Voyager 2024

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CO NTENTS Enter worlds filled with intoxicating fae, warring gods, bewitching queens, and much, much more.

1. e Gilded Crown Marianne Gordon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 November 2023 2. Bonded by orns Elizabeth Helen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 05 December 2023 3. A River of Golden Bones A.K. Mulford . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 07 December 2023 4. Faebound Saara El-Arifi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 January 2024 5. Sunbringer Hannah Kaner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 February 2024 6. Empire of the Damned Jay Kristoff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 February 2024 7. e Crimson Moth Kristen Ciccarelli . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 February 2024 8. Dark Star Burning, Ash Falls White Amélie Wen Zhao . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 March 2024

Contains uncorrected proof chapters.

Not for resale, quotation or trade.

9. What Monstrous Gods Rosamund Hodge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 March 2024 10. Lore of the Wilds Analeigh Sbrana . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 March 2024 11. e Hidden Queen Peter V. Brett . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 March 2024 12. e Bell Witches Lindsey Kelk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 May 2024 13. Shadowstitch Cari omas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 May 2024 14. e Temptation of Magic Megan Scott . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 May 2024 15. Moonstone Laura Purcell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 May 2024 16. Bad Graces Kyrie McCauley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 June 2024 17. Queen B Juno Dawson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 July 2024

Contains uncorrected proof chapters.

Not for resale, quotation or trade.

THE GILDED CROWN Marianne Gordon Publication date: 23/11/23 Tropes: enemies to lovers, deals with death, a witch and her familiar

The Gilded Crown

CHAPTER ONE

The first time Hellevir visited Death, she was ten years old.

It happened in the depths of a long winter so brutal that some called it cursed. The cold stilled creatures in their sleep, made skeletons of the trees, and carved hollows from the cheeks of children.

The village where Hellevir lived with her parents and brother was on the edge of the forest which sprawled over most of the north-­western lands of the Chron, tall and old and full of stories.

Hellevir would sit at her father’s feet as she helped him tan hides and carve bone. He told her about the No-­Eyed Witch, who turned young boys into starlings for her aviary just to hear them sing, about the Silver-­Beaked Hawk who tried to fly to the moon, and about the Antlered King whose armies had once scorched the lands, his smile grisly with the heart-­blood of his enemies. The stories kept the cold at bay as it scratched at the door, but sometimes she felt like it was already inside the house, in the frost-­glisten of worry in her father’s eyes.

Hellevir was too young to hunt, but she was not too young to set the traps. Every morning she would walk through the woods to see what had been caught, and to reset the snares for the next night. Her older brother accompanied her with his bow and arrows to shoot down squirrels and rabbits.

One morning, when a new layer of snow was crisply fallen and the sky was a bright blue, Hellevir and her brother were out foraging when she found a bush coated in red berries. She took a handful.

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Marianne Gordon ‘Not those,’ Farvor said. ‘They’ll make you sick.’ Hellevir pocketed them anyway, not to eat, but to look at. They trudged on through snow as high as Hellevir’s thighs, pausing to strip bark for kindling now and then. When they came to the frozen river, Farvor pointed to the left-­hand bank. ‘I’ll take the north side, you take the south. We’ll meet back here before nightfall, yes?’

Hellevir followed her usual trail through the woodland, and found the first of the traps by a part of the stream where the wildlife came to drink. It was hidden under last night’s snowfall.

She brushed the snow away, but it stuck to her gloves and made huge mittens of her hands, so she pulled them off. The trap emerged, sharp and angry-­looking. One of the teeth caught her and she winced, putting her finger in her mouth and tasting copper, sharp and sweet. She continued clearing snow, and her hand brushed fur, spiked and sharp, dull and brown. It was a fox, but its eyes were flat.

She took a few minutes to free it, stiff as it was, and with one finger still in her mouth, but eventually it came loose and she laid it across the snow. She had always tried to tame the foxes she saw in the woods with scraps of food, loving the wildness in their yellow eyes, but she had never been this close to one before.

She stroked the pretty fur, the dark tufts of its ears. The tail was thin and wet, not the bushy broom it should have been. She picked up the poor thing and wrapped it in her arms. Years later she couldn’t have said why she did it. She’d just felt like she should, because it had seemed unbearably sad.

Never fall asleep in the cold, her father had always warned her.

You’ll never wake up again. Get warm, first, any way you can.

Then you can rest.

She hadn’t meant to fall asleep. She was tired from the trudge through the forest, from her parents’ bickering through the night, and this was a pleasant place to sit, with snow creased around her legs like a blanket shaped just for her.

When she awoke she didn’t at first see how the world had changed around her. She didn’t feel the different cold against her skin, biting deeper into her bones than any winter, even this one.

She didn’t notice the smell, or rather, the absence of it. She didn’t notice how the sounds had stopped. All she saw was the flick of a bushy, white-­tipped tail vanishing between the trees.

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The Gilded Crown ‘Wait!’ she called, and was on her feet after it, wading through the high snow. ‘Come back!’

The fox didn’t listen, but led her deeper into the forest, darting here and there between the boughs, and she rushed after it. She didn’t stop long enough to realise that these trees were unfamiliar, or that they stood unnaturally still. The fox’s bright pelt drew her on like a will-­o’-­the-­wisp.

She rounded a heavy drift and found herself in a small clearing.

The fox stood in the centre, watching her, its eyes fire-­orange and not flat at all.

‘There you are,’ she panted. ‘Why did you run away?’ The fox lowered its head, still watching, and its ear flicked. It glanced to the side, behind her.

She frowned and turned back, but there was nothing there, just endless trees. But . . . now at last she looked, really looked, and realised that these were not her woods. The boughs were too grey, like bone, and the knots in the wood were like eyes that watched her. The edge of her vision blurred and shuddered as if with a heat haze.

Slowly, she knelt down and held out her hand to the fox. It took a step forward and flicked its tail.

‘Come here,’ she whispered, noticing for the first time how odd the air made her voice sound, as if it were muted and yet thundering, audible throughout the forest. ‘I’ll take you back.’ She swallowed. ‘Please.’

I must take you back, she thought, but she couldn’t think why it felt so important.

The fox came a little closer and sniffed her bare fingers. Its ruff was speckled with snowflakes. Its tongue darted out to lick the melted snow from her fingertips, the drop of blood that had dried on her finger. Again, it glanced behind her. This time she didn’t let herself turn back to see what it was looking at. She was too afraid.

‘Why don’t you come home with me?’ she asked it. ‘I’m sure Ma and Pa won’t mind. It’s got to be better than being alone out here.’ She reached into her pocket, drawing out the berries she’d found earlier. ‘Are you hungry? Do you want these?’ It twitched its nose at them, nuzzled them so they fell from her palm to the frosty ground. Its snuffling felt warm.

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Marianne Gordon Again its amber eyes flicked over her shoulder.

This time she turned, too quickly to think twice about it, and the edge of her vision caught upon a black shape that made her heart tighten, but when her glance came to a halt there was nothing but trees and snow.

‘Hellevir!’ She started, nearly frightening the fox into fleeing. It was her brother’s voice. Distant and worried, as if he were trying to find her.

‘I’m here,’ she whispered.

‘Hellevir!’

She shuddered and held her hand out to the fox.

‘Please,’ she said. ‘Come with me.’

‘Hellevir!’ A hand seized her arm and hauled her around, and suddenly she was sitting upon the ground in a snowdrift, looking up into her brother’s face. Twilit gloom sat heavy among the trees.

A wave of cold passed over her, as if she were emerging from icy water.

‘What are you . . .’

The fox wriggled against her chest, twisting out of her reach and making a dart for escape. Its tail brushed against her face, soft and full and smelling of earth and wild things. Her brother caught it by the scruff of the neck before it could get away, and it yelped and tried to bite him.

‘Don’t . . .’ she started, but he’d already wrung its neck.

‘That’ll keep us for a few days,’ he said. ‘Ma can make you some new gloves that don’t gather snow all the time. You were right about the stream, it’s a good place for a trap.’

Hellevir burst into tears. She couldn’t help it. Her brother was at first bewildered – she’d seen him kill things before – and then annoyed when she refused to tell him why. He took her roughly by the hand and marched her home.

The second time Hellevir visited Death, she was twelve years old.

She sat with her father under the cherry tree by their house, fletching arrows. In spring, the blossom would coat the grass, but for now there was only the snow, and the tree stood skeletal and bare. It was beautiful and still as they worked, their breath pluming, and everything – the lack of food, Ma’s shadowed eyes as her hand brushed worriedly over her swollen belly – seemed very far 4

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The Gilded Crown away. A magpie landed on the branch above Hellevir and fixed her with one ink-­blot eye.

‘Hello,’ she said to it with a smile. It cocked its head to one side, its eye darting to the shiny penknife on her lap that she was using to trim the feathers. ‘I’m afraid that’s Pa’s,’ Hellevir told it.

The magpie chittered.

‘I’ll trade you some rowanberries for it,’ it offered.

‘I can’t eat rowanberries.’

‘How about I tell you where the hares burrow? They’re lean but I’m sure there’s meat on them.’

‘Wicked thing. You can’t have the knife.’ The magpie let out a cackle and swooped down into the thicket, vanishing into the shadows of the forest. Hellevir shook her head and returned to her fletching, only pausing when she realised her pa was watching her. Her smile faded. She wasn’t supposed to talk to things like that any more.

‘Please don’t tell Ma,’ she asked him quietly. He brushed her hair away from her forehead with his big hand.

‘I won’t tell Ma,’ he promised.

‘She doesn’t understand.’

‘I know, my girl.’ He sounded sad. He returned to his binding, his expression thoughtful. She let him think, because he was a lot wiser than her. A pair of hawks circled slowly on the currents overhead.

‘Is it very bad?’ she asked quietly. ‘Should I stop?’

He put an arm around her and pulled her against his side, scooping her easily along the bench and sending the feathers fluttering to the icy ground. She could smell the heavy leather of his coat.

‘Do you know where your ma is from?’ he asked.

‘The East,’ she said. ‘Gargoyle.’

‘The Galgoros,’ he corrected. ‘In the Galgoros they have a different way of doing things. You know the twelve-­pointed star carved into the lintel above our door? Your ma carved that. It’s from the Galgoros. It’s a symbol of their god.’

‘Their god?’

‘Onaistus, God of the Promise.’ Hellevir frowned. He caught her expression. ‘Her single god may seem odd to you and me, but many things seem odd just because we don’t understand them. It 5

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Marianne Gordon doesn’t mean they’re wrong. Our way is odd to her too. She doesn’t understand that we do things differently, that we could believe in things that are not her single god. That one person could see something or talk to something that another person couldn’t, and for it to be no harmful thing.’

Hellevir thought about it, and suddenly felt quite distant from her ma, as if she’d always assumed they were looking through the same telescope – her pa had bought one from a passing trader to use for hunting, and Hellevir thought it was the prettiest thing in the cottage – but in fact her ma’s was trained somewhere completely different, watching a landscape Hellevir couldn’t hope to see. At least her pa understood.

‘So you don’t mind me talking to things?’ she asked.

‘As long as it feels right to do. Just don’t let your ma see. I’m afraid it’s just one of the many things I’ve not been able to make her budge on in all the years we’ve been married.’ He smiled. ‘My ma used to do the same, you know. Speak to things. She used to talk to the cherry tree. Said it liked to sing to her.’ He smiled briefly, and took a cord from around his neck, pulling up a pendant from under his shirt. Hellevir recognised the pendant, remembered playing with it when she was tiny and sitting on her father’s lap. It was still warm from where it had lain next to his heart. She held it in her palm, rubbing the face of the snarling lion with her thumb.

‘This was my mother’s,’ he said. ‘She gave this to me when she died. She said she found it by the edge of the woods, when they were digging the foundations for our house.’ He squeezed her hands. ‘Before she died she said that we’re a lion-­hearted family, and I’d better make sure my children were as lion-­hearted as she was.’ He smiled. ‘Tough woman, she was.’ He picked up the pendant and put it over Hellevir’s head. ‘My lion-­hearted girl,’ he said. ‘It’s yours now. To remember there are always others like you.’

Hellevir hugged him so tightly he laughed, and seemed about to say something else when an enormous clatter from inside the house made them jump to their feet. Pa had run inside before Hellevir had caught her breath, and a moment later he emerged, eyes wide, and told her to fetch the healer woman from the village.

Her mother had fallen. * 6

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The Gilded Crown It was a long, long night. It was lost to Hellevir in a blur of running in and out of the cottage to fetch kindling from the store by the house, and then, when that dwindled, in and out of the forest, following the sharp orders of the healer woman. The sounds her mother made were cacophonous in her ears.

Hours later, when the first birdsong littered the air even though it was still dark, Hellevir stood in the doorway looking at her mother’s body. Time had contorted that night; every moment had seemed weighted, pressured, long, a heavy tempo of blood in her head, and yet now she felt like she’d taken a breath and . . . and Ma had slipped away when Hellevir wasn’t paying attention.

