Victor Poole

The Witch's Familiar Victor Poole

Griffith thought he had a wonderful life. Posing as a powerful apprentice to the magnificent Firth Stershall, traveling mage extraordinaire, Griffith works in total secrecy as a medium for the handsome old man, enjoying status, considerable prestige, and plenty of money. Traveling via ship to a famous magic festival with Firth, Griffith comes across a suspicious, cocky young man who accuses him in private of being a fraud. Griffith conjures borrowed magic from Firth to prove his ability, but the young man, Tom, scoffs and calls his bluff. When Tom threatens to inform his own guardian, a powerful witch, that Firth is traveling with a fraud, Griffith admits to being a secret familiar, confident that this will be the end of the conflict. Tom knows everything about mediums and familiars, having spent his entire life steeped in the arcane and buried to the gills in his witch's library, and when Tom makes an off-hand comment about Griffith's chaotic state of being, Griffith grows suspicious about what Firth has really been using him for during their secretive magical work sessions. Turning the tables on Tom and interrogating him, Griffith soon uncovers significant evidence that his life is not as it seems, that he is in incredible, constantly increasing danger, and that the impressive and seemingly wonderful old Firth, his guide and protector, is playing a wildly reckless game with his very soul. Trapped on a ship with Firth popping around corners and prying into his every move, Griffith races against time to find answers, protect himself and his new ally Tom, and win freedom from the suddenly upside down and sinister trappings of his previously comfortable life in the power of a possessive and suspicious Firth.