The chipped stone bit into my palms as I scaled the tenement wall. Dublin throbbed below, a raw nerve stretched tight. Not from the fighting, not yet. It was the *other* thing. The shadow slipping between alleys, faster than a…
The fever rattled Janek’s bones. Not the heat, though that clung like wet wool, but the *seeing*. It began with soot. The way it swirled from the flues, settling not as darkness, but as… shapes. Patterns. Like the butcher’s tally…
The chipped Formica of the diner booth felt gritty under Leo’s elbows. He stabbed a french fry with enough force it nearly bounced off the plate. Across from him, Maya traced the rim of her water glass, her knuckles white.…
The chill bit, even through Gwen’s gloves. Frost orchids. Not the pale, brittle kind you found clinging to dying branches, but shimmering, almost *alive* with an inner light. Each petal pulsed with a lavender glow, mirroring the bruised twilight sky.…
The dust tasted like old pennies. Old pennies and regret. Kaelen traced a fingertip across the basalt face of a crumbling sentinel. It wasn’t stone, not exactly. More like…compressed night. The air hummed, a low thrum against his teeth. He’d…
Elka traced the brittle edge of the parchment. Dust motes danced in the single shaft of light slicing the gloom of the archive. Each fragment felt less like paper, more like sun-warmed bone. She wasn’t *searching* for anything specific, not…
The scent of cut grass and diesel hung thick in the late afternoon air. Astralen guided the mower along the edge of Lord Elmsworth’s prize-winning clover, the engine a steady drone against the rising wind. Not exactly the life he…
The rusted gate groaned open, spitting flakes of silver paint. Six of us. Six mistakes Silverthorn Prep hadn’t bothered filtering out. Rain slicked the manicured lawns, reflecting the gothic spires like broken glass. We weren’t supposed to *be* here. Not…