There was a sheet over her, a sharp peak over her nose, gloaming dips for her eyes. To the side was a swaddled bundle, small, silent and unmoving. Hellevir couldn’t look away from it. Exhaustion sat at the back of her mind, heavy as wet sand, and it numbed her to the shock.

Hellevir’s pa sat beside the bed, bent over the body, his large shoulders hunched. The healer who had come to help with the birth, Milandre, stood behind him and put a hand on his back.

In the gloom her face looked weathered, lined like an old map.

She had her hair pinned back and the bare side of her head, missing its left ear, shone in the firelight.

‘She was too early,’ the old herbalist muttered. ‘She shouldn’t have had another when she was so weak.’ Her pa’s shoulders tensed.

‘It was her choice to keep the child,’ he snapped, looking up at her. ‘You would have had me force her to get rid of it?’ He clenched his jaw and took control of his temper. A beat of silence, palpable, with a heartbeat of its own. He pressed his lips into Ma’s palm.

‘You can bring her back,’ he said quietly against her skin. Hellevir saw Milandre stiffen.

‘If I couldn’t keep her alive what makes you think I could bring her back?’ Her tone was curt.

‘I know you can. I’ve heard . . .’

‘You’ve heard nothing,’ Milandre said. Her expression softened a little as Pa closed his eyes. ‘I will stay with the body until morning,’ she added more softly. ‘Hellevir and I, we will prepare the rites.’ A bone-­deep tremble went through Hellevir. She clenched her fists so they wouldn’t see her start to shake.

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Marianne Gordon ‘No,’ Pa murmured. ‘Piper is of Eastern faith. She wouldn’t want to be among the cairns.’

Milandre sighed but bit back the sharp words she might have spoken.

‘Then your boy will fetch the Peer from the next village temple to do it. But nothing can be done now. Go and sleep.’

He nodded again, as if he had only half-­heard her. Hellevir took his hand and led him out of the room. Farvor had run away when they’d told him his mother was dead. He was out in the woods somewhere, and Hellevir envied him as she pressed a bowl of stew into her father’s hands, wishing she was among the trees, a deer with nothing to do but run or an owl with nothing to do but fly. When food had passed her pa’s lips, she helped him into bed like a child, pulling off his heavy boots. Only when she was sure he was unconscious did she steal back into the bedroom.

The herbalist was asleep in the chair by the fire, breathing heavily by its glow.

Hellevir glanced at the bed. It seemed as if at any moment the shape under the sheet would move, would breathe, but it didn’t.

She knelt down before the hearth, stirred it with the poker.

‘I want to try,’ she told it. The fire within the hearth roused itself and the crouching spirit made of burnt wood and coal watched her through heat-­glow eyes. It had burned so strongly while Ma had been in labour. Pa wouldn’t know to thank it, but Hellevir nudged some dry kindling closer to feed it.

‘Then try,’ it replied.

‘What if I can’t do it?’

‘The outcome will not be any worse.’

‘Will you come with me?’

‘I cannot leave your homestead, you know that.’ Hellevir bit her lip, ashamed of her fear. The burnt creature rolled a hot coal towards her across the ash. A tongue of flame licked round it.

‘It’ll be dark,’ it said. Hellevir picked up an empty lantern and used the iron to roll the coal inside.

‘Thank you.’

‘Hurry, before morning wakes her.’

Hellevir got to her feet and went over to the bed. She clambered up and lay alongside the still shape under the sheet, curling around the lantern at her stomach as she looked up at where the head 8

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The Gilded Crown rested. The coal flickered in the lantern, and its soft light lulled her eyelids closed.

The sound of the front door swinging open startled her awake.

There was silence. She was still in her mother’s room, but . . . the body had gone. Milandre had gone. Even the baby had gone.

The bed was rumpled, one edge of the covers raised as if someone had just flung them off to get up.

Hellevir slid off the bed. The kitchen was empty. The pot that had held the broth sat by the door to wash in the snow. The front door was wide open, still on its hinges, although it had always had the tendency to swing shut again if left ajar.

Outside there was no wind, only the head-­aching silence. Her own breath seemed loud as a bellows, her footsteps echoing like rocks dropped down a well. Even her heartbeat, quick and heavy, seemed to announce her presence to the strange world and she felt – suddenly and completely – that it watched her.

The light was so odd – a permanent dusk, it seemed – that Hellevir looked up to see if the sun was out, and froze. There was no sun, no stars, no moon or clouds. When she looked up, another Hellevir looked back. The whole sky seemed to be a still surface upon which the world reflected, like the surface of a lake. Far, far above her was the snowy earth, the topmost branches of the cherry tree, the pointed roof of her own house, an angle of her home she’d never seen before, and her own reflection, staring down at her. She raised her arm experimentally, and the small figure did the same. It gave her an odd feeling of vertigo, as if she were about to fall upwards, and she quickly looked away.

She went into the woods. The trees were motionless, their grey bark soaking up the light.

‘Ma!’ she called, ignoring the odd timbre of her own voice. ‘Where are you?’ She caught movement from the corner of her eye – the end of a shawl, the heel of a shoe? – vanishing between the trees, flitting in the same chase as the fox. ‘Ma!’ She ran after her. ‘Wait!’

She came to the bank of the river; it was frozen a foot thick.

Something moved on the other side of the water and she darted down the snowdrift towards it, slipping and sliding as her feet hit the ice. Her heart skipped a beat as she heard the heavy crack of the ice giving way, and she might have fallen through if a hand 9

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Marianne Gordon had not caught her by the arm and pulled her sharply back up on to the bank.

She whirled around, eyes darting among the trees, but there was no one there. She rubbed her arm, certain she had not imagined the hard grip. It had hurt too much for her to have imagined it.

‘You’re a little lively to be out here,’ a voice remarked. She jumped and turned.

Leaning against a tree was a man of black. His hair was black, his coat was black, his gloves were black. An absolute black, as if no light could reflect from it. It drew her gaze and held it, threatened to pull her in and drown her in its absence of light.

His eyes were the blackest of all and watched her with amusement.

‘Hello, child,’ he said. At least she thought he said it. His voice did not seem to come from one place, but all places, everywhere, from the very air beside her cheek.

‘I’m not a child,’ she retorted, her voice high. ‘Who are you?’

‘No, forgive me. I see I have a lady before me.’ His mouth curled into a smile. His lips seemed to shape oddly around his teeth, as if they were too long and too sharp, but then he spoke and she could see that they were normal. ‘Now, I must ask. What is a fine lady like you doing here? I don’t think this is a place for you.’ He took a deep breath, as if he had smelled something sweet. ‘Oh no, you do not belong here,’ he said. ‘Not yet. Not for a long while yet.’ His voice was low and warm, the only warm thing about him.

‘I . . . I’m looking for my mother,’ she said honestly. His smile broadened in a way that made her feel as if she were missing a joke, and he held out his hands in a gesture of peace. The smile and the gesture seemed at odds with each other. She couldn’t tell where his edges were; he seemed to be made of the darkness between the trees.

‘And why do you think she’d be here?’ he asked.

‘She . . . she’s dead.’

‘So you do know where you are. I did wonder. But then again, it’s not your first time here, is it?’ As if from nowhere he held out the lantern, balanced by its ring on one gloved finger. ‘Your mother’s right over there,’ he said, his eyes bright as if he were enjoying himself. ‘Your sister too.’

He pointed out over the river, and Hellevir drew in her breath sharply.

Ma was sitting out on the ice, her legs crossed, holding the 10

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The Gilded Crown baby in her arms. She was rocking it gently, and singing to it.

Something in Hellevir’s chest ached. She couldn’t remember Ma ever singing like that to her.

‘Ma!’ she called. Her mother didn’t look up from smiling down at the baby’s face, tracing its cheek with one finger as she sang.

The ice cracked quietly around them. ‘Ma!’ She didn’t react, as if she couldn’t hear her. Hellevir felt her fists tighten by her side, and she turned to the man, her jaw set.

‘I brought that fox back,’ she said resolutely. ‘I want her to come back with me too.’ The man watched her but she tried not to waver. It felt like she was in the shadow of something tall about to topple upon her.

‘And what will you give in return?’ She didn’t know what she had expected him to say – or how she knew what authority he held in this place – but it wasn’t that. For a moment she was speechless, aghast.

‘I . . . I don’t have anything.’

‘What a pity.’

‘Why do I have to give you something?’

‘You can’t take anything from this place without paying the price. For natural deaths especially, there is a cost.’ His gaze slipped to the lantern by her foot. ‘But that will go some of the way to striking a balance.’ Hellevir followed his look.

‘The coal? It’s not mine. I can’t give it to you. I . . .’ She shook her head, trying not to cry. ‘I didn’t know that’s how it worked.’

‘You left the berries for your fox, and a drop of blood too. I thought you an adept.’ He knelt down beside her, watching her mother singing over her baby. Hellevir suddenly felt like they were two strangers looking in through the window of someone else’s house. ‘Something from life that is full of life, and another blood gift,’ he went on. He reached out and took her hand, tiny in his own, and she shuddered. He was as cold as a dead thing. He began to press down her fingers to her palm, one by one. ‘For your mother to be safe with you again, alive, healthy, happy, and able to grow old . . .’ He paused, when only her little finger was left, and all the rest were pressed down. ‘The coal and a small blood gift are all you’d need to give.’

She looked at him, into his dark eyes. It felt like she was looking into the mouth of a deep, empty cave.

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Marianne Gordon ‘Who are you?’ she asked for a second time.

‘If you come here again, you can ask me again.’

Hellevir swallowed, looking down at her hand. Then she nodded.

‘All right.’

That smile again, rapt and eager.

He stood, and with the motion her mother’s attention finally seemed to be caught. She grinned and got to her feet, walking easily over the ice towards them as if she were simply crossing a spring meadow.

‘Hellevir,’ Ma said with a sunlight in her voice that Hellevir hadn’t heard in a long time. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I came to save you,’ Hellevir said. There seemed to be no air in her lungs, and it suddenly sounded a silly thing to say. Her mother didn’t look like she needed saving. She looked happy. Hellevir turned without a word and held out the lantern to the man in black, and he took it with a courteous inclination of his head.

Hellevir held out her hand.

‘Come on, Ma,’ she said. ‘I want to go home.’ Ma’s smile broadened, and she moved towards Hellevir but the man in black stopped her. Hellevir stared up at him. ‘But you said . . .’

‘We only bargained for one,’ he reminded her. She felt the words go through her, but she’d been afraid he would say them. She looked at the baby in her mother’s arms, happily asleep and looking as healthy as a new-­born lamb.

‘But . . .’

‘One or the other. Not both.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because of a way of things older than I am.’

‘What if I come back? With more coal?’

‘No. You must choose now.’

‘Hellevir, what are you waiting for?’ her mother asked, as if she couldn’t see or hear the man.

It should have been a difficult choice, but it wasn’t. It was painfully easy.

‘Mother, then,’ she whispered, looking into the green eyes that matched her own. ‘Ma.’ He reached out, the movement too quick for her to catch, and a moment later there was a bead of red on her finger. She stared down at it, watching as it slid and dripped on to the ground.

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The Gilded Crown Her mother started, as if just noticing the tall man with the black coat standing beside them. She frowned, confused.

‘I feel like I know you?’ she asked. The man held out his arms.

‘Here, let me take her,’ he said. Uncertain, Ma drew away a little, putting a hand protectively around the child’s head.

‘No, I . . .’

‘I’ll take care of her for you until you return. Go and be with your living daughter.’ Hellevir watched as her mother blinked, clearly struggling to think. The man’s warm voice played on her, wrapped itself around her, belied the mocking smile.

‘If you think it’s best,’ she said, and reluctantly let him take the baby into his arms. Numbness gripped Hellevir from head to foot, as if she were finally feeling the chill of the snow. The man dressed in black looked down at her, her little sister cradled in his arms.

For a second she thought tines were rising from his head, antlers as black as the snow was white.

‘Time to go,’ the world around her rumbled.

‘Time to go.’ Hellevir shuddered, her bones aching as if she’d been standing in a mountain river for an hour. She looked up blearily, and saw Milandre peering down at her.

‘Time to go, pet,’ Milandre said again. ‘Come now. We have a lot to do.’ Hellevir shook herself awake and raised herself to look at the figure under the sheet, her heart hammering with hope and the almost painful certainty that she was hoping in vain and it had all been a horrible dream.

The figure coughed, a brief billow of the sheet, and began to shiver.

Milandre stared for a moment. Then she sharply drew Hellevir from the bed and pulled back the sheet. Ma sat upright, her hair wild about her and her face creased as she coughed and coughed. Milandre just stood there, her lips slightly parted in amazement.

‘I don’t understand, how . . .’ She looked at Hellevir, but before she could say anything the door opened and Pa came in, Farvor at his heel.

