Balance of Mayhem (Mayhem Wave #4)

Balance of Mayhem is the fourth installment of Mayhem Wave

or five years, Dorothy O’Neill has had someone else living in her brain. Strontium, the witch who sacrificed herself to save Dorothy and the two children in her care, saved her own consciousness by fleeing into Dorothy’s mind, a tactic she thought would be temporary. Despite the best efforts of the Council of Mages to regenerate Strontium’s body and restore her to it, that state of affairs is starting to look permanent. So, when an opportunity presents itself to Dorothy to free Strontium and have her own mind to herself again, it sorely tempts her. All she has to do is embark on a quest with Felicia Kestrel, an assassin who has been until this point Dorothy’s mortal enemy.

Felicia seeks a scale from the armor of the legendary dragon Hypatia, a relic of the non-real world she believes has survived the Mayhem Wave, and whose sole purpose is to heal. She needs a witch to help her employ its magic and use it to heal herself of an undisclosed malady, and claims it has the power to restore Strontium to her own body. Joining her will make Dorothy a fugitive. Passing up this opportunity could mean spending the rest of her life with Strontium exiled in her head.

Enlisting the aid of a pixie to protect her, and armed with a magical sword, Dorothy leaves her home, trusting that the woman who tried to kill her once won’t do so again.  The quest for the Scale proves trickier than expected, with dangers beyond Dorothy’s experience, and the threat of an unknown enemy who apparently desires very badly for her to fail. Each step along the journey brings her closer to getting her life back and freeing her friend, but also brings new and contradictory information about the object they seek, and Felicia’s reasons for seeking it may be far more sinister than she has revealed.

On May 30, 2004, the world suddenly transformed into a bizarre landscape populated with advanced technology, dragons, magic and destruction.  Now what few humans remain must start over, braving wilderness, dangerous beasts, and new and powerful enemies.