We do not discuss, Nell and I. In the early years of my imprisonment, I raged at her during her midwinter visits, but I soon learned that my prison only grew stronger with every fight: roots deepening when I screamed curses on her name, leaves withering when she laughed at my weakness. I stopped fighting the year I realized I could not discern bone from wood when I sliced myself open and peered inside.

In my pocket, my brother's letter seethed as if a hornet's nest was trapped in its folds. Was the captain another of Ostred's creatures, sent to find me? Or was the godsblood ink warning me—like it had with the messenger—about the captain's final reward if I came aboard his ship? I wasn't sure, but either way I didn't like it. There was only one thing I should do.

On the off-chance she might survive the night, she reached into one of the jade bowls and grabbed the elegantly shaped skull of a Royal Purple hummingbird. She slipped it into her pocket as a memento. Almost a decade of her life had been devoted to this model temple, since she first asked for hummingbirds for her fourteenth birthday, and now this skull was the only thing she had to show for it.

Kenji, once an itinerant priest, was now the abbot of his own small temple, albeit established on my own estates. Yet it was popular among the farmers, which had led Kenji, like myself, into being responsible for more than we ever imagined... or wanted.

Dinga’s words faded into darkness, which suffused the camp. A discomfiting emptiness gnawed at him, one he’d arranged his entire life to avoid. Running from the hollowness of guilt, avoidance had become a way of life. He needed to reconnect with his forgotten lineage. And keep a promise.

He lifts the onion to the lantern’s lone light, and in it, I suddenly see: the goldwork towers and walls of the Old City; the broken bridge, jagged after a recent bombing yet still shining; rows of humble houses etched in ebullient metal; the curve and sway of the historical museum. I reach out my hand, and he drops the city into it. It feels warm in my palm.

The Ksmala do not deny us our butterflies. To them the brightscale wings are those of a celestial messenger, not the God and mystic that we see. But they did not often buy our embroidery unless we muted our butterfly rainbows. Because the Ksmala praised the virtue of industriousness, we had begun to sew black ants and golden-brown bees in neat soldier-rows at the edges of tablecloths and the corners of napkins.

They detached themself from the gun. The nerve cables retracted, including the one from my brainport, which tugged free with a tiny blossom of static. The sniper laid their weapon in its cocoon-like carry case, wiggled backward from the window, then came smoothly upright. They were small without the rifle.

The Game had a new player, so Naomi found herself once more frozen in her place, one ghost among the many owned by the Game. Another chance. Another chance for some fool to die and take a place amongst the ghosts, but another chance for Naomi to guide a player to victory. Impossible to have one without the other.

Dozens of ghostly figures lit the fields around her--anchors like herself but far bigger, their bodies engorged on the grains’ anger and power, their massive fangs and claws ready to rip apart anyone who defiled the environment. And six years ago they had attacked this very house, to kill the day-fellow family hiding inside.

“No,” Ennesta says. She walks toward me on her hind legs, unsteadily, other limbs wiggling awkwardly, and it occurs to me that not only is this the first time I’ve seen her navigate in gravity, it also looks like the first time she’s ever tried it. Or at least the first time in her current form. “I just haven’t told you things.”

We make our line at the farthest edge of the lifefrond, placing ourselves between it and the approaching creatures. I can taste salt-fear in the water around me. These are not rollers, the long whiplike creatures that slither through the water, eating our eggs and biting off our arms and tails. These are nothing we have seen before.

Essarala learned of the traders from her cousins' gossip, and she lingered near the interpreters, watching and wishing. She longed to explore their ship and ask them to take her with them to the stars. But the more she listened, the more she learned, and one thing became obvious: their ship might carry water for its crew to drink, but it didn't contain water for a mer to live in.

“Step forward, Clare Askett,” said the butcher, so she did so. Before the ceremony she had inquired about the possibility of receiving her gift in private and had been told that was not an option. It didn’t help that it was her lot to receive such an unpleasant object. A toenail, no less. It had a laughable element to it. Would anyone snigger, or make a comment, as she approached?

I sloshed the nectar around in my mug and slurped it up as quickly as I could. The sickly-sweetness made my proboscis ache and my stomach churn. I dumped the chicken onto a roasting pan with some garlic and onions and opened the oven to get it cooking. “My soufflé!” Priscilla gasped and lunged for the door, but it was too late.

I have not been present at a hatching, other than, I suppose, my own. For a moment I watch the cracks grow and light begin to seep through, but I have been instructed to leave and my master’s task awaits. I will be miles and hours away, back at the workshop with Master Damon, before my sister emerges.

Even if the Grand Duke could not be swayed by testimony, surely he would not ignore evidence such as that! Waller expected that he would have to explain the theory of fingerprinting before the full import of the evidence would be understood, but surely the Grand Duke would soon see that justice had not been served by executing Herr Fenster!

And this is how you break a boy: tell him he is king. Simple, but not easy. You must watch him, hawk-like, to see how he slips beneath your lies. You must seem to believe it enough that the boy believes, too. You must crown him and put him at the front of an army. If you fail, there is always another handsome hazel-eyed boy somewhere in the world. Anyone might do.

I stopped counting my steps across the ice after three hundred. I couldn’t distract myself from the thought of that gap closing between me and the ship. Between me and you. Issheth, always steps ahead of me, tireless, trying in vain to close her own gap. Frenzied. I kept my eyes on her back. At my belt I had the long knife I used for cutting ballast.

I'd hoped never to be in proximity to a sacrifice or its effects, ever again, but the necklace's mere presence changed things. It burst the bubble in which we lived from week to week, ignoring the past and not thinking about the future. It had to be dealt with.

I hope you haven't been too worried! What an odd letter Yudit's advisor must have written. I don't know what they were thinking, we're all quite well. Here's what happened: on 3 Cider, the past Directorate was consolidated. Now instead of seven elected Directors, we'll have three permanent ones. This will be much more efficient and will benefit every citizen. Certainly I can't think of anyone who is not happy about this opportunity!

They bring me to the Underground Palace. The current reigning Candle Queen is there. She is sixty-seven. She has served her purpose. They lift the Candle Crown from her elderly neck and place it onto mine, with a strap to secure it under my chin. Three large candles sit on the plate, and it is heavy, but this is what I have trained for. They sew me into the dress I will wear for the next fifty years, and there is singing that fills the chamber like bells.

Could I trade in that favor for Tiger’s help? I carefully blew a caramel bubble and made sure that it was inflated enough to serve as the tiger’s body. All the while keeping the image of the Pale Tigress in mind, I pinched a wide mouth and two ears, then pulled four strong legs for it. With a quick bite, the thin sugar pipe that I blew through became its long tail.

There were no tracks in the snow. If it weren’t for the ice melting in my fur collar and the dogs shivering on the line, you’d’ve called me a liar. What creature had the Devil been? Couldn’t have possibly been a wolf. Or a bear, after all—I’d hunted bears, and that Devil was surely somethin’ worse. And why had it cleared out so fast? I’d been prime prey, and it’d had me pinned.