‘We heard . . .’ He stopped, stunned. ‘Piper? Gods . . . Piper?’

‘Water,’ Ma gasped. Milandre shook herself from her stupor and poured some from a jug by the bed. Hellevir didn’t miss that 13

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Marianne Gordon she checked the bundle in case it also had signs of life, before letting it be. Ma gulped the water, letting it pour down her front.

Pa looked like he wanted to swoop towards her and bear her up in his arms, but he was too shocked – too frightened – to get closer. Hellevir picked up a blanket and went to soak up some of the water, but as soon as she came near her mother roughly pushed her away, her hand hitting the centre of her chest with a violence Hellevir would remember until the day she died. Only Farvor stopped her from falling.

‘Curse you!’ Ma screamed. ‘Curse you!’ She threw the cup. It may have been aimed at Hellevir, but it hit the wall instead and cracked into a thousand pieces.

There was stunned silence as Ma began to sob uncontrollably.

Then Milandre caught Hellevir by the shoulder, and gently guided her out of the room as Pa and Farvor stared after them.

‘Come, child.’ She led Hellevir outside, where the sunlight was seeping through the wisp-­layer of cloud, weak and watery. Milandre sat her down on the bench under the cherry tree and took her hands. The old woman frowned and glanced down at them, as if she’d felt something odd that she hadn’t expected.

‘Oh, child,’ she said, her voice heavy. She brushed the sensitive skin at Hellevir’s knuckle where her little finger used to be on her left hand. It was scarred over as if the wound were many years old. The old woman’s hand drifted up to her own head where her left ear used to be, bare as if she’d been missing it her whole life.

‘You did this, didn’t you?’ she murmured. ‘You brought your ma back.’

Hellevir nodded, and held her breath to stop the tears, but it didn’t work. Milandre gathered her up as she began to cry.

14

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BONDED BY THORNS Elizabeth Helen Publication date: 05/12/2023 Tropes: reverse harem, why choose, hot villain Spice:

1 – Rosalina I have traveled around the world. I’ve walked the Great Wall of China, eaten dinner at the top of the Eiffel Tower, and ridden the bullet train from Tokyo to Osaka. That’s not all. I’ve led an army into battle on dragonback, seduced a vicious mafia boss, and journeyed back in time to fall in love with everyone from Vikings to the Knights of the Round Table. I’ve lived a thousand lives.

Too bad the only real one fucking sucks.

I sigh and close the book I’ve been reading. It’s a good one, about a ghost hunter who accidentally falls in love with the spirit she’s supposed to track down. Some people call these guilty pleasure reads, but why should I feel guilt for wanting to escape to somewhere else, even for a little while?

The bookstore is dead quiet today, so I’ve been able to sneak in a few pages… or a hundred. It’s typical for autumn. Once tourist season ends, Orca Cove goes into hibernation mode. Only the regulars come around, and they don’t need—or want—much from me.

I push a wayward strand of hair behind my ear, not bothering to trap it back into the messy rat’s nest I’ve got piled on my head. Just peering out the big windows at the front of the shop has me reaching for my sweater. Rain during fall in the Pacific Northwest is as typical as a bear shitting in the woods, but that doesn’t stop the locals from complaining. Careful not to knock over the display of books I’ve arranged, I press my palm against the moist glass. I like the rain. It makes me feel less guilty for huddling inside, away from everything and everyone else. I’m sure if I said that to someone, they’d think it’s weird. But hey, like rain in Orca Cove or bears shitting in the woods, that’s to be expected.

1

The door jingles open and Josie and Tiffany walk in, nattering to one another. They’re as typical of locals as you can get: middle-aged, wine-loving, clique-y. Wives of two of the fishing guides.

“Hello,” I say, pretending to fix the display instead of staring out at the rain like a weirdo. “How are you two ladies today?”

Josie stops and puts her hands on her hips. She’s gotten her hair done, short strands curling under her ears. “Rosalina, I walk past this shop every day and you’re in the window every single time.

Doesn’t Richard give you a day off?”

Richard is my boss. And I’m sure he’d like to give me days off… permanently. But he’d never find anyone else in town who’s willing to open and close nearly every day with no overtime pay.

“Oh, I ask to work this much.” I stand behind the till. “Keeps me busy.”

Josie and Tiffany exchange a pitying glance.

“I thought I saw your father driving into town the other day,” Tiffany says slowly. “Where was he this time?”

“He just came back from Petra. In Jordan.” I turn away, not wanting them to see my face flush. “He’s on the road again, though.”

“No faeries in Petra, then?” Josie squeaks. She’s trying to say it as a genuine question, but there’s laughter behind her words. A giddiness in getting more gossip for their little get-togethers at coffee shops and workout classes. I won’t give it to her.

“No,” I mutter. “He hasn’t found what he’s looking for yet.”

“Come on, let’s check the new magazines.” Tiffany pulls Josie to the back of the shop.

Leaning against the counter, I put my head in my hands. Maybe this’s why Richard keeps me around. When it’s not tourist season, the only way to drive business is to be the circus act for regulars to come and taunt.

I shouldn’t think that way. Josie and Tiffany are nice enough.

And I’ve had plenty of friends in Orca Cove. Sure, they all moved on after graduation, going to college or making their mark in big cities.

I don’t hear from them much anymore. And when I do, it’s hard to follow up their news about promotions or travel plans or whatever exciting adventure with… I’m still here. Working at the bookstore.

2

Looking after Papa. Right where you left me.

I keep myself busy by grabbing a stack of freshly unboxed Home & Garden magazines and carrying them to the back of the store to show to Josie and Tiffany. Despite the long hours, I do like my job.

I’m literally surrounded by books. How could you not love that?

The Seagull’s Gullet Book Emporium is long and thin, stuffed full of tall bookcases that turn the place into a labyrinth. Richard took it over from his parents, and I don’t think he has a love for the product, but he does have a love for bossing people around and owning a monopoly.

But I’m the one who turned this rundown, leaky, drafty, wooden shack into what it is now. Fairy lights strung along the rafters?

Check. Weekly displays of local interests? Check. Never missing the latest James Patterson? Check. Sure, a couple of my ideas have flopped. Like sitting by myself in the middle of the shop, empty chairs dragged in a circle, a steaming pot of tea left unpoured, when no one showed up for the book club I ran. Or the time Richard made me take down my display celebrating local folklore, saying I was giving his business a bad reputation.

But I keep trying. It’s all I got.

That’s why I’m happy to show Josie and Tiffany the new magazines.

“It’s a pity. She graduated, what, eight years ago? If it weren’t for her father, I bet she’d have left with all the rest of the young folk.”

Josie’s voice drifts through the stacks. Stepping behind one of the tallest shelves, I quietly pull out a book to peer at them.

They’re huddled together, pretending to look at the magazines, but instead doing what everyone in this small town does best. Gossip.

“Of course it’s her father’s fault,” Tiffany whispers back. “She’s a beauty, there’s no denying. Looks like one of them old movie stars, don’t you think? No wonder Lucas Poussin was all over her. Remember, Lucas?”

“How could I forget?” Josie swoons. “He was the best thing that ever happen to her. Shame he didn’t take her to the city with him.

Saved her life, but couldn’t save her from her father’s madness. Been 3

twenty-five years of Crazy George’s ramblings!”

Tiffany covers her mouth with her hand. “It was funny at first.

But now it’s just sad. He’d rather throw away his money and his daughter’s future than accept his wife ran off.”

“No, no, she was stolen by faeries! Maybe Santa’s got her working away in his toyshop.” Josie lets out a cackle and Tiffany swats her arm.

My face flushes and tears prick the corners of my eyes. I know the town talks. How could I not? But to hear it so plainly…

I want to storm out and scream that I’ve heard everything they’d said. That they have no idea what they’re talking about. That Papa isn’t mad. That with every trip he takes, every loan he gets to fund an excursion, he’s getting closer to what he needs.

But they’re not wrong about everything.

Lucas did save my life.

Head down, I slink to the front counter. When I hear them shuffling back, I force a smile on my face and wave them out.

A pang of guilt sits heavy in my stomach that I didn’t stand up for myself. For Papa. But what’s the point?

Nothing will change the fact I’m always going to be different.

Maybe they’re right about him.

Maybe they’re right about me. *** The sky has darkened to a deep gray, and the streetlights turn on as I shrug on my coat and prepare to lock up.

Richard came an hour ago to do the monthly inventory. Thankfully, this is one of the only tasks he doesn’t trust me with. His dirty plaid jacket hangs over the cardboard boxes as he opens the latest shipments.

“Okay, I’m heading out now,” I call. “See you later, Richard.”

He grunts as a response, but as I place my hand on the door, his deep voice bellows, “What the fuck are these?”

He holds up a couple of the latest romance paperbacks I ordered.

With a delighted squeal, I snatch one from him. “They finally came!

4

Our collection has been stale, so I ordered some things to freshen it up. This one is a romance about a magical university, and this is a contemporary about a girl who pretends to be her brother to play hockey—” “Romances?” Richard spits. “Rosalina, how many times have I told you? These don’t sell.” He slaps his forehead with a palm.

“How much budget did you waste on this drivel?”

I tug the book against my chest. “It’s not drivel…”

Richard digs through the box like an angry mole. “Is this whole damn order romance? What kind of idiot are you?” He stares straight at me, his eyes squinty and dark. “They’re going back.”

“But… If you’d let me put them on display—” “Listen, O’Connell,” my boss snarls. “You’d think for living here your whole damned life, you’d know the people in this town don’t like change. They want the authors they know. And they especially don’t want mindless, unrealistic garbage like this. The only person in this town foolish enough to eat this shit up is you.”

You can’t talk to me like that. You wouldn’t know literature if it smashed you in the head. You’re mean and angry and look like a mole. I quit. These things and more rush through my head, but my throat is so dry, and my heart beats too fast. Then another voice joins the fray: You need this job. Papa needs the money. You’re not capable of anything else.

Instinctively, I tug down the left sleeve of my sweater. “I-I’ll make sure to send the books back. First thing tomorrow.”

Richard sighs and rubs the bridge of his nose. “You know, I was friends with George back in the day.”

George. My father.

“I want to keep you employed for his sake. Don’t make that so hard, okay?”

I nod, taking a deep inhale to suck back my tears. “Okay.” Somewhere, I find an ounce of courage and whisper, “Before we send them back, can I buy two?”

Richard waves an idle hand. “Fine. Grab what you want. I’ll take it out of your paycheck.”

Carefully, I choose two books and tuck them into my purse.

5

“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Rosalina,” he says somberly. As if dealing with me is the worst part of his day. And it probably is.

That’s what Lucas used to say.

I step outside into the rain, wishing above all else I could be anywhere but here.

6

A RIVER OF GOLDEN BONES A.K. Mulford Publication date: 07/12/23 Tropes: fated mates, shifter romance, fairytale retelling Spice:

one

The golden Carriages kiCked up dusT as TownsFolk rushed to the streets, packing every window and stoop. They waved their handkerchiefs at the two coaches, craning their necks, trying to get a peek at the crown prince. The villagers didn’t know why he was there, but I did, and it made my heart leap into my throat with excitement. I knew tomorrow I’d be leaving town in one of those gilded carriages back to his castle.

A rook cawed above me, iridescent wings shimmering as it landed on a maple branch. I scowled at the midnight bird— a bad omen. Sawyn’s army of cloaked guards brandished the same moniker. And now, whenever I saw them, my stomach turned sour, sobering me from the thrill of the encroaching carriages.

With a frown toward the rook, I leapt from my trusty perch.

I didn’t need any bad omens today of all days. My gut lurched as the wind rushed around me and I landed in a crouch. I did a quick scan of the clearing, though I knew no humans were nearby. Their scent would’ve carried easily through the dry summer forest.

I peered back at the maple tree, but the rook had disappeared into the dense foliage. I tucked my amber necklace back under my neckline and dusted the leaves off my threadbare dress.

Sticks snapped under my bare feet as I darted downhill. My dress

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snagged on a thicket of thorns and I pulled it free, grimacing at the sound of fabric tearing. Vellia would have to mend it again.

I hated dresses, but Vellia insisted I wear them when I ventured from the cabin, as wearing tunics and breeches would only draw more attention.

As if I wasn’t stared at anyway, being one of the two strange girls who lived in the wood.

I shielded my eyes from the glinting sun as I ran—not from the rook, though it still had me a bit spooked, especially with who was coming, but toward the road. My bare toes clung to the rough bark of a fallen tree as I crossed the narrow creek, rushing toward the royal procession. In one of those carriages was Graemon Claudius, the crown prince to the Silver Wolf kingdom of Damrienn. My friend had returned at last.

My heart drummed in my ears. I wondered if he looked the same. We’d still been pups the last time I saw him, only thirteen years old. Full moons were the only time his father, King Nero, permitted him to visit us here, and only ever as a Wolf—it was too risky any other way. For if anyone discovered a Gold Wolf in this village, the news would surely spread to Sawyn . . .

