{"product_id":"merlins-apprentice-asif-shah-9798253090466","title":"Merlin's Apprentice: Magic Has a Price. He Was It.","description":"Wren is seventeen, broke, and the owner of inexplicably warm hands. He walks fourteen miles to apprentice with the most powerful sorcerer who ever lived. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eMerlin is drunk. Merlin is asleep. Merlin hasn't opened his mail in three years. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe kingdom of Thornhold - thousands of people who sleep safely because the things that would eat them are afraid of the thing in this house - is quietly falling apart. The wards are cracking. The debts are staggering. Three ancient witch-queens circle the borders. And the wizard's solution is to hire a teenager, hand him the keys, and go back to sleep. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWren came to learn magic. Instead, he sits down at a desk buried under years of unanswered letters and starts writing replies. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWithin months, the boy with the warm hands has become something he never intended - forging alliances, managing spies, negotiating with a debt collector whose patience has the texture of a threat. All behind the seal of a wizard who thinks he's signing grocery lists. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThen the war comes. Three witch-queens. Three kingdoms built on different flavors of emptiness. Armies that don't hesitate because hesitation requires emotion. Courts where every kindness is a transaction. Webs of power so tangled that enemies destroy themselves before anyone lifts a finger. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eMerlin won't get out of his chair. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eSo Wren fights the war himself - not with magic, but with letters and lies and math. The math always works. Three deaths here save three hundred there. A promise made now prevents a siege later. A man sent behind enemy lines is an acceptable cost. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eUntil the cost comes due. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eA dark fantasy about a sentient house that watches its keeper burn, a wizard who won't lift a finger until it's too late, and the quiet, devastating question no one asks the most competent person in the room: what is this doing to you?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Asif Shah\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9798253090466\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Independently Published\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 03\/21\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 156\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.48lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.33d","brand":"Asif Shah","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":49172816527615,"sku":"9798253090466","price":7.12,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/merlins-apprentice-asif-shah-9798253090466","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}