Woven From Clay

by Jenny Birch

Genres: YA Contemporary

Synopsis

In this fresh and imaginative contemporary fantasy, a golem must master the magic that binds her together and finds an unexpected ally in the mysterious boy sent to ensure her demise.

Terra Slater might not know anything about her birth family or where she comes from, but that’s never stopped her, and she fully intends her senior year to be her best yet. Until the dark and mysterious Thorne Wilder—a magical bounty hunter—moves to town, bringing revelations that wreck all of her plans.

When Terra learns she is a golem, not born but crafted from mud and magic by a warlock, her world is upended. Worse, Cyrus Quill, the warlock who made her, is a fugitive, on the run from the witches who want to hold him accountable for his past crimes. But Quill’s sentence is death, which would unravel the threads of magic that hold Terra—and all of the other golems that he crafted—together.

Desperate to save herself and her friends, Terra strikes a deal with Thorne and his coven to preserve the warlock’s life and his magic. If she can prove her worth to the coven by mastering the magic within her, the golems will survive. If she can’t, they’ll perish along with Cyrus. As Thorne helps her to see and manipulate the tapestry of magic that surrounds them, their unexpected alliance evolves into something more and Terra comes to understand the depths of her magic, her humanity, and her love for the people most important to her.

Release date: August 12, 2025

Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

Print pages: 368

Sample

I don’t know how far I have to fall, but I assume it’s going to hurt when I land. My body tenses against the impending impact—but it never comes. I’m cushioned, instead, by that whipping, gusting wind. It swirls around me, floats me back to the ground, and lays me there. My eyes stay trained on the sky, on the undulating air that looms over me, blocks me from escape.

Peripherally, I see Thorne race down the porch steps. “Please,” he pants. “Stop trying to run. We can talk about this, talk about what I need and about why you…” He seems to run out of words as he flaps his hand and skids to a stop a few feet from me. The hem of his shirt flutters in the unnatural breeze that I think is still circling the yard. But I can’t tell. I don’t know if I can trust what I’m feeling and seeing.

I feel like I’ve been drugged—and maybe I have been. I don’t know how or where or when, but there’s no other rational explanation for what is happening to me. Because if it’s not drugs, it means Thorne is using some kind of magic. Real, impossible, terrifying magic.

The thought lingers for half a heartbeat before it’s obliterated by a crashing realization: I should have listened to my dad when he told me the world wasn’t a safe place.

I curl into a tight ball, hide my head in my arms and wish I was smaller. I wish my bones weren’t so hard and unyielding. I wish I could melt and jet through the grass, slide to freedom so fast Thorne could never stop me. My breathing slows as I picture how easy this would be if I were a stream of water or a puddle of goo. If I could slither away so he’d never find me.

My vision is distorting now, maybe because my tears are coming harder. The world wavers, like it does when I open my eyes underwater at the pool. My breathing becomes clogged and phlegmy.

My skin feels soft and wet.

And then I’m doing it.

I’m sliding past Thorne, easing my way through a gap between the hard wind and soft grass. I keep my watery gaze trained on the clear sky, ignoring the mottled periphery of Thorne’s dark clouds.

I’m surprised and confused and I should try to figure out what’s happening now, but there’s a voice, louder than any other feeling, screaming at me that I’m close to my car, that I should get up and jump in. Desperately, I try to push myself to my feet.

But I can’t.

I don’t think I have feet anymore. In fact, I don’t think I have a body at all anymore.

I wished to be a puddle and, in some weird way, it feels like that’s what I’ve become.

I struggle against this impossible, oppressive thought until Thorne’s face swims into focus above me.

“You held out longer than I thought you would. Now, come back.”

I look up at him and try to blink, but nothing happens. I try to ask what he means, but all I can do is make a gross, wet, squelching noise.

He shuffles his feet. “Pull yourself back together. We need to talk.” He takes a step to the side and his shoe edges a little too close to my puddle.

It’s an odd, violating feeling, the way his foot sinks into my side. Or what I think should be my side, where my side is supposed to be. He doesn’t seem to notice that his foot is invading my innards as he crouches next to me. He examines what’s left of me with his forearms resting on his knees.

