When Master Mechanic Mari and Mage Alain took down the Dark Mechanics and Dark Mages at Dorcastle, they thought they’d covered their involvement well enough to divert their Guilds’ suspicions. The assassins sent after them by their Guilds, which had trained them from childhood, indicate otherwise. Armed with the knowledge that their respective Guilds are now trying to kill them, and knowing their strengths are greater together, they reunite. Rumor has it the key to saving their world from the Guilds’ iron-fisted rule is in the dead city of Marandur. But before they can even attempt to traverse the empty wastelands and avoid the imperial guards surrounding Marandur, they’ll have to survive the Guilds’ agents, who are determined to capture them at any cost, and by any means necessary.

Dematr is a world ruled by the diametrically opposed Mage and Mechanic Guilds. For centuries, the two Great Guilds have been bitter rivals. But now a Storm approaches, one that could sweep away everything that humans have built. Only one person has any chance of uniting enough of the world behind to stop the Storm. Mari is a brilliant young Mechanic, just out of the Guild Halls, where she has spent most of her life learning how to run the steam locomotives and other devices of her Guild. Alain is the youngest Mage ever to learn how to change the world he sees with the power of his mind. Each has been taught that the works of the other's Guild are frauds. But when their caravan is destroyed, they must join forces. Their union could save the world from the approaching Storm, but it could also upend the Great Guilds who will stop at nothing to preserve their power. Mari and Alain will have to choose between protecting their lives and their Guilds, or risking everything to protect Dematr from the coming Storm.

Trapped within the dead city of Marandur, Master Mechanic Mari and Mage Alain must escape both merciless barbarians and the pitiless Imperial Legion. Beyond those dangers lie the mightiest and most unforgiving powers in the world of Dematr: the Great Guilds that rule the world with iron fists. Mari's Mechanics Guild and Alain's Mage Guild have always been enemies, but they are united in wanting to kill their rogue members before Mari can fulfill the ancient prophecy of being the one who will finally overthrow their power. Mari and Alain must risk those dangers because halfway across their world lies a place where truth has long been hidden. A place that could explain why their world's history begins abruptly, with no hints of what came before. A place where they might learn how the Mechanics Guild came to control all technology and how the Mages manage to alter reality temporarily. A place that might tell them how to achieve a task that appears to be impossible. Never before have a Mage and a Mechanic worked together, and their combined talents offer their only hope. But she and Alain must first survive the deadly and implacable Assassins of Altis.

A Storm that will wreck a world threatens Dematr. Only Mari, one of the Mechanics who control all technology through their Guild, has a chance to stop it. She and Mage Alain have survived numerous attempts to kill them and have gained many more followers, but the Storm of chaos, born of centuries of enslavement, grows ever closer. Mari leads an army now. She and Alain must fight together to bind back the Broken Kingdom and build a force strong enough to defeat the might of the Great Guilds. But the Storm has many Servants who seek to preserve or gain personal power or wealth, or fear the New Day that Mari seeks to bring to the world. And Mari knows that victory will mean nothing if the precious knowledge brought long ago to their world is destroyed. In order to save it, Alain and Mari will have to pierce through the heart of their enemies' power and confront once more a place of ancient nightmare.

"The world feels oddly strained, like a line pulled too taunt and apt to snap, smashing everything in its path." Master Mechanic Mari and Mage Alain have survived every attempt to stop them, but their enemies are determined to kill Mari, the only one who can save her world from a storm of destruction. As armies begin to gather and cities seethe with tension, Mari, Alain, and their friends must prepare to confront the storm in the place it first appeared: the broken kingdom of Tiae. The dangers facing them demand perilous raids, tough battles, and more than a little piracy. Beating the Mechanics Guild and the Mage Guild that have controlled the world of Dematr for centuries will require an unprecedented alliance under Mari's command of rebellious Mechanics, Mages, and common folk who know that together they can change the world, but separately they will all lose.

You’ve heard the story before: an orphaned boy, raised by a wise old man, comes to a fuller knowledge of his magic and uses it to fight the great evil threatening his world. But what if that hero were destined to become the new dark lord? The Academy of Chaenbalu has stood against magic for centuries. Hidden from the world, acting from the shadows, it trains its students to detect and retrieve magic artifacts, which it jealously guards from the misuse of others. Because magic is dangerous: something that heals can also harm, and a power that aids one person may destroy another. Of the academy’s many students, only the most skilled can become avatars—warrior thieves, capable of infiltrating the most heavily guarded vaults—and only the most determined can be trusted to resist the lure of magic. More than anything, Annev de Breth wants to become one of them. But Annev carries a secret. Unlike his classmates who were stolen as infants from the capital city, Annev was born in the village of Chaenbalu, was believed to be executed, and then unknowingly raised by his parents’ killers. Seventeen years later, he struggles with the burdens of a forbidden magic, a forgotten heritage, and a secret deformity. When Annev is subsequently caught between the warring ideologies of his priestly mentor and the Academy’s masters, he must finally decide whether to accept the truth of who he really is ... or embrace the darker truth of what he may one day become.

In Jack Campbell’s New York Times bestselling Lost Fleet series, Campbell takes his readers through a grand adventure in space. In Borrowed Time, seven stories take readers on an equally grand journey through time. A new author’s note accompanies each story. The centerpiece of Borrowed Time is “Betty Knox and Dictionary Jones in the Mystery of the Missing Teenage Anachronisms.” When you’ve traveled through time and are stuck in the body of your 15-year-old self, it isn’t the best time to have some other time travelers looking to kill you. Especially when the person who’s supposed to be keeping an eye out for the bad guys is stuck in his own 15-year-old body. And it’s 1964: when you’re both 15 and your parents don’t want you spending time alone, how are you going to save your lives? SFRevu called this story “one of the most enjoyable reads I’ve had in a long time.” In four interlinked short stories, Temporal Interventionists Tom and Pam meet cute, then work together to solve some of history’s greatest mysteries. Discover the real origin of the Spanish Flu. Learn why a massive and mysterious explosion in 1908 happened to occur in the world’s least-inhabited region. Consider the possibility that the development of ironclad warships by both the South and the North at the exact same time during the American Civil War might have been more than coincidence. And why don’t we know exactly who fired the Shot Heard Round the World, the lone gunshot that started the American Revolution? In “Joan,” Kate is a time-traveling researcher who’s gotten a little too close to Joan of Arc both in time and emotionally. With no distance, scientific or otherwise, what will happen when she has a chance to rescue Joan from being burnt at the stake? Our journey through time concludes with “Crow’s Feat,” when a skeptical writer goes back to Elizabethan England to discover the true author of Shakespeare’s plays. Borrowed Timeis the second in a series of short story collections from Jack Campbell.