The Travel Guide to the Dimension of Lost Things

By Effie Seiberg

Have you ever felt so tired that you just don’t feel anymore? Where you wake up, burrowed under the covers with a shaft of light somehow piercing through them and right into your brain, and realize that here comes one more day you need to endure, to wait through, until you can blessedly sleep again and stop experiencing this whole existence thing?

This is where I am. I’m deeply considering whether it’s worth just snaking my hand out of my bed-burrito to grab my phone, bring it in, and then just play solitaire until I can fall asleep again instead of even considering what I need to get done today . . . until I realize that the light piercing through is bright green.

I shove down enough of the covers to pop my head out and wince as the light hits my eyes directly. I blink, trying to shake the sleep from my head. It’s one of those lights that projects moving stars or confetti or whatever, like the ones we had at the roller rink I worked at in high school. It’s floating in the air, bobbing as though it were stuck in a current, with its power cable floating behind it. It’s not plugged into anything, but it’s projecting with all its might. (Continue Reading…)

‘Til Death

by C. J. Lavigne

My dear Clarinda,

They tell me that when you heard of my wedding, you shattered a goblet, fell to the floor in a swooning fit, and did not arise for three days. I hear that the entirety of the manor was wreathed in black. Really, darling, it seems a bit much. I’m fine.

I know it’s not the choice you would have made. If it’s any consolation . . . in the moment when I found myself there, caught between the noble prince and the eternal night, I did think of you. It was all very dramatic, Jordan standing there in a shaft of brilliant light, his hand outstretched, begging me to leave Gareth’s side. I was glad he’d thought to break the window boards, or that whole scene would have been significantly bloodier; I could feel Gareth, pressed against my back, and his fingers were gentle on my shoulder but his teeth were bared.

Your voice was there, I promise. I heard you say think of the sunlight and death is what gives life meaning and he has loved you since childhood and, yes, all of it was true. So please don’t feel guilty; don’t think “if I’d only been there” or “she was confused” or “I could have changed her mind.” I wasn’t confused. You didn’t change my mind. But I know you, and I knew you would have tried.

We are very different people, you and I.

I hope, though, that we can still be friends. I assure you, I retain all of our life’s affections, and I wish you only the best. I won’t visit; Gareth tells me it will take time before the bloodlust abates, and I do not wish to frighten or harm you. But write back! Just give the parchment to a spider, or a bat — leave it on the windowsill, if you like. They will know it’s for me.

All my heart,

D.

(Continue Reading…)

A Fine Balance

By Charlotte Ashley

My mistress, Shoanna Yildirim, was the greatest shot in the city.

Each morning, according to her wishes, I cleaned and loaded her revolving pistol. I oiled the clip on her holster and checked the stitches in the leatherwork. I strung a fresh sash of weighted bullets and laid it by the vanity over her scarves.

“Your pistol, Mistress,” I would say to her as she rose from the mirror, her wide, brown lips and dark, sly eyes painted to perfection.

“Thank you, Emin,” she always replied. “But I will not need it today.”

Each morning, she left the gun where it lay. Mistress Yildirim was the greatest shot in the city, but she hunted Kara Ramadami with a blade. That was just one of the many rules of sahidi. (Continue Reading…)

Burning Season

By C. L. Clark

It was burning season in Rashid. Again.

Even in the shop, I could smell the smoke. Can you believe I used to like the smell of burning paper? With my eyes closed, I can still see pages glow red before they burst into flame and curl into ash until they crumble.

I clerked at a small sundries shop in Commercial. The owner was a Duchies woman, one hand peach-pale, the other brown as her shop counter. She had no love for the All-King, who had toppled her Grand Duchess, but you don’t need love to run a business, just enough money to buy mercy. After that expenditure, though, she couldn’t afford to hire a licensed Translator. Coincidentally, I couldn’t afford a license, so she paid me a little extra to quietly broker transactions from the non-Duchies customers and shippers she couldn’t understand.

I am an Omniloquist. Some say we’re a curse the last true Rashidan king put on his enemies before he died, so that we’ll never flounder helpless under a conqueror. More say we have no true power, just an uncanny ability to pick up foreign sounds quickly. Until the All-King came, I was inclined to think the latter. We were a skill with a guild, like any other. And then he came, with his Collectors. There’s nothing natural about them. Maybe there’s nothing natural about us. (Continue Reading…)

The Gold Silkworm

by Tony Pi

When I first became keeper of the Spirit of Grass, she and I made a pact to never turn away one in need, whether they be rich or poor. Madame Ke was one of the rich.

She had heard of my skills in medicine from her sister, and asked if I would come to the Garden of Timely Rains. I accepted the invitation and arrived in the early afternoon, when the high sun gave glow to the garden pond and terraces. A servant escorted me to the Pavilion for Tasting Autumn Pears where a woman in her thirties awaited me.

Madame Ke, radiant in a dress printed with gold hibiscuses, bade me to join her at the tea table. Though eager to consult a woman doctor, she asked first for proof that I wasn’t a wandering healer. “Are you from the famed medical families of Feng, Mao, or Wu? What training did you have? Can you recite classical poetry to prove your education?” (Continue Reading…)