The bureaucratic white motorcar idled like cold prey amid a jungle of cargo containers on the shipping pier. Mythili warmed herself thinking of the extra money she was making moonlighting as her boss’ chauffeur. The brick came in through the back window. Mythili buckled forward, slamming her head against the car horn. She slid down […]

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To: Her prestige Navaneth Anassa, High Imperatrix & First Keeper of the Institute of Erudition [9th Ring, Inner Order] Your scholarly eminence, Even now this unworthy hand trembles with excitement at your impending arrival to the Telperi flower’s research site. Upon hearing the High Imperatrix herself had accepted my invitation to witness the flora’s deadly […]

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From her perch in her ship quarters, Vis took stock of the six dark-robed viziers on her hologlass. They swept the agitated young emperor into his audience hall, their gestures staccato, their voices pitched urgent. She pulled a knee up to her chin; her anxiety sharpened as the image on the hologlass came into crystal […]

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A midsummer night, full moon overhead. Its golden light is ancient and worn. A breeze sighs through forest and over stone, bringing the echo of laughter. The song of a zither seems threaded in the wind. A boy stands outside a crumbling gate, and his face is of one lost in a dream. Slowly, he […]

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Content Advisory: murder, themes of death The apartment is near enough to the river that the walls are stained from an old flood. The murderer—I can’t remember his name, but it doesn’t matter—unlocks the front door, throwing a glance toward the neighbor’s windows. It’s mid-afternoon on a Tuesday. No one is home. “I don’t know […]

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Content advisory – attempted suicide, self-harm, emotional abuse, and homophobia. Uniform and her sisters sat in a circle. They had altered their customary cinema-style Space to a much smaller room. With its drab light-green walls, all they needed to do was trade their chairs for a bed, a TV, two foldable chairs and a drawer […]

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I’m not here to tell you lilac-scented stories of the Fair Folk; do not ask such things of me. Though it is true that I know more of them than any other mortal here, I can promise you that they are not fair in any sense of the word, and many of them are barely […]

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“This is the worst night of my life, but I’m only fifteen.” Dad regards me indecipherably from the couch, his sweet potato chip pausing in midair. “I’m being optimistic, actually,” I tell him. “Today is the worst night of my life, but in a decade it won’t even be top ten.” He flicks the chip […]

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I met up with Manny Valez at Rocco’s Irish Tavern in Somerville, a bar that had been a hangout for our group of mutual friends back when we were in college, mostly due to the bar’s lax policies on carding. It had been a rancid, skanky dive back then, but it had since gone into […]

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