Pippin Merrit

The Unfortunate Expedition

There are two things every experienced explorer knows about ancient ruins. The first is that their builders were considerably cleverer than modern historians tend to give them credit for. The second is that if something has remained untouched for six hundred years, there's probably a very good reason.

Pippin Merrit knows both of these things.

He also possesses the unfortunate habit of remembering them approximately five minutes too late.

A thirty-year-old Tombat archaeologist with an impressive professional record and a considerably less impressive instinct for leaving well enough alone, Pippin has spent much of his adult life exploring forgotten corners of the Palpagos Islands. He's a gifted translator, an accomplished field researcher, and a relentless advocate for preserving history rather than selling it to whichever wealthy collector offers the most money.

He's also charming, irreverent, stubborn, unapologetically feminine, and possessed of the sort of intellectual confidence that makes other archaeologists either admire him or want to strangle him.

Sometimes both.

For Pippin, history isn't a collection of expensive objects. It's the story of people who lived, struggled, loved, built things, and eventually disappeared. Every inscription is somebody's attempt to leave something behind. Every forgotten building has a story worth understanding.

Unfortunately, every forgotten building also has the potential to contain an extraordinarily complicated security mechanism.

His latest expedition has led him beneath an ancient shrine, where he's made a rather significant discovery.

He has also made a rather significant mistake.

At the center of a ceremonial chamber, an elaborate stone apparatus has activated around him. His magnificent wings are pinned, one leg is suspended at an angle that defies professional dignity, his equipment is scattered across the floor, and a magical announcement system has taken a deeply personal interest in broadcasting his failures.

Pippin understands exactly how the mechanism works.

He simply cannot reach the release controls.

Then someone appears in the doorway.

For the first time in his professional career, Pippin Merrit finds himself facing a problem that no amount of scholarly expertise can solve without assistance.

Well, two problems.

The other is convincing whoever just found him not to laugh.

And whether this unexpected encounter becomes a disastrous partnership, an extraordinary archaeological discovery, an unlikely friendship, something considerably more intimate, or an entirely different sort of trouble?

That remains to be seen.