Jinx (Jinx, Bk 1)

In the Urwald, you grow up fast or not at all. Jinx has always feared leaving the path--but then he meets the wizard Simon Magnus. Jinx knows that wizards are evil, but staying with Simon appears to be Jinx's safest, and perhaps only, option.

As Jinx's curiosity about magic grows, he learns to listen to the trees as closely as he does to Simon's unusual visitors. The more Jinx discovers, the more determined he becomes to explore beyond the security of well-trod paths.

But in the Urwald, a little healthy fear is never out of place, for magic--and magicians--can be as dangerous as the forest, and soon Jinx must decide which is the greater threat.