Eleanora loved the ossuary best as evening fell.

Only elders were permitted to watch the ceremony, but that year, when I was almost eleven, Maura and I spied on them.

Eleanora loved the ossuary best as evening fell.

I knew a woman once who lived in Palmary on the Sunwash Sea. Or did I ever really know her? You see, in the time I spent with her, I came to question what I thought I knew about women and everything else—and that’s a strange thing for a man who’s hoodwinked death as long as I have. My friends, it’s been many years since then, and I have found wonders, and freedom from my curses, and strangest of all a poet who’s become my partner in crime, love, and occasionally dubious heroism. But I will never forget the one...  Read more »

Tarma had only just begun the Widow Fenton’s flax when the Shadow Undying rose once more. At first she thought that the shutter on the upper window must have come unwedged, since the light shouldn’t have failed so early in the day. But the unholy chanting in a voice like the bottom of a well ruled out it being any of the shutters. “Name yourself,” Tarma interrupted the chanting, because her grandmother had been a proper High Dales lady and, for lack of other outlets, spent a good deal of time educating Tarma. Said education had included drop- and wheel-spinning,...  Read more »