Your friend and mentor,
Jesse Layton.
Lex stared down at the letter in his hand. ‘Friend and mentor, my foot!’ he muttered darkly to himself.
He stood there a moment longer, waiting for the hot, horrible anger to sweep over him at the fact that someone had stolen from him for a change. But it never came. Instead, all he got was a strange feeling of thrilling excitement. What Jesse didn’t know was that Lex had an almost photographic memory and could therefore remember practically everything he’d read in the book. He also had the black Swann of Desareth, with which he should be able to track Jesse down. He would find the cowboy eventually and get his book back. After that
… if Jesse wanted to compete against Lex for the other Wishing Creatures out there, well… the cowboy would certainly be a worthy adversary, and Lex was in permanently short supply of those.
He read through the letter one more time, his smile growing wider at every word.
‘Perfect,’ Lex said gleefully as he put the letter in the safe and slammed the door shut. ‘Just what I always wanted: a brand new challenge. And with a half-decent opponent, too. Bring it on, Jesse. I’ll be ready for you.’