I glanced up again, to see if I could spy a rook spying back on me.

When no birds caught my eye, I cleared the forest with a swift leap. My bare feet slapped against the dusty cobbles as I raced toward the throng of well-wishers. It was with a sense of mischievous contentment that I knew I would be watching the world through their human eyes one last time, pretending to be just another among them. My lungs panted sweet air as I pushed my legs faster. I rushed past broken carts and bags of spoiled grain, my hair whipping behind me as I steered toward the main road.

I skirted down a shortcut and heard the crowd roar. I turned my head toward the sound, not watching up ahead, and slammed into an unyielding object. My feet slid out from under me as I

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bounced off what I realized was a cloaked figure. Arms wheeling, I braced myself for the hard thump onto the stone when two powerful hands grabbed me midair and hoisted me back to my feet.

“Apologies,” I blurted out, even as I scrambled for the paring knife in my dress pocket. Vellia wouldn’t let me bring my dagger, but I could justify a paring knife for foraging.

The figure chuckled— a deep, throaty laugh that made me still my hand.

“Hello, little fox.”

The familiar rasp of his low voice made my eyes go wide. My stomach somersaulted at the sound of my nickname. Brushing the curls off my face, I narrowed my eyes, peering into the darkness of his hood. Only one person ever called me that name— and that person I hadn’t seen in seven years.

Someone who should be in one of those carriages instead of standing before me.

“Grae?” I dropped my hand from my knife’s handle.

He pulled back his hood, and the sight of him rattled me more than colliding headlong into him had. This was not the boy I had known. No, this was not a boy at all. I’d never seen a more stunning man. He had classic Damrienn features— obsidian hair pulled to a small knot at the crown of his head, golden brown skin, and hooded umber eyes. But he was also twice my size, towering over me, the peak of shoulder muscles from his neckline denoting a warrior’s physique. He was gorgeous, and yet still wolflike even in his human form, with glinting canines and a hardened jaw. His angular cheeks dimpled as he smirked down at me.

“Wh-what are you doing out here?” I asked, scanning the vacant backstreets.

“We’re visiting, of course.”

“I mean what are you doing here, in this alley?” I said.

His grin widened. “I wanted to see the village where you

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grew up without being noticed.” His voice was an octave lower than since last I’d heard it. “Maybe a bit too unnoticeable, seeing as you ran straight into me.”

That voice. Gods, help me. His Wolf voice had spoken into my mind during his visits, but we had been thirteen then. Hearing it now was . . . distracting.

“Briar and Vellia are waiting at the cabin for you,” I whispered. It was all I could think to say as my gaze hooked on his face, dumbstruck.

How was it possible this is what Grae looked like?

His dark eyes twinkled, making the hairs on my arms stand on end. “Walk with me?”

My lips parted, and I followed him down the alley and onto the wider back road. Cheers and whistles bounced off the stone as we walked across the worn cobbles. My heartbeat thrummed in my ears. He was really here.

I cleared my throat. “How did you know it was me?”

Grae’s cloak flapped behind him as he peeked at me. Every time those red-brown eyes landed on me, it felt like the ground gave way.

“Your hair.”

“My hair?” I snorted, grabbing a brown ringlet and pulling it straight. “I don’t have curly hair in my other form.”

Immediately my eyes darted to the curtained windows and closed doors. No one was around to hear me, but I still said other instead of Wolf. Sawyn would pay handsomely for the last Gold Wolves’ location, and no matter how pretty the man next to me was, I was always on guard. We had kept our secret these many years through dogged vigilance, not even whispering the word “Wolf,” and that wasn’t about to change.

“Not the texture of your hair.” Grae chuckled, the sound making my toes curl against the rough stones. “The scent of your hair.”

“My scent?” Most humans smelled the same to me, like rising

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bread and tilled earth, but each Wolf had their own scent, like a fingerprint special only to them.

And he remembered mine.

Grae took a deep, slow breath, making me blush. His nostrils flared as he seemingly tasted the air and let it out again. “Like lilies in summer sunshine and a hint of spice . . . cinnamon perhaps?” He murmured each word as if savoring it.

Pinpricks covered my lips up to my ears, and I knew the creeping blush had probably turned my cheeks bright red.

Yes, he knew me— and I knew Grae’s scent, too. He’d always smelled like . . . damp earth and woodsmoke— a bonfire after a rainstorm. Powerful and elemental, disparate yet whole. The echoes of his essence flooded back to me, along with all those childhood memories. I still heard our laughter, that giddy glee of chasing each other through the nighttime forest. And when we were tired from our runs, we’d sit by the river and he’d tell me stories from every corner of the realm.

Closing my eyes, I breathed deep through my nose. As a Wolf, I could smell the pies cooling in open windows, the fresh hay being carted off to the town stables, and the wildflowers in the meadow beyond. I imagined the wind in my hair was blowing through my golden red fur instead as I realized that with Grae here, it possibly meant the end to our hiding, and my Wolf could finally be free. That thought made me giddy, and I hoped the forests in the capital would be larger. In Allesdale, I had to run in circles to run at all. The eastern wood surrounding our little cottage took only ten minutes to cross on all four paws. I’d learned every fallen log and muddy creek by heart and was beginning to feel like the dogs kept tied up outside the butchers.

After today, though, I’d no longer feel trapped.

Grae tipped his chin toward my bare feet, and his cheeks dimpled. “Your feet must be as tough as your paws.” His laugh had changed since we were young. Now it was a rolling thunder that emerged from his chest only to be felt deep in my own.

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I checked over my shoulder again to see if anyone had heard him, but the streets were empty. Soon the carriages would roll out the other end of town, and people would return to work, but for now they were entranced by the spectacle.

“You should be more careful,” I muttered, instantly regretting that I had just rebuked the crown prince. I mean, I was royalty, too . . . but if Briar were here, she’d scold me for my lack of decorum. Grae was not the playful pup chasing bunnies in the eastern wood anymore.

“When we get to Highwick, you’ll never again have to whisper about what you are,” he promised. The sincerity in his voice made me press my lips together. “You can be proud to be a Wolf.”

He lifted his chin up to the Moon Goddess. “You can be exactly as you are, little fox.”

I huffed. Exactly as I am? That wasn’t saying much. Briar was “the Crimson Princess,” with her ruby red hair and long, lithe frame. The Moon Goddess designed her perfectly for royal life.

Me . . . I was Briar’s opposite in every way, the other side of the same coin. No one would ever guess that we were twins. Only a handful of people even knew who I was— Grae and his father being two of them. I was a whole head shorter than Briar and twice her size, with rounded curves that belied the muscles I’d spent years of combat training honing. Even in my Gold Wolf form, I was lacking compared to my twin— small and scruffy next to her, with a hue of rust to my golden fur. It was why Grae called me little fox . . . and it was also why his promises that I could be myself felt nothing but deflating.

The words spilled from my mouth before I could stop them.

“Who I am is no one.”

Grae’s footsteps faltered at my muttered confession. He sidestepped me so quickly I almost walked straight into him . . . again. Blocking my path, he spun to face me. His stare felt like a weight pressing down on me. His calloused pointer finger touched the tip of my chin, lifting until my eyes met his dark ones. Holding his gaze felt thrilling and familiar all at once.

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7

“You will have a home in Highwick, too, little fox.” His breath brushed my cheek. “You will stand on the dais as the royalty you are once your sister and I are married. There will never be any mistaking that you are truly someone.”

My racing heart plummeted into my gut. Not at the promise, but at the reason why he could make such a promise: Once your sister and I are married.

That was why he was here. On the full moon, it would be our twentieth birthday, and they would finally fulfill the marriage that had been arranged since before our births. The Crimson Princess would marry the Silver Wolf of Damrienn for the good of the pack.

Shame burned inside of me at my bitterness. Neither of us were children anymore, though I still preferred climbing trees to rouging my cheeks. I knew we all had a role to play. I reminded myself of Vellia’s words, the ones she told me and my sister over and over again. That the fate of our kingdom depended on this marriage and the money and soldiers that came with it. With the might of the Damrienn army, we could reclaim the fallen Gold Wolf kingdom. This was how daughters of kings gained power—through marriages and alliances. Briar would rally support through tea parties and balls, and, as her guard, I’d muster it with my sword. I was definitely getting the better end of the deal, training in secret to be a killer instead of a dainty, poised princess.

It was the whole reason we had hidden ourselves in this quiet village.

The realization still hit me like a blow, however.

As if on cue, a rook cawed overhead, taunting me, and I pressed on. Grae fell into stride beside me.

“I’d still prefer we don’t discuss these things until we are in Highwick,” I muttered.

Grae chuckled. “As you wish, little fox.”

Little fox. He kept saying it, and it kept sounding different now, even though it was the only nickname I’d ever had. Briar

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wouldn’t even appreciate how good it felt to be noticed by someone like Grae. I clenched my fists as we walked, knowing I should focus more on the coming battles than on the handsome prince beside me. The pack was more important than my desires.

I looked around to distract myself. The streets began filling with people as the royal carriages wheeled out of Allesdale. Only Grae and I knew they wouldn’t be rolling into the next town, but veering off toward Vellia’s cabin in the woods. Grae and his guards would stay the night, and we’d leave at first light for our long journey back to the capital.

Grae pulled his hood up again, hiding his visage in shadow as I scanned the dreary stone buildings. I wouldn’t miss this drab little town. The haggard faces of villagers watched us as we climbed the hill. The townsfolk had always been wary of Vellia, and Briar and I by association. An old lady living alone in the woods garnered rumors she was a sorceress. Little did they know, Vellia was indeed magical, but she was no witch.

The road inclined, steeper with each step. I welcomed the pleasant burn of my muscles as I hastened to keep up with Grae’s long legs. I savored this last moment together, just the two of us.

I peeked at him, unable to see his eyes from the shadows of his hood, but somehow knowing he looked back at me. Despite all my eagerness to leave, I would miss this— two friends without titles or grand destinies. That daydream would end as soon as we reached the hidden cabin in the woods where his betrothed waited.

We hurried along, yet all I wanted to do was linger. I couldn’t do that, though. Not to Grae. Not to Briar.

All things must come to an end— even if it’s just a walk through the woods.

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FAEBOUND Saara El-Arifi Publication date: 18/01/24 Tropes: enemies to lovers, fae court, love triangle, sapphic romance Spice:

C HAP TER ON E

Yeeran

Y

eeran was born on the battlefield, lived on the battlefield, and one day, she knew, she’d die on the battlefield.

Her first breaths were tinged with the smoke and ash of her mother’s dying enemies. And when Yeeran screamed, she joined the rallying cry of her tribe as they rode into battle. Soldiers giving birth on the front line wasn’t uncommon. If you could hold a drum, you could fight.

And yet we still don’t have enough soldiers.

Yeeran let out a heavy sigh as she surveyed the war map in front of her. Each valley and hill had been etched into the slab of oak by skilled cartographers. An expensive piece of craftmanship to have in a bedchamber, but Yeeran’s lover had never been called frugal.

The moonlight cast a shard of silver over the centre of the table where the four districts of the Elven Lands converged on the Bleeding Field, the front line of battle. She ran her gaze over the four quadrants of the map: Waxing, Crescent, Eclipse and finally her own elven tribe, Waning.

Her hand curled around the edge of the table, her nails making fine dents in the grain of the wood as she scrutinised the battlefield formations. White tokens tracked the locations of troops under her army’s direction.

Yeeran’s eyes homed in on one regiment that lay in wait by the eastern tower of the garrison. Hers.

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SAARA EL-ARIFI

‘Yeery,’ the nickname was breathed into the silence. Salawa’s quiet steps had brought her to Yeeran’s side. ‘Come back to bed.’ Her breath was hot as she brushed her lips against the shaved sides of Yeeran’s head towards the pointed tips of her ears.

Yeeran’s hand slid up Salawa’s back and tangled her fingers in the edges of the woman’s braids. They hung heavy against her naked skin, weighed down with beads and gemstones.

‘I can’t sleep.’

Salawa didn’t respond for a time. Yeeran liked that about her lover, that each second was considered, every thought knitted together, before she spoke.

‘Twenty years you have waited to be promoted to colonel. Few thought you’d do it before your thirty-fifth birthday, yet here you are, the youngest colonel the Waning Army has ever had—’ ‘Not until tomorrow.’

Salawa inhaled sharply. She didn’t like to be interrupted. Yeeran’s hand slipped up from Salawa’s clavicle until it rested against her cheek. It was only then that Salawa softened enough to continue.

‘Sleep will not take this moment away from you. Your new regiment will be there in the morning.’

Salawa looked to the window where the city of Gural pulsed as the heartbeat of the Waning district. Yeeran followed the direction of her gaze.

Chimneys thrust up from domed roofs puffing smoke into the star-speckled sky. Yeeran knew that the taverns would be teeming with soldiers made merry by spiced rum. For the bakeries it wasn’t late night, it was early morning, and the aroma of their ovens seasoned the light wind.

