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Content note: sexual violence, abuse, ableism Every morning I clear the virgins from the stairway. It is common that one or two offerings don’t make it through the cold of the mountain eve or fall asleep in death midway through the journey up to our distant frigid peak. Their relatives or escorts leave them […]
“There is only one thing to do,” Mrs. Rothchild said. “We must pay a visit to Bramblewilde.” So Mrs. Rothchild raised her most intimidating parasol, and Mrs. Wollstonecraft wrapped herself in her embroidered cloak, and Mrs. Clarke fetched her straw hat trimmed with a bit of this and that from her husband’s shop, and together […]
Whenever Nick, over in the workstation across the room, would blurt out “fuck, I got another beheading,” Kenny would pinch the bridge of his nose and sigh and want, more than anything, to say “I don’t care.” Monitors formed a semi-circle in front of Kenny, and his fingers, tips glowing blue with the implants, moved […]
Content Note: Racial Slurs and Racist Violence That first video of the flying man goes viral on social media and gets featured on the news. No jet pack. No hang glider. Just him, unaided, soaring over the cable-stayed bridge that leads into the city. The video looks like it was shot on a cellphone […]
Outside the big window, the Othersea danced. Its swirling clouds piled about one another, forming and reforming, the bubbles that boiled out around them outlined in the glittering energy released in the collision of regular space and otherspace. I looked down at my hands against the dark warm earth of the food garden, and for […]
Your birth was auspicious, you know—no, no caul to be torn into. You arrived during a storm. The nurse laid you on my chest as a snowsquall gridlocked every skyway and side-street. You first latched at my breast while blizzard winds whipped icy flakes into a blinding fury. There is nothing more sacred than the […]
The sign for the exit said FATE in blocky white letters, with an arrow pointing the way to town. The old woman laughed and drove on. The highway unwound before her like a spool of frayed grey ribbon. Once the jewel of America, now the system was cracked and crumbling, its future stolen by children […]
For once, I have the kitchen to myself. Mama’s gone, Paolo’s picking wedding things up from out of town, and Abuela went to visit an old friend while she’s back in the area. I start by clearing everything from the countertops and wiping them down. I put loud music on, the kind I can sing […]
Who is the most beloved person alive? Is it one of those actors who plays superheroes? Is it a political leader? Maybe you’re a galaxy brain and say Beyoncé? No matter who you pick, you know you’re wrong. There’s always that better person who we love so unquestioningly that we forget they’re there. Sometimes, we […]
Liên’s first duel at the Phụng Academy was bewildering, and almost unfair in its simplicity. She let Mei—the fey, mercurial schoolmate half the academy seemed to avoid—take her to the arena. They paused at iron-wrought gates with a huge lock and a clear sight of what lay beyond: a crumbling platform by the river, overgrown […]
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