The folk of the Infinite Forum swore in nine languages and ninety dialects as a cat’s black shape darted up Via Antiqua’s hot white stones. They hissed again as they spied the magic-twisted bloodhound bounding after it like a carnelian thundercloud.…

The leader of House Hawthorn’s Court of Birth lived in a part of the House that Samariel had never been to: a wing of dusty, disused corridors where the wainscoting had rotted away and the wallpaper’s elegant asphodels were obscured by elongated smu…

The rot hound struck in the dark hours of the morning. It took one of our horses and left a geld woman bloodied and wild, telling tales of a two-headed wolf with eyes like the last embers of a fire. I had known this would come. Not the wolf but some…

Yes, I went walking with him near the Deaf King Inn. There are some in Quadril who will call that my first mistake. via Pocket

Madeline had a plain, dull face that only a mother could love, even though hers hadn’t. via Pocket

He cut off her arms and threw them on the side of the road. They wanted a boy. Her uncle taught her how to play the game. The last time anyone saw her she was dancing. She was drunk. She was flirting with everyone. She was wearing a short skirt. She…

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There wasn’t much for us boys of that little fishing village to do but fish. Wake, fish, eat, fish, sleep, fish, rinse and repeat. It was one endless cycle of sea-worn canoes and heavy nets and stinking fish. via Pocket

There’s a black hole inside me. Yesterday Oklahoma disappeared. The dry dusty fields stuck in my throat for a moment, my jaw unhinging and elongating to accommodate that wide rectangle of land. Part of Texas came with it. via Pocket

Naomi Shimizu has undergone several enhancements. A cybernetic arm, to replace her crushed one. Smooth pale skin and visual implants, to replace what was lost in an accident. Over the course of her life, she has traded organic body parts for constru…

Times have changed here. We’re not a bunch of kids anymore. All this happened a long time ago, in the summer when Blackboard Jungle ruled the screen, “Rock Around the Clock” shot up the charts, and Hal March asked the first $64,000 Question. via Poc…

In this universe, the last time we talk is when I return the basketball I borrowed from you. We are seventeen. We’ve known each other for seven years. via Pocket

Mama always said that the best stories are true and needful, even if they’re not real. I know that’s heresy, punishable by lashes or prison if you’re caught, but I don’t think mama has ever been much for following rules and orders, anyway. via Pocket

The library hadn’t been there the day before, Ella was sure of it. That patch of dirt beside the rusting piles of spaceship debris outside the refugee camp had been bare, with nothing but weeds and rocks on it. Now, there was a library there. via Po…

You are ten years unborn on the evening of the day that will soon become known as G-day. I am washing dishes in the kitchen of our newly bought terrace, cleaning the residue of dinner from our finest boot-sale porcelain. via Pocket

K’loth bends his face to the basin and washes. The first washing of the day is for the Gods. One is the Goddess. Two is the God. Three is the Shadow. The water drips from pale blue tentacles above his mouth that move in the motions of prayers he has…

Your obsession with fossils. That silly tool belt… What were you going to do, brush dust off me? Stab me with your tiny shovel? via Pocket

When it comes to life in general, I’m not sure I can agree with her. I like comfortable. I like easy. I prefer not to have terrible things happen. I have to admit, however, that I tend to lean toward the strange. My little world is filled with oddit…

Molly was twenty-four when she woke up one morning, discovered she was already dead, and shortly thereafter asked me to bury her alive. Our paths had diverged after Ole Miss: she got a house and a husband amongst the ancestral oaks of Oxford, while …

The tip of the cigarette glows red as I slowly inhale. The taste of the black tobacco momentarily overwhelms my receptors. I wind their sensitivity down and cancel the ‘inhaled toxin’ warnings. The second drag goes down without alerts. I exhale and …

My mother loses herself in the sounds of fingernail clicks and the dull thuds her forehead creates when colliding into the corners of our home. She dwells in these crevices where two walls meet, biting her lower lip until she bleeds. via Pocket

PodCastle 542: Waters of Versailles — Part 1

Claudia Campbell shifted in her seat, clutching her oversized pocketbook closer to her chest. She released an audible huff. With all the automation these days, why couldn’t they move things along f…

Jaxon has just finished doodling Captain Fiero’s victory pose when the math teacher explodes. Students scream as Mrs. Richardson flails back from the chalkboard, body suddenly alight. via Pocket

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