Yeeran watched the tenderness in Salawa’s face harden as she looked further, towards the Bleeding Field. Battle fire lit her green irises hazel and Yeeran felt herself burning from the flame reflected there.

‘I got you something, to celebrate your new title,’ Salawa said quietly.

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Yeeran’s hand dropped from Salawa’s cheek. Her lover’s gifts were always ostentatious and gaudy. Yeeran didn’t wear jewellery or care for fine dresses. Neither helped her in combat.

The only thing she did keep on her was a small gold ring sewn into the lining of her uniform. It had no sentimental value for her, but she knew that, should she fall in battle, the ring would be rightfully claimed by the young children who made a living scavenging from the corpses of the army. With that ring, the children would be able to feed themselves for a year. Yeeran had spent many years of her childhood hoping to find such a boon.

‘I think you’ll really like this gift,’ Salawa said as she padded away to retrieve something from under her four-poster bed.

Yeeran gave her a tentative smile and Salawa laughed knowingly as she withdrew a large circular object wrapped in a leather sling.

It took Yeeran less than three steps to cross the room. She lifted the gift from Salawa’s outstretched hands and peeled back the grain of the leather to find the present within.

The drum was exquisitely crafted. The outer shell hewn in mahogany, making the barrel shine a deep crimson like fresh blood.

The casing and hoop were gold and studded with sapphires. Beading threaded down the bowl of the drum, more for decoration than for sound. But the most beautiful thing by far was the black drumskin.

‘From an obeah elder?’ Yeeran murmured, her hand running over the stretched leather.

Obeah were the only creatures imbued with magic in the realm.

The animals had once been as common as deer, roaming in packs across the Elven Lands. Yeeran’s sight went inwards as she imagined the creatures thundering through the forest, their white horns slicing through the foliage, their feline forms slipping past trees with the ease of ink on paper.

But now the ink had all but dried up, as they had been hunted to near extinction for their magic.

Magic for weapons like these. Yeeran’s fingers prickled where they rested on the drumskin.

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SAARA EL-ARIFI

Salawa grinned and clasped her hands under her chin.

‘Yes, this was made from one of the oldest obeah our hunters have ever caught.’

As an obeah aged its skin colour deepened, making the creature’s magic more potent, and its skin even more coveted for crafting powerful objects. Unfortunately, elder obeah were also more intelligent, so hunting them was near impossible. Salawa’s gift was something rare and precious.

Yeeran could feel the magic emanating from the skin. She tapped her fingers across it and directed the vibrations of the drumbeat with purpose, knitting them together in her mind to form a small projectile. It was like weaponising sound. The invisible force struck a white token in the centre of the map ten feet away.

She’d always been good at drumfire. Having a clear intention was the key, but the clarity of the note and strength of magic in the obeah elder skin made her skills unmatchable. If her enemies had thought she was dangerous before, they would soon see how deadly she could be.

Salawa clapped.

‘Now the greatest colonel of the Waning Army has the greatest weapon.’

Yeeran carefully sheathed the drum back in its case and went to Salawa. She folded her into her arms and rested her chin against her hair.

‘Thank you, I will treasure this gift for the rest of my life.’

‘Now can we go back to sleep? Tomorrow will come soon enough,’ Salawa murmured.

Yeeran released a breath of assent and let herself be led back towards Salawa’s bed. She slipped beneath the silk sheets, and Salawa moulded herself into the contours of Yeeran’s body. She lay her head on the soft skin between Yeeran’s shoulder and breast and let out a contented sigh.

Salawa’s breathing elongated as she fell into a deep slumber.

Yeeran watched as the fraedia beads in her hair began to softly

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gleam with the oncoming dawn. The crystal had the same properties as the sun and could be used to grow crops or warm homes in winter.

She reached out and gently moved one of the beads away from Salawa’s face, lest the brightness wake her. She cradled the gemstone for a second, marvelling at its warmth. This small deposit could help grow a plant for its entire lifecycle. Could help feed a family.

She let the bead fall.

If only we had more of it.

For fraedia was the currency of the war.

Beneath the bloodied soil of the Bleeding Field were untapped mines of the valuable crystal. And where there is value, there is power, and where there is power, violence will always brew.

So, the Forever War came to be.

Yeeran found herself wondering how many soldiers had died for this small yield of fraedia in Salawa’s hair. It cast her black skin, darker than Yeeran’s soft umber complexion, in a warm saffron glow.

Though all elves looked different, the only difference that mattered was which tribe had your allegiance. And Yeeran was Waning, and Waning was Yeeran. There was no separating her from her tribe.

To lead was to be one and the same.

Salawa had shown her that.

Sun sins, she is beautiful. Beautiful in dreams and fierce in waking.

Sleep didn’t come for Yeeran, but nor did she seek it. Instead, she lay there watching the dawn break against her lover’s skin, her mind alight with glory and power and death.

The next morning Yeeran slipped out of Salawa’s bedchamber while she was still asleep and made her way across the city. The sound of warfare grew louder the closer she got to the Bleeding Field, the echo of drumfire was as soothing as it was exhilarating.

Today she was a colonel.

As she neared the training grounds, she heard the familiar lilt of a nursery rhyme.

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SAARA EL-ARIFI

One, two, three, four: the elven tribes, Waning, Waxing, Crescent, Eclipse, Made by the moon, made to persist.

From a distance it was easy to mistake the youthful voices for a group of children in a playground. But Yeeran knew that she wouldn’t find schoolchildren when she turned the corner.

Three gods, three peoples, there were before, Now only elves: one, two, three, four.

No, these soldiers had long stopped being children. They marched woodenly in time with their chanting, their expressions grim. Yeeran watched the boy closest to her spin on his heel, his small head rattling against his large helmet like an acorn in a barrel.

He can’t be more than nine years old.

‘Colonel Yeeran Teila.’ The lieutenant overseeing the drills had spotted her.

Yeeran winced, she’d hoped to slip by without being spotted.

‘Lieutenant Fadel.’ She returned the lieutenant’s salute.

‘Are you here to select your next drum-bearer?’

The role was given to the youngest recruits of the army. Yeeran had always thought the title an odd one, as she never relinquished her drum’s maintenance to anyone. Every night she would spend an hour cleaning the barrel of enemy blood and carefully oiling the drumskin.

Not that this drum would need as much maintenance.

It hung from her shoulder now, a reminder of Salawa’s love resting against her hip. Heavy and ever-present.

‘No, I have no need of a drum-bearer,’ Yeeran said, shaking her head sharply.

Fadel frowned but then smoothed his expression into one of earnestness.

‘What about Officer Hana? She is our very best.’ He gave a signal and a girl, slightly taller than her peers, stepped forward.

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Her uniform hung off her frame like a flag on a pole. Her stomach, though, swelled from malnutrition, and Yeeran felt her own abdomen prickle with the memory.

The child’s dirty fingers curled into a tight fist as she pounded her frail chest in salute. The harder the drumbeat, the more respect the salute afforded, and this girl beat her chest so hard she was ready to knock the ribs from her breast.

Yeeran lowered herself to the girl’s height, dropping all pretence of formality. Hana gave her lieutenant a worried look, but Yeeran drew her gaze back to her with a smile.

‘It’s OK.’ Yeeran reached into her pocket and withdrew a single gold coin. ‘Make sure you get a proper meal tonight, not the gruel they give you in the barracks. All right?’

The child stood still, awestruck by the gold coin in her hand.

Then she said the most unexpected thing. ‘They sold me for less than this.’

Yeeran felt a gasp reflexively escape her lips.

A few years ago, the chieftain had introduced a new programme: children could be sold directly to the Waning Army for half a silver.

The child then became a ward of the district, their fellow soldiers their only family.

It made procreation a profitable business.

‘War plays by no rules. There are only fighters and failures,’ the chieftain had said when announcing the programme.

Looking at Hana, Yeeran wasn’t sure she agreed.

She straightened before striding away from the girl and the open mouth of Lieutenant Fadel.

Yeeran told herself that her hurried steps were driven by the anticipation of meeting her new regiment. But really she was running from the sight of the child soldiers and her own memories of an aching hunger that had never truly gone away.

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SUNBRINGER Hannah Kaner Publication date: 15/02/24 Tropes: epic quest, old world gods, LGBTQ+ representation

CHAPTER ONE Arren arren’s heart screamed.

He fell back from the fireplace. The god in his chest was howling: Hseth! Hseth! Hseth!

‘Stop!’ Arren cried. He grappled with the tangle of twigs, moss and flame that filled the rift in his ribs. Fire licked the sides of his fingers, burning him.

Hestra, the god of hearths who lived where his heart had once beaten was usually quiescent, but now she shrieked the name of another. Hseth. The great Talician god of fire.

‘Please,’ said Arren. ‘Stop!’

She did not stop. Worse. Sparks ran down his stomach and landed on the floor. There, moss, lint, straw, pine roots and tiny bits of bone sprouted, catching light in the fireplace where he had been kneeling. She was crawling out of his chest.

What had happened? They had been waiting for Hseth to return in glory, filling Arren with the power of the strongest fire deity to have ever existed, in exchange for the life of his friend.

Not a friend. Not anymore.

But Hseth had not returned, and neither had her promises.

Arren’s god, Hestra, spilled out onto the hearthstone, dragging her heat and light from him and leaving a void of darkness. As she built herself outside of him, he fell back against a low table, gasping.

First, she was a bud, a cocoon of twigs. Then the cocoon cracked 1

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hannah kaner open, splitting into the limbs of dried grass, moss and kindling. A face of branches and eyes of flame.

‘Hestra,’ he wheezed. With her gone from his chest, he could feel his blood cooling, the strain of his breaths. His death, it came at him like a wave, long held back by flame. ‘Please.’

In Blenraden, the morning sun had struck open the sky, but there in Sakre, in the far west of Middren, the windows were still thick with the grey before dawn. The only wakeful ones would be the guards outside his room or the folks in the kitchens. They must not see him like this. He had built himself up as a godslayer, a breaker of shrines. No one could know he needed a god to live.

Hestra did not heed him. He reached for her, but she stepped backwards into the fireplace and disappeared in a hiss of anger.

And he was left with nothing. Less than nothing. She had vowed to keep him alive, had entreated him to speak to Hseth and understand the will of a god, his potential. She had helped him betray every law he had ever made. In a moment, all of it was gone.

Without a word, she had left him to die.

The whims of gods. As fickle as a false spring.

Arren had never been so easily turned. But look what it had earned him: in Hestra’s absence, the world grew loud. Gone was the crackling of his heart, the warm rushing of his blood. Instead, he could hear the snap of embers in the fire, the sparks that hissed minutely as they died on the stones, the rain that thrashed against the window, thinning as the sky brightened. Most of all he could hear the desperate dredging of his lungs as they tried for air. It did no good, not without Hestra, his secret, his shame. Without her, he would be dead before the sun rose. All his hopes lost.

Help, he thought. Unbidden, his friend’s name crept into his mind. Help me, Elogast.

Elogast was not coming. He was in the east. Betrayed and wounded. Betrayed by him.

Arren was alone. He had sacrificed his closest friend, his brother, his one remaining love, for the power to change the world, and it had gained him only a pathetic death in a locked room.

Knocking shook the door to his chambers. Soft, tentative at first.

He couldn’t answer. The knocking came harder.

2

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SUNBRINGER ‘Your majesty?’

The guards. They had heard.

‘We heard noises? My king?’

They could not find out this secret. Not yet. They weren’t ready.

The door shook on its hinges, the guard shaking the lock. Arren tried to drag himself upright.

‘Don’t . . . come in,’ he tried, but barely managed a croak of air.

He fell on his side, knocking the table, and the compasses and writs he had spread across it clattered to the floor. His vision blurred.

Hseth had promised him, promised him. Talicia and Middren, united as one, coast to coast claim of the Trade Sea. The beginnings of an empire, of indisputable love and power. He should have known their promises would come to nothing.

The door splintered, slamming back on its hinges and smashing into the wall hard enough to shake the dust from the tapestries.

In came Knight Commander Peta, shoulder first. She drew her slender sword and cast around for an intruder, finding none. Just a mess of twigs, a crackling fire.

‘My king,’ she gasped in her alarm, dropping to her knees beside him. He struggled for air, for control, but he could not hide it now: no blood, no covering, just an open, empty wound. Peta’s eyes found the chasm in his chest, the darkness where death should be.

It had been years since the axe of the god of war had gone deep into his bones, ripping through his breastplate and cracking his ribs into pieces. The marks remained where the metal of his armour had made a mess of his skin, healing into dark red scarring threaded with Hestra’s smoke-script. That, a vivid black. A god’s promise.

‘Please,’ Arren whispered, though he did not know what he was asking for.

