“I need to tell you something urgently. It's about your boss.”

Ciarán watched the coin spinning on the wooden table. He had heard Ophelia enter; heard the creak of the door as it swung shut behind, the floorboards groaning deliberately as her body swayed, impatient in her desire to speak.

But he didn't look up.

As the Queen's sole advisor, he was used to the comings and goings of others.

The...

Her back to the wall, Ophelia listened into the dark.

“It’ll work,” a voice said calmly, “trust me.”

“Don't be ridiculous,” another hissed, “One can't possibly—”

“One can't, blah, blah!” Cut in the first, sharper. “Shut it!”

Two spoke. For eight years, Ophelia had worked for the Spiders, operating as a Daughter of the Cause. Eight years of sneaking, listening, learning—paying attention to slig...

Skye grinned, gaping at the white inside of the old police box doors. Dark, yellow light shimmered through the small rectangular windows. Twin beams of light stretched in from the outside, pooling over the floor like paint smudges.

Skye's grin widened, and she bounced on the balls of her feet.

New light, she thought. Light from a new world—a new planet—just waiting for her right outside those ...

It started with a bite—a fleeting act of hungering passion. One single moment that became the trigger to the end of the world...

Or the catalyst for a new one.

The world once saw us as fiction, a fantasy glistening in sparkles. But now we are that world, our past lives, our past bodies left behind, like dust gathering in the ink of old history books. That one moment turned the world...

And we...

The mist of the graveyard rolled far over the horizon.

Skeletal trees clawed towards fading sun, a glorious, burning orange seeping over the land like spilt ink, clinging longingly to the bruised purple of dusk.

Influenza had added countless more headstones, packed generations of kin into stone family mausoleums.

Fresh dirt mounded new unmarked graves, and inside the small church, at the cen...

“Princess Bri, my sweet, magical Princess, I know we've only known each other for three hours, but,”—Bowing his head, he bent to one knee—“from the moment I saw you, I knew we were meant to be together. My true love.” He smiled, and a crystalline tear slipped down his porcelain cheek. “Will you marry me?”

Clutching her heart, Bri blushed—just as her mother had taught her. “Oh, Luke,” she gasped a...

The front door slammed shut, and a set of feet pounded up the stairs.

I wiped my soap-lathered hands on my jeans. “Hey, hey, hey!” I shouted from the kitchen, “what’s the rush?”

The footsteps stopped. “Sorry, mum... It's Biscuit business.” A second passed. “You wouldn't understand.” The hurried steps continued, and I winced at the slam of her bedroom door.

Turning back to the sink, I plunged a ...

Cosmo slumped back and kicked the chest with his foot. It skidded along the ground, leaving deep trenches in the dirt.

There were so many rumours surrounding the Dragon Chest, and with such a name, the drunken minds at the local tavern had run wild with stories of gold, jewels, or perhaps the generously rich coffers of a long forgotten damsalled princess.

But what Cosmo didn't expect to find was...

Clay flicked to the next page.

He ran his finger down the thin parchment and over the ink, dulled and smudged with time. His eyes no longer needed to read the words; by now, he knew them all off by heart.

Every book, every story, a constant reel of characters and lives he'd never get to experience—hundreds of worlds trapped within the confines of leather-bound tomes.

All alone, the only soun...

“There he is again,” Pearl murmured, straightening an orange silk scarf on display. “Skulking the market like a stray mutt, his coat a tatty rag and his whole life strapped to his back.”

“Who is he?”

“Nobody really knows.” Raising an eyebrow, Pearl stooped over the table. Intrigued, Flavian leaned in, too, meeting his merchant in the middle. “And if I'm being honest,” she whispered, “Everybody's...