His hands dangle between his legs, a few inches above me. It would be so easy for him to plunge them into my center, right into my heart.

It’s that thought—the thought of not having a say in what happens to my body—that stirs me.

I think about my body, every inch of it, what it feels like, how it moves, how strong and capable it is. And then I get the weirdest drying-out feeling, like I’m being run through an industrial dryer.

My body feels crusted-over, but at least it’s a body again, and I’m scrambling up onto my hands and knees, then upright on my feet, then aiming a kick at Thorne’s smug face.

He deflects me with a flick of his hand that summons another gust of wind.

I end up back on the ground, on my butt, legs spread out in front of me.

They’re covered in caked, cracked mud. Thorne stands and holds his hand out to me. “Now that we’re finally being real with each other, maybe we can have an honest conversation.”

I ignore his hand and struggle to my feet myself. My eyes dart over the dusty plain of Mr. Quill’s front yard, marred now by an irregular patch of wetness where mud clings to the dry grass.

My stomach churns. “Was that from me?” I point to the stain with a trembling hand. “How did I get so wet and, and…” I spit the word out quickly, “squishy? What did you do to me?”

Thorne blinks at me. The corners of his mouth twitch.

A scream bubbles its way up from my chest and I swipe at my arms and legs, trying to brush off the dried mud that definitely was not part of me, it couldn’t be, because people don’t turn into mud. They just don’t.

But I can feel it inside me now, just under my skin and in my stomach. It churns, eager to bubble to the surface again. It pushes through my pores with the sweat dotting my forehead. It seeps from the corners of my eyes on a wave of tears.

I wipe my hands over my face, feel its slick coolness coat my palms.

What is this? What am I?

I don’t want this mud, I don’t want this fear, I don’t want these questions.

I want to leave.

But I can’t. My legs won’t move, they can’t move, they’re wobbling and melting. Skin drips and slides down my legs, turning from pale and freckled to chocolatey and thick, like a gross milkshake.

I start to sink into the ground as my legs puddle around me, and this is the absolute opposite of what I wanted. I wanted the mud to be gone, not to be me.

It’s spreading out around me, and now my knees are almost level with the ground and Thorne is looming above me, grinning and watching my slow descent.

I don’t know what to do, so I scream.

It’s hysterical and desperate and it seems to accelerate this weird melting process. I can taste mud in my mouth, hear it swishing in my ears.

I don’t want this, I don’t want this, I don’t want this.

I ball my fists and close my eyes, and I know that the tears I’m feeling aren’t saline, but mud, and I have to ignore how sickening that is as I focus on my body, begging it to fight whatever’s happening here. I focus on how long and strong my legs are, how they’ve made me the star setter on the volleyball team, how they’ve carried me around and around the track during gym class, how they walk me to Brick’s house when I’m invited to his family movie night.

The ground shifts beneath my knees, solidifying and pushing me upward once more.

I crack one eye and watch my legs reform from the mud. The higher I rise, the more quickly the mud dries. The panic dulls a little, because I push it as far down as it will go. If it rears its head again, I might melt.

I take a deep, bracing breath as my feet reappear. My heart is pounding so hard and fast that I can’t even count individual beats anymore.

This is impossible and terrifying and deeply disgusting.

I can’t believe this is me.

“What is this?” I croak. I want to run, but I’m tired. And I need an answer.

He sighs. “This is you. It’s who you are. Who you’ve always been.”

“What are you talking about?” My chest is tight, my heart is racing. I can barely force the words out.

He leans down and peers into my eyes. “Oh.” The word is soft. It caresses my cheek like a feather, and the gentleness in the sound—which I would have never expected from Thorne—undoes me. Tears and mud and snot dribble from my eyes and nose.

“You really don’t know,” he breathes. “You weren’t pretending after all. Oh, Terra. I—I’m sorry.”

“Please,” I gasp. “What’s happening to me?”

“All right.” He runs a hand over his face, looking weary.

Devastated, almost. “If you need me to say it, I’ll say it. It’s magic. I’m magic.” He leans toward me, whispers the next part in my ear, an unimaginable secret between us. “And so are you.”

 

From Woven From Clay by Jenny Birch. Copyright © 2025