Peta’s face paled with horror, her hands hovering over his shoulders. Her eyes and mouth were lined by a life of hard living, her grey hair cropped, no-nonsense, close to her skull, and shining in the morning light that had crept through the dispersing clouds.

She was upright and fierce, desperately loyal. One of the few aged generals who had not run in the worst days of the war, nor had she faltered at hanging would-be assassins from the gallows, one 3

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hannah kaner of them her own cousin. She had even passed his command to burn the Craier steadings to the ground. And he had lied to her.

‘My king, I . . . When?’ Her calloused hand hovered over the gaping space in his chest. When did this happen? How long had he lied for? It was too late now. He was dying again, and Elo wasn’t here to hold him.

‘The war,’ Arren managed. His vision swam, darkness crowding in at his eyes. Let them know, let them all know. He had tried to live. They should be grateful.

But the look on her face was not the disgust he expected. It was awe.

Arren had seen that look before. Given to his mother when she was queen. Given to gods. His commander did not hate him. She admired him.

Hestra and Hseth had assured him he would be dragged through the streets as a traitor if the world found he had harboured a god.

They would think him weak like his mother, disloyal like Elo. He had believed them.

Arren’s brain raced as he neared death. It was what Elo always praised him for, his quick thinking, his decisiveness. What if Hseth had been wrong? What if he did not need her power to be loved?

What if there was a story here, capable of winning their faith? That was how gods were made.

‘I gave my life for Middren,’ he said, resting his fingers on his open chest. ‘All I have done . . . for Middren . . .’

Peta nodded. ‘I know . . .’ she said.

The other knights were beginning to understand. Arren heard a creak as one, then another, then all of the guards fell to their knees.

But it was too late. Too late for this last grasp at hope, at love.

His hand dropped to the floor. His breath faded. None of them dared say a word.

A spark from the fire leapt out just as the dawn broke through the clouds. The ember ran across the wooden floor, the carpet, racing up Arren’s arm and into the cavity where his heart had been.

There, it bloomed.

Hestra. She took root in his heart and once more her power 4

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SUNBRINGER filled him, warming his blood and sending it rushing. His gasping lungs swelled with air, bringing light and life to his body. He breathed.

He gripped the commander’s arm, dizzy with the sudden change.

Death to life. Dark to light, as the sun illuminated all of them in gold.

Another chance.

Arren forced strength into his voice. ‘It is well,’ he said, and sat up. ‘I am well.’ He had learned this on the battlefield, suffused with fear, breaths from death, to channel strength, power, certainty. He stood on shaking legs without Peta’s help, trying not to show how terrified he had been. His commander stepped back, scared to touch him.

He would show no shame; nothing good would be built on shame. He stood tall, softened the planes of his face from pain into something gentler, then held out his shaking hands and showed his bare chest fully. The darkness within was now lit by Hestra’s fire, crowded with green moss and twigs.

The guards looked up at him, agape, uncertain. Uncertainty he could use. He saw himself in their eyes: a tale they could whisper, a myth he could build.

Hseth is dead. Hestra did not care for the crisis she had caused.

Instead, her thoughts slammed into Arren’s mind, painful. No acknowledgement, no apology. The great god of fire is dead. Her shrines broken, her power gone.

Dead. Arren gritted his teeth. One damned crisis at a time.

‘We failed you,’ Peta whispered. Two of their guards deepened their bow, another gasped, horrified at the thought.

‘No,’ said Arren quickly. ‘No, Knight Commander. I gave my life, willingly, to kill the god of war and save our lands from destruction.’

That was not all true – Arren had not killed the god of war – but the truth didn’t matter. All that mattered was the story. The myths that made gods, brought them to life in their shrines. Stories bind hope and love to make it faith.

Peta touched her hand to the badge that pinned her cloak at her shoulder, the stag’s head before a rising sun, the symbol of Arren’s kingship. His defeat of the god of war, the gods he had 5

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hannah kaner risen beyond. Before his symbol had been a young lion, but that he had come to share with Elo; the king’s lion, so his friend had been called. Arren had to be something else.

‘I did what I must,’ he said softly. How many times had Hseth said such a thing to him? ‘A sacrifice is not a loss. We had to fight the tide of darkness, the chaos of the gods. We still fight it, we still must fight it.’ Hestra flared in his chest, and he put a hand there.

Wait, he thought towards her, hoping she understood him.

‘To bring sunlight back to us, to Middren,’ said Arren, threading his hopes together ‘to bring ourselves back from those nights of terror, we all must be willing to give our lives, even if it hurts us, even if it challenges our very soul.’

Hestra was still. Arren let the light of the sun brighten his curling mess of hair, let the flicker of the god’s flame twist impossibly in his heart. He was vulnerable. A single briddite blade would end him here and now.

‘If you, too, will make such offerings,’ he said, ‘then pledge to me.’ He splayed out his hand and put it over the rift in his heart.

Like sunrays, like his symbol. His story.

Peta dropped to her knees and copied him: hand over heart, fingers spread wide. The others followed, hand after hand. Hestra’s flames stirred again, this time with delight, sensing what she also desired, more than anything. Faith. For a moment, in their eyes, they were both more than they had ever been. More than his mother’s unloved son. More than a lucky prince who won a war and no longer had the commander who won it with him. More than a little god of littler shrines, chipped away and forgotten.

Together, they were greater than his flesh, brighter than his crown.

All he had ever wanted to be.

‘Sunbringer,’ said Peta. Arren almost laughed with half pleasure, half delirium. This was more than an alliance with Hseth, a reliance on her power.

This was him.

The others murmured with her. ‘Sunbringer.’

‘Sunbringer.’

It was not enough, not yet. He needed more. He needed a nation.

He must become a god.

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EMPIRE OF THE DAMNED Jay Kristoff Publication date: 29/02/24 Tropes: magical bloodlines, vampire vs vampire hunter, bloodlust Spice:

empi re of the d a mne d

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SUNSET I THE DEAD BOY opened his eyes.

All was still and silent, he among it, and most of all. A statue he was, his only movement in the yawning of his pupils, the soft parting of his bloodless lips. There was no quickening of breath as waking claimed him, no deeping drumbeat beneath his porcelain skin. He lay there in darkness, angelic and bare, staring at the timeworn velvet canopy above and wondering what had woke him.

It was not nightfall, to be sure. The daystar was yet kissing the horizon, the dark not yet quite sunk to its knees. The mortals who shared his grand four-poster bed were peaceful as corpses; motionless save for the featherlight shift of the beau’s arm across his belly, the smooth rhythm of the maid’s breath against his chest. There was no hunger in a bed so laden, nor chill amid beauties so ripe. So what then, had dragged him from slumber?

He’d not dreamed during the day – those of the Blood never did. But still, he realized sleep had brought him no comfort, frail daylight no rest, and emerging now fully from the death-deep murk of sleep, all at once he understood.

What had woken Jean-François was the pain.

He remembered now; hand drifting up toward his neck as the images danced like corpseflies in his head. Iron-hard fingers, sinking into the ashes of his throat. Wine-stained fangs, bared in a snarl. Storm-grey eyes, brimming with hatred as Jean-François was slammed into the wall, red smoke boiling from his skin.

‘I told you I’d make you fucking scream, leech.’

He’d been only a few moments from his ending, he knew it. Had Meline not intervened with her silversteel dagger . . .

Imagine it.

After all you’ve seen and done.

Imagine dying right there in that filthy cell.

Lying there in the darkness, Jean-François caressed the place Gabriel de León had hurt him. Picturing those dark pitiless eyes veiled in red smoke, the

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dead boy felt his jaw clench. And for a moment – just the space of a single, mortal breath – the Marquis experienced a sensation he’d imagined consigned to the dust of decades.

‘There is no one more afraid of dying than things who live forever.’

His movement had disturbed the girl beside him, and she sighed before sinking back toward sleep. A pretty flower she was, Sūdhaemi born, with soft dark curls and deep olive skin. She was on the scrawny side – but weren’t they all these nights – a handful of years older than Jean-François when he’d received the Gift. But her skin was warm, and her touch oh-so-clever, and whenever she looked at him, her deep green eyes swelled with a hunger at wondrous odds with her ingenue’s façade.

She’d served in his stable almost four months now. Wanton and willing.

For a moment, Jean-François wished he could remember her name.

His eyes roamed the promise of her bare body; the lush line of the artery running the inside of her thigh, the delicious tracery of veins at her wrists and up, up to the sharp blade of her jaw. He watched her pulse thrum gently below it, hypnotic, soft with sleep. The thirst stirred inside him – his hated lover, his beloved enemy – and Jean-François pictured Gabriel de León again, the silversaint’s face hovering just inches from his.

Fingers sinking deeper.

Lips close enough to kiss.

‘Scream for me, leech.’

The historian levered himself onto his elbow, golden curls tumbling about his cheeks. Behind him, the young beau sighed objection, hand questing over cold sheets. He was a Nordish beauty, that one, raven of hair and creamy of skin, near twenty-years-old, Jean-François supposed. The Viscontessa Nicolette had presented him a few weeks past – a bribe from his blood-niece in exchange for a kind word in the Empress’s ear, and though he hated Nicolette like poison, Jean-François had accepted. The beau was lean as a thoroughbred, the flesh at his wrist and throat and nethers faintly scored by needle-sharp teeth.

His name definitely starts with a D . . .

Jean-François traced marble fingertips over the maid’s skin, gentle as the first breath of spring. Chocolat eyes narrowed in fascination as her flesh reacted – that telltale trail of prickling hair as one razored fingernail grazed the bitemarks at her throat. The monster leaned in, tongue flickering swift, over, around the tightening swell of her nipple, and the maid’s breath quickened, shivering, waking fully now. The warmth of the blood he’d drunk before they’d all tumbled into sleep had faded – his lips must have been cool as melting ice. Yet she moaned as he suckled deeper, biting hard but not quite hard enough. And parting her thighs, she dared to run a hand through his golden hair.

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3

‘Master . . .’ she breathed.

The beau was awake now; roused by the maid’s sighs. He scattered kisses across the Marquis’s bare shoulders, and slow as melting candle-wax, his hand quested over the coldblood’s hips, across the pale muscle of his belly, down toward Jean-François’s nethers. The vampire allowed the Nordling to touch him, stroke him, willing his blood southward and hearing the beau groan as he grew iron-hard and heavy in his hand.

‘Master,’ he sighed.

The maid was pressing gentle kisses along his throat, ever closer to the wounds de León had left. Jean-François seized a fistful of her curls, and she gasped as he dragged her back. Her pulse was a war drum now, and he kissed her, hard, allowing his fangs to slice her lip and spill a few drops of rubybright fire across their dancing tongues.

The thirst surged then, and for a moment, it was all he could do to bring it to heel. But the Marquis was a creature who enjoyed the hunt as much as the kill, and so he broke their bloody kiss and guided the maid toward the rock-hard beau behind him.

She understood at once, lips parting as the Nordling knelt up to meet her.

He groaned as she took him into her mouth, pulse thumping harder beneath smooth, warm skin. The Marquis watched the pair sway for a time, the play of shadow and light on their flesh. The scent on the air told Jean-François that the maid was wet and warm as summer rain, and the merest brush of his fingers along her quim made her shiver all the way to her curling toes, pushing back against his hand, needing, pleading.

‘Not yet, love,’ he whispered, eliciting a moan of protest. ‘Not yet.’

Jean-François rose, languid, kneeling on the bed behind the breathless beau.

Brushing long black locks from the Nordling’s neck, the Marquis felt the mortal tremble; a predator at his back now, sharp claws skimming over his skin. The Marquis’s hands roamed down delicious swells and valleys of muscle, finally encircling the heat of that throbbing cock. And gazing down over the plane of his prey’s heaving belly to the maid, he growled a low, hard command.

‘Finish him.’

The maid moaned, eyes locked on his; a priestess, lost in worship. The beau was shaking, taking hold of the maid’s tresses as the monster’s fangs grazed his skin. Jean-François could still feel the silversaint’s fingers around his throat.

‘Scream for me,’ he whispered.

The beau did just that, one hand tangled in the Marquis’s hair. The maid plunged him into her throat, deep and deepest, and as Jean-François felt it – that pulsing, rushing heat flooding up through the beau’s nethers and into

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her waiting mouth, he bit down, past that brief, intoxicating resistance of skin, unleashing the rush of bliss-thick life within.

There was nothing then. No trembling body in his arms. No cry of ardor echoing on the walls. There was only the blood, aflame with every mote of the beau’s passion; an elixir of life and lust entwined and lifting him ever upward into boundless skies.

Alive.

Jean-François drank just as greedily as the maid, wanting only more, only this, only everything. In nights before the daystar failed, he’d have taken just that. Yet sheep were too rare now, their lives too dear to waste, and so, he sliced his thumb with one sharp fingernail, pressed it to the beau’s lips. The mortal gasped, latching on, suckling, one hand still entwined in the maid’s curls, drinking deep as he pumped his hips, a perfect communion, consuming and consumed, all the world around them bathed in— ‘Master?’

The call sounded at the bedchamber door, followed by brisk knocking.

Jean-François recognized the perfume under the heavenly scent of blood.

‘Meline,’ he sighed, mouth dripping red. ‘Enter.’

The door to his boudoir opened, admitting echoes of steel and stone, faint whispers of servants in halls above. The château was waking now; a dozen faint notes of bloodscent hanging in the air as his majordomo swept into the room.

Meline was clad in a whalebone corset, a stunning gown of black velvet damask, only slightly worn with age. A lace choker was cinched about her throat, long red hair bound into thin braids, a half-dozen strung artfully across her eyes in the seeming of thin chains. She looked a madame of middle thirty, though in truth she was closer to fifty; the relentless charge of time slowed by the blood she supped weekly from his veins. She stood framed in the doorway, tall and stately, casting an ice-cold glance over his half-savored feast.

The beau was on his back, drained pale but still hard as steel. At the sight of Meline, the maid’s mood fell, and she drew the sheets up over her nakedness, gaze downturned.

‘What is it, Meline?’

His majordomo curtseyed. ‘The Empress wishes to see you, Master.’

The historian slipped a robe over his shoulders. Its fabric was pale and fine, but beginning to fray at the hems – no new silk in a land where nothing grew.

He brushed fingertips across a chymical globe, bringing light to the palatial bedchamber around him. The walls were lined with oaken shelves, brimming with the histories that so fascinated him. His desk was scattered with charcoal sticks, artful studies of animals, architecture, naked bodies. Jean-François sprinkled

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some ground potatoloaf into a glass terrarium, smiling as five black mice emerged from the little wooden château. His familiars fell to their meal, Claudia snapping at Davide as she always did, Marcel squeaking for peace.

He glanced to his majordomo.

‘We have a sitting scheduled on prièdi, do we not?’

‘Apologies, Master. But Her Grace commands your presence now.’

The historian blinked, his attentions sharpened. Meline was still curtseying; perfectly motionless, perfectly trained. But he caught the discord in her tone, the tension in her shoulders. Padding toward her, silk whispering, he touched her cheek.

‘Speak, my dove.’

‘A herald has arrived from Dame Kestrel, Master.’ ‘. . . . . . The Iron Maiden has accepted Her Grace’s invitation,’ the Marquis realized.

Meline nodded again. ‘As has Lord Kariim, Master. Envoy arrived late this morning, bearing news of the Spider’s intent to attend our Empress’s Convocation.’

‘The Priori of the Blood Voss and Ilon?’ he breathed, bewildered. ‘Coming here?’

Jean-François turned toward the bed, his voice iron-hard.

‘Out.’ The maid sat up quick, taut with fear. Pulling on a nightdress, she urged the beau to his feet, draping his arm about her shoulder. She avoided Meline’s cold stare – always a clever little thing, this one – helping her stablemate toward the door. But as they passed, the Nordling met Jean-François’s eyes, gaze still burning with the madness of the Kiss.

‘I love you,’ he whispered.

Jean-François pressed one claw to the beau’s sticky lips, and aimed a pointed stare at the maid. No further warning was needed, and the pair vanished swift out the door.

Meline watched their exit, bristling.

‘You do not like them,’ Jean-François murmured.

The woman lowered her gaze. ‘Forgive me, Master. They are . . . unworthy of you.’

‘Oh, my darling.’ Jean-François caressed the thrall’s cheek, lifting her chin so she might look at him again. ‘My dear Meline, envy does not become you.

They are but wine before the feast. You know it is only you that I trust? You that I adore?’

The woman dared to cup his hand to her cheek, scattering his knuckles with kisses.

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‘Oui,’ she whispered.

‘You are the blood in my veins, Meline. And if I have one fear, my dove, my darling, it is the thought of an eternity without you by my side. You know this, do you not?’

‘Oui,’ she breathed, near weeping.

Jean-François smiled, trailing his finger down her cheek. He watched her pulse run quicker, her bosom heaving as his hand reached the choker at her throat. Then he hooked one sharp claw beneath her chin, almost hard enough to break the skin.

‘Now dress me,’ he commanded.

Meline shivered, whispering.

‘As it please you.’

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THE CRIMSON MOTH Kristen Ciccarelli Publication date: 29/02/2024 Tropes: enemies to lovers, witches, The Scarlet Pimpernel reimagining Spice:

OV ERTURE

W

H E N T H E B LO O D GUA R D suspects a girl of being

a witch, they strip off her clothes and search her body for scars.

During the Sister Queens’ rule, witches wore their casting scars with pride, putting their power on display like jeweled rings and silk garments. Scars signaled wealth and rank, and most of all, magic.

Now they marked the hunted.

The last time Rune laid eyes on a witch’s scars was two years ago, after the witch queens were murdered in their beds and the blood of their council flowed in the streets. The Blood Guard seized control of the city, and the purgings began.

It was sunset when a surging crowd gathered at the center of the fog-soaked city. Rune stood among them, unable to unsee the thirsty, fevered looks around her. The people wanted vengeance. Wanted to gulp it down like a rich red wine.

The gulls shrieked overhead as the old witch stumbled up the steps to the purging platform. Unlike those who came after her, the crone neither wept nor begged for mercy, but met her fate with a stoic glare. The Blood Guard ripped one sleeve from her shirt, revealing the evidence of her crimes: patterned scars

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flowing down her left arm, etched like delicate white lacework against her golden skin.

Rune couldn’t help but find them beautiful. Once a sign of superior status, the scars were now impossible to hide, making the old woman easy prey for witch hunters.

It was why Rune never cut herself.

She couldn’t afford to let them find the scars.

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ONE RUNE

MIRAGE: (n.) the lowest and most basic category of spell.

Mirage Spells are simple illusions held for short periods that require little blood. The fresher the blood, the stronger the magic, and the easier casting will be.

— From Rules of Magic by Queen Callidora the Valiant

L

I GHT NI N G SN A K ED ACRO S S T H E sky as Rune

Winters made her way through the wet forest, barely sheltered from the rain by the pine canopy overhead. Her lantern’s glow lit the path before her, its surface broken by twisted roots and pools of rainwater.

It was a terrible night for casting. The rain seeped through her cloak, the dampness loosening the spellmarks she’d drawn on her wrist in blood. She needed to redraw the symbols before the rain washed them away entirely, taking her magic with them.

The illusion disguising Rune had to hold until she knew for certain Seraphine wouldn’t kill her.

As a former advisor to the Sister Queens, Seraphine Oakes was a powerful witch. And after two years of searching, Rune had finally tracked her down. Now that she had, what would she find at the top of this wooded headland—friend or foe?

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Rune worried her lip with her teeth as she remembered her grandmother’s last words to her, two years ago.

Promise me you’ ll find Seraphine Oakes, my darling. She’ ll tell you everything I couldn’t.

After the Blood Guard arrested Nan and dragged her from the house, they smeared a bloody X across the front door, declaring to everyone that an enemy of the Republic had been found within and was on her way to be purged.

The memory of that day stabbed like a knife.

An anxious hum buzzed in Rune’s blood as she continued onward. Like an overture, growing louder and faster. If Seraphine saw through the illusion cloaking Rune before hearing her out, she might expel Rune from her house— or worse, strike her dead.

Because wherever Rune Winters went, her carefully crafted reputation came with her.

She was an informer. A witch hater. A darling of the New Republic.

Rune was the girl who betrayed her grandmother.

It’s why she’d disguised herself as an old peddler tonight, leading a mule laden with goods. The smell of wet donkey hung in the air, and her load of pots and pans clattered with the beast’s every step— each detail summoned into being by the magic in Rune’s blood and held together by the symbols drawn on her wrist, binding the spell to her.

It was a Mirage—the most basic of spell classifications— and yet it had taken all of Rune’s mental energy to cast. The resulting headache still roared in her temples.

The branches shook with rain. Lightning flashed overhead, illuminating the tiny cottage perched at the cliff’s edge where the forest ended. The windows glowed warmly with lamplight, and Rune could smell the woodsmoke pluming from the chimney.

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With her spellmarks fading fast, the illusion flickered around her. She needed the spell to hold for a little longer.

Setting down her lantern, Rune withdrew the glass vial hidden in her pocket and uncorked the lid. Dabbing the blood inside the vial onto her fingertip, she held her wrist to the lamplight and retraced the symbols, reinforcing them. One altered her appearance—graying her hair, wrinkling her skin, hunching her shoulders—while the other summoned the manifestation of the mule beside her.

The second she finished, the spell roared in her ears and the taste of salt bloomed on her tongue. The illusion snapped back into place, its bindings to Rune strengthened, and the pain in her temples throbbed harder. Swallowing the briny tang of magic, she pulled her hood over her hair, gritting her teeth against the worsening headache, then picked up her lantern and stepped out of the woods, continuing down the path toward the house.

Mud sucked at her boots. Rain pelted her face.

Her heart felt like it was going to thump right out of her chest.

Whatever happened when that door opened was now in the hands of the Ancients. If Seraphine saw through her magic and cursed her dead, it would be no less than Rune deserved. And if she showed mercy . . .

Rune bit her lip, trying not to hope.

Moving through the yard, she heard the anxious whinny of a horse from the silhouetted stable. Probably frightened by the storm. When she reached the house, she found the front door already open and a triangle of golden light spilling into the yard.

Her stiff fingers curled against the brass ring of her lantern’s handle. Was Seraphine expecting her?

Some witches foresaw snatches of the future—though these

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days it was a rare, often fickle ability. Nothing like the clearsighted prophecies of the powerful sibyls of old. Perhaps Seraphine was one of these.

The thought made Rune straighten her shoulders and force herself onward. If Seraphine had foreseen this meeting, she knew who Rune was and that she was coming.

All the more reason to get this over with.

Leaving the mule illusion behind in the yard, she stepped across the threshold of the house. No one stood waiting for her.

A fire lay dying in the hearth, the embers flickering red, and a plate of food sat on the table, the gravy congealed as if it had been sitting for a while. The rain spitting in through the open door dampened the stone floor beneath her feet.

Rune frowned. “Hello?”

Silence answered her.

“Seraphine?”

The house moaned at the sound of its owner’s name: the beams creaking overhead and walls shifting in the wind. Rune glanced around, looking for any sign of the woman who lived here. The tiny house contained only a single room, with a kitchen in one corner and a small study in the opposite.

“You must be here somewhere . . .”

A roughly hewn ladder in the center of the room led to a loft. Stepping onto its rungs, Rune climbed to the top, where she found an unmade bed and three lit candles dribbling honeycolored wax onto the floorboards. She climbed down and checked the only other door at the back of the house, which led into an empty garden.

There was no sign of Seraphine.

Rune’s skin prickled from unease.

Where is she?

The horse whinnied again in the distance.

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The stable. Of course. If the creature had spooked, Seraphine would have gone to calm it.

With her lantern in hand and her headache still pulsing in her skull, Rune stepped back across the threshold and into the rain, leaving the door ajar, collecting her mule illusion as she went. Rain splattered her wrist, and the spell lurched around her, trying to hold. Hurrying, she was halfway to the stable when something squished beneath her boot. It was difficult to see in the dark and the storm, so she crouched low and set her lamp in the muck.

It was a garment.

Rune reached for the sodden fabric. Rising to her feet, she studied her findings in the lamplight: a plain, woolen work dress. The kind a servant might wear while scrubbing floors.

Except someone had sliced the back open.

Why would . . .

She glanced at the path and saw a second piece of clothing. Stooping, she discovered a cotton shift, brown with mud.

Also sliced down the back. No, thought Rune, her rain-bitten fingers tracing the frayed edges. Not cut.

Torn.

Her stomach tightened.

With her wrist so exposed to the elements, the rain smudged out her spellmarks completely, and the illusion sloughed off.

Her headache vanished with it. Before she could fix the marks, a sudden wind rose, growling like an angry wolf.

SLAM! The door to Seraphine’s house banged shut.

Rune dropped the woolen dress and spun to face the door, her breath catching in her throat. Closed, the door gave her a full view of the bloody X smeared from corner to corner across its wooden surface.

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The mark of the Blood Guard.

Seraphine wasn’t in the stable calming her horse. Soldiers had found her, stripped her, and taken her with them.

Nan’s oldest friend was in the hands of the Blood Guard— the most dangerous place for a witch to be.

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DARK STAR BURNING, ASH FALLS WHITE Amélie Wen Zhao Publication date: 14/03/24 Tropes: star-crossed lovers, Chinese mythology, reads like a C-drama Spice:

PROLOGUE And when the first of mankind gazed upon the Light of the Creator and his Angels, he felt awakening in his blood the magic of metal: power to be used to bring Light to a world which saw only darkness.

—­The Holy Book of Creation, First Scripture, Verse Thirteen

Elantian Age, Cycle 12 Where the Rivers Flow and the Skies End

S

now fell over the temple in the mountains. It coated the white pines in the gray of ash and froze over the once-­ burbling rivers. Silken drapes hung still between open-­ fretwork eaves of a hall whose waterfall no longer streamed.

In the quiet of a winter caught in rosewood and rock, sky and ice, came the sharp sounding of metal boots.

“High General Erascius. I bring news from our scouts.”

Erascius set the Hin tome down next to the Elantian translation he’d been working on. The metal bands on his wrists gleamed in the gray sunlight as he lifted his head, hair the white of snow, skin the pale of milk, ridged with scars from a still-­healing wound. “Speak,” he commanded, the word a sharp puff of his breath in the cold.

The White Angel, a patrol assigned to the Elantian army at the new base on this mountain, bowed his helmed head. “Our 1

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scouts have searched the School of Guarded Fists and the periphery. There is no trace of a star map, a musical instrument, or the Azure Tiger.”

Erascius found himself fixating on the irritating way the Angel’s armor glinted as he delivered this. His breath came quicker as his anger licked up like white-­hot flames.

One month. One entire month spent in search of the Azure Tiger—­one of the Four Demon Gods that gave the Hin immense power—­and nothing to show for it. They, the Elantians, had crossed the Sea of Heavenly Radiance to bring light to this fallen kingdom, to take it and its resources under the wing of the great Elantian Empire. They had toppled the Last Kingdom’s emperor and eliminated most of the magic practitioners of this land—­save for a handful. Most pressingly, during their attack on the last school of practitioning last month, they had let escape a boy and a girl, each of whom had bound to themself a Demon God: the Black Tortoise and the Silver Dragon.

The two had nearly singlehandedly taken down the entire Elantian army during the battle. And they might have, had they known how to fully use the Demon Gods’ powers.

This had put the Elantians in a compromised position and driven Erascius to focus on finding one of the remaining Demon Gods for himself. They had traced the Azure Tiger to this School of the White Pines, but the Hin practitioning masters had set it free before the Elantians could capture it.

The deaths of all those Hin masters had been little consolation for the loss of the Tiger.

“No trace of the boy?” he drawled.

“None yet, High General.”

“And the girl.” His voice had become dangerously soft.

“What of the girl?”

“Last spotted by a western base. They followed her until

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she disappeared into the Emaran Desert with two companions.”

“When was this?”

“Several days ago, High General.”

The metal cuffs on his forearms flashed as Erascius pulled on his metal magic—­magic that had once punctured the weak defenses of the Hin Imperial Army and qì practitioners like arrows through parchment. Magic that had expanded the Elantian Empire across this vast, resource-­rich kingdom within a matter of weeks.

This was what differentiated the Elantian magicians from the vast majority of the Elantian army, and why they commanded while others obeyed. The Royal Magicians had been chosen by divine intervention to channel the power of their god. And there was no magician more powerful than Erascius.

Through the different-­colored cuffs on their wrists, the strongest of other Alloys might have wielded the magic of two or three metals. Erascius wielded that of thirteen.

With thirteen, Erascius held the power to secure the universe.

But not enough power by far to face two Demon Gods.

With a flick of his mind, he flung the White Angel into the air by the man’s steel armor, and held him there. Slowly, he began to squeeze the armor like a tin can. As the patrol began to choke, eyes popping and mouth gaping, Erascius thought of the pet fish the governor of this kingdom kept in his cushy palace in the Heavenly Capital.

“Several days,” Erascius said smoothly. “My top priority—­a prize that could tip the perilous scales our rule rests upon—­ and you take several days to report to me? You, a White Angel, appointed as an elite member of the Elantian Empire?”

The Angel’s legs kicked the air; his lips, turning blue, were moving as he tried to speak. “. . . The . . . governor . . .”

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One more second and Erascius would have pulled the man’s heart from his chest, summoning the metal present in the man’s blood with his magic. But he paused at the soldier’s rasps.

“The governor has a message for me?” he said, and with a slow, deliberate twirl of his finger, he sent the patrol crashing to the floor. The man’s blood splattered the slate-­gray stone, worn smooth by thousands of years of Hin feet.

Trembling, the Angel pushed himself onto one knee. His armor was dented, no doubt still crushing his ribs and squeezing his lungs—­Erascius could feel the seeping blood and the broken bone from where he sat—­but the man valiantly recited the message between gasps of air. “The governor . . . asks . . . for an update . . . on quashing the Hin . . . rebellion . . .”

By now, Erascius’s irritation had reached a simmer. He held the governor in no more regard than he did this wriggling worm of a man before him, but the politician had been appointed by the Elantian king, across the Sea of Heavenly Radiance, who had been crowned by the Creator. Erascius was born unto this earth to serve the Creator through the king, and he had to believe the governor, too, held a role in that service.

Rebellion, the governor had called it, the word ringing in this hall of the conquered, amongst the Hin’s tomes and histories and dynasties of practitioning knowledge. Erascius didn’t like that word.

He waved a hand. “Tell the governor to continue his games of politics and economics. I will focus on winning this war for us. And send for Lieutenant Lishabeth. We make for the Emaran Desert by sunset. I want word out to every single base west of here to be on alert for the Hin girl. We find her, we find the star maps, and we find the remaining Demon Gods.”

Erascius turned back to the Hin tome, barely noticing as

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the messenger limped out, leaving a trail of blood. Winter Annals, he’d translated, the Elantian language striking left to right before him, straight and true like a sword as opposed to the messy waterfall spill of Hin characters. The book contained a history of the clans, banned across the Last Kingdom’s bookhouses by the Imperial Court. There was a single page Erascius had focused on, and it had given him all the information he needed.

He leaned over, the gold on his fountain pen gleaming as he finished the chapter, then leaned back to survey his work.

The Binding of the Demon Gods. Half the key to this new universe he’d stepped in to conquer.

And the other half . . . Erascius lifted his gaze west, beyond the silk curtains and a colorless winter sky framed in the rosewood fretwork of the temple hall.

The other half lay with the girl. It was she who held the star maps, the maps that led to the Four Demon Gods. It was she they needed to find in order to conquer this land.

“Run, my little singer,” he whispered, the wind snatching the words from his lips. “Run far and fast, for I am coming. . . .”

I will find you, Sòng Lián.

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WHAT MONSTROUS GODS Rosamund Hodge Publication date: 14/03/2024 Tropes: enemies to lovers, fairytale retelling, powerful FMC

1 w THE GODS ARE SILENT.

The gods are always silent.

We know this, in the Convent of St. Eruvaun, better than anyone. The gods no longer touch our world. They do not make saints who can work miracles. They do not speak, and perhaps they cannot even hear us.

But that doesn’t stop me from praying silently, desperately, as I half trot to keep up with Sister Zenuvan’s long strides, my boots slipping against cobblestones that are slick with the morning’s rain.

O Nin-­Anna, lady of golden hands and healing, I pray to the goddess of our convent, please let Mother Una say yes this year.

I’ve asked on every birthday since I was twelve, and every year Mother Una has shaken her head and told me I’m still too young.

But tomorrow I’ll be seventeen—­old enough to take vows as a nun—­so surely she can’t make me wait any longer.

Let this be the year that I avenge you. The year I kill Ruven. The year I bring back your saints and end the plague.

The next moment I smack face-­f irst into Sister Zenuvan as she stops abruptly. I stumble back, gasping, “Sorry!”

“Daydreaming again?” Sister Zenuvan looks back at me. “Awful

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danger, to walk and dream at the same time.”

Her voice is solemn, but she softens the words with a wide smile that dimples her pale cheeks and reveals all her missing teeth. Sister Zenuvan is only thirty-­two, hearty and strong and six feet tall, but she lived on the streets for years before she entered the convent. She sold her two front teeth and lost three more to infection.

She’s one of the few nuns who’s never doubted me. Last year—­ the first time Mother Una ever thought it over for an entire day before telling me no—­I overheard Sister Zenuvan saying, She’s not too young. I’d gutted three men by her age.

Because you were running with a gang of thieves, Mother Una replied. Lia is softer than you ever were. Softer than the last girl who tried and failed to kill Ruven too.

“I’m sorry,” I say aloud.

Sister Zenuvan pinches my cheek. “Just stay alert till we’re back behind convent walls, hmm?”

I almost laugh. We’re standing on Highmarket Street, the second-­fanciest shopping lane in the whole city. The crowd bustling past us is all plump matrons, grim-­faced businessmen, and peaky young apprentices. There’s a policeman with a round blue hat leaning against a nearby lamppost; they patrol this street twice daily for beggars and pickpockets.

But I remember what Mother Una told me last year: You’re still so dreamy and easily distracted. In five hundred years, this convent has found only seven girls with the power to enter the briar and try to kill Ruven. None ever returned. You have to be better than all of them.

So I nod obediently and follow Sister Zenuvan into a shop whose 2

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polished brass sign reads Akharyn & Sons: Herbs, Tinctures & Rare Extracts.

Inside the air is filled with an intoxicating mix of scents: herbs and spices, varnish and preservatives, the softness of an herb garden and the sharpness of a hospital room all at once. I draw in a greedy breath. This is my favorite of all the shops we visit; if Ruven were to make an illusion to trap me, it would surely smell like this.

The herbalist, Mr. Akharyn, is a short, pale man with eyes that bulge behind the little gold spectacles perched on his nose. A lot of the nuns don’t like that we get so many of our medicinal supplies from him, for he’s one of the heretics who worship the dead god preached by the Magisterium. A crucifix hangs shamelessly at the back of his shop; it’s carved of pale wood but painted with crimson rivulets of blood that flow down the heretic god’s twisted corpse.

Beside it hangs a faded little painting of some heretic saint, a young woman robed in white and blue.

But Sister Zenuvan insists that he has the best herbs of anyone in the city, so we always come here. And while I know I should hate anything to do with heretics, I can’t help loving Mr. Akharyn’s shop: the rows of glistening herb jars, the narwhal horns hanging from the ceiling, the odd specimens displayed in the window.

There’s something new this time: a glass case that holds two dead scorpions, one bone white and the other soot black, posed with their tails raised at each other in silent threat. A shiver crawls down my spine as I stare at them, their jointed limbs and bodies, their delicate pincers. I’ve never seen a scorpion outside a picture in a book before, and they’re a kind of monstrous that makes my skin crawl, yet strangely beautiful. They almost look as if they’re 3

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dancing.

A hand falls on my shoulder and I jump, but it’s only Sister Zenuvan.

“Wanting a few more pets?” she asks.

“No!” I protest, my face heating in embarrassment as I remember all the creatures—­from cockroaches to kittens—­that I used to try to adopt.

Sister Zenuvan laughs softly. “I’m only teasing. I know you’ve outgrown it.” She raises her basket to show the restocked jars of herbs. “We’re done here.”

Silently I follow her out of the shop and through the streets.

Most times when I go out with one of the nuns, we stop at half a dozen shops, and my job is to carry all the purchases. This time, all we were sent to buy was herbs, which Sister Zenuvan likes to carry herself. I’ve come along because we’re also going to visit several patients who were recently discharged from our hospital, so I’m carrying a satchel full of medical supplies and the little wrapped packages of oats and bacon and candied nuts that we give to people who have left us.

Our convent is dedicated to Nin-­Anna, the goddess of spring and new life and healing. Not only do we care for all the sick and wounded who come to our hospital, we visit them after they leave, until we’re sure that they are completely healed and their new life begun.

It’s one of the things that I’m most proud of: we don’t care for people out of love for money or even duty, but because we love healing. Because we set things right.

That’s why I belong in the convent, no matter how many times I doze off at prayers or lose myself in fancies when I’m supposed to 4

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be cleaning.

Because I’m going to set things right.

I’m so busy thinking about this—­Mother Una would shake her head in disappointment—­that I don’t notice where Sister Zenuvan is leading us until we’re walking out into the great square before the royal palace.

It’s not the first time I’ve come here. Everyone in the city of Anazyr does, sooner or later. The great square has become half marketplace, half carnival, with stalls selling meat pies and dried fruit and little pop-­up paper models of what (they think) the palace once looked like.

Nobody has seen the palace itself in five hundred years. At the far end of the square, beyond the massive wrought iron fence, stands the briar: a vast, ever-­shifting mass of thorny, shadowed vines, tall as a factory with smokestacks, completely engulfing the royal palace.

When the briar first appeared, hundreds of people tried to find a way through the thorns to free the royal family. None were ever seen again. These days, nobody believes it’s possible to break Ruven’s curse. Parliament built the iron fence so that no more people could lose their lives trying. Only the nuns of my convent still hope.

Only I can prove them right.

“Surprise,” says Sister Zenuvan, smiling at me.

For one wild, hopeful moment I think that maybe it’s time—­ maybe I’m going in right now, maybe she’s decided to disobey Mother Una and believe in me when nobody else does—­ “I thought you might like to look through one of the telescopes again,” she says. “For your birthday.”

It’s the