Originally found in Enchantment Place, 8-2008 When a priceless magical jewel is stolen, Ausenda, who has no magical power, has to track it down before the thief uses the jewel for some unspeakable crime.
Author
Sarah A. Hoyt was born (and raised) in Portugal and now lives in Colorado with her husband, two sons, and a variable number of cats, depending on how many show up to beg on the door step. In between lays the sort of resume that used to be de-rigueur for writers. She has never actually wrestled alligators, but she did at one point very briefly tie bows on bags of potpourri for a living. She has also washed dishes and ironed clothes for a living. Worst of all she was, for a long time, a multilingual scientific translator. At some point, though, she got tired of making an honest living and started writing. She has over 30 published novels, in science fiction, fantasy, mystery, historical mystery, historical fantasy and historical biography. Her short stories have been published in Analog, Asimov's, Amazing Stories, Weird Tales, and a number of anthologies from DAW and Baen. Her space-opera novel Darkship Thieves was the 2011 Prometheus Award Winner, and the third novel in the series, A Few Good Men, was a finalist for the honor. She also won the Dragon Award for Uncharted (with Kevin J. Anderson.) a.k.a. Sarah D'Almeida a.k.a. Elise Hyatt a.k.a. Sarah Marqués
