## The Clockwork Prophet The rain tasted of coal dust and regret. August in Warsaw clung thick, a humid blanket smothering the city’s limestone facades. I wiped my brow with a grimy glove, the oily residue smearing across skin already…
## The Ghost Notes The salt spray tasted like regret. Wren traced the chipped Formica of the diner counter, each groove a miniature ocean current mirroring the one churning outside. Coffee, black as pitch, warmed her hands but couldn’t touch…
The rain smelled of salt and something else—rotting kelp, maybe, clinging to the stone walls. Twilight bled across Haven’s harbor, a bruised purple and grey where the jagged cliffs met the restless sea. It wasn’t a pretty harbor, not anymore.…