. Something popped in her shoulder, the sudden pain shattering her focus.
“Joan!” Pearl called.
She looked up and raised her forearm, coating it in iron just as the goblin clawed at her face. Its hand caught Joan’s metal-covered wrist. The scent of burnt flesh filled the air. She ducked her head to the side as the goblin’s other claw scratched along her temple. Joan flinched but sent iron over her palm. She grabbed the creature’s wrist, its skin scorching beneath her touch. The horrid stench intensified, but Joan tightened her grip as the goblin screeched and thrashed. Grunting, she hurled it across the room with all her strength.
Joan pushed herself upright, panting and gasping, but the goblin was on her again. They both tumbled backward and slammed against Baba Ben’s enormous mirror. The glass shattered. Shards rained down over them as they grappled. Joan lost her grip on Bia and the sword clattered across the floor.
The goblin’s hands seemed to be everywhere at once, its speed incredible. It was all Joan could do to bat each strike away and keep her wounds shallow. Bia was too far away to grab, but if she could get a hand against the mirror’s metal frame, she could run this beast through. She stretched her fingers toward one side, barely reaching the cool steel before she had to block another hit. She stretched for it again and felt the slightest chill as she came closer the edge of the frame.
She couldn’t hope to manipulate the metal without touching it, but she still strained for it. Joan felt something inside her snap taut then stretch just that little bit farther. Her head ached with the pressure of it, but she felt if she just pushed a little harder, something would happen.
Suddenly, a tiny sliver of the metal mirror wavered and reached back toward her. It wrapped around her fingertip as heat built in Joan’s chest.
The goblin clawed at Joan’s throat. She grabbed its wrist again to stop the creature from ripping her whole neck open. The warmth disappeared as Joan lost her focus and the mirror went back to normal. All at once she felt the hot trickle of blood along her neck, her face, and her arms, everywhere the goblin had attacked her.
She glimpsed Bia on the floor and well out of her reach before she had to bat away another attack. No matter. She only needed enough of an opening to form her machete and she could end this.
Joan coated her fist in iron and struck the goblin across the face. She let the metal flow down along the same hand to form a blade and flip it in her grip to stab into the creature’s side. The goblin caught Joan’s wrist mid-swing and, looking directly into her eyes, wrenched her arm forward with one hand.
Joan screamed as her shoulder was jerked out of the socket. The pain shoved everything else from her mind and the iron slipped back into her palm. The creature lifted Joan’s arm, sending searing bolts through her whole body. The goblin’s wide mouth spread into a smile. It drew its other hand back, claws extended. It gasped, eyes going wide, as Bia’s iron-coated blade jabbed through its stomach.
Joan looked up to see Pearl standing behind the goblin, face twisted in pain as she held the sword in both hands. This was just the distraction Joan needed.
She slapped her other hand against the mirror’s metal frame and felt it leap forward at her touch. The steel and gold flowed down around them in slithering tendrils that wrapped around the goblin, tying it and ripping the creature up and away from Joan. She leaned back as the goblin’s thrashing body was dragged over her head and bound tightly against the mirror’s empty wooden back.
Gasping, Joan scrambled to her feet. Bia’s hilt stuck out from where it had been stabbed through the goblin’s back. She grabbed it and felt the sword hiss in rage. A matching emotion welled up inside her, the throbbing pain in her shoulder feeding the flame.
How dare this creature destroy her godfather’s shop? How dare it attack them so? How dare it make her bleed?
Joan grunted and used all her strength to drive the sword upward, rending flesh and bone and dense muscle as she split the goblin in half.
She stepped back, taking in the bloody, bisceted corpse suspended against the warped and ruined mirror that she’d once put so much love into creating.
“Well, I doubt I could polish that out,” Pearl said as she stepped up beside Joan. She was wrapping clean muslin around her hands, which looked red and raw as her form shifted back to that of a glowing old woman. “Get what you’ve come for, child, and be on your way. I’ll take care of things here, as I always have.”
Joan glanced at the woman, the Fae, and felt the absolute truth in her words. “Thank you.” She looked at the mirror again, an ache filling her heart at having to desecrate something so beautiful and made with such love. “But I must ask you one favor before I go.”
“Of course, child. What is it?”
Joan gestured to the arm hanging limp and too long at her side. “Could you help me set my shoulder?”
Brittany N. Williams is a classically trained actress who studied musical theater at Howard University and Shakespearean performance at the Royal Central School of Speech & Drama in London. Previously she’s been a principal vocalist at Hong Kong Disneyland, a theater professor at Coppin State University, and made appearances in Queen Sugar and Leverage: Redemption. Her short stories have been published in the Gambit Weekly, Fireside Magazine, and the Star Wars anthology From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back.
Excerpt from Saint-Seducing Gold by Brittany N. Williams reprinted by permission of Amulet Books.
Saint-Seducing Gold by Brittany N. Williams will be released April 23, 2024; you can pre-order a copy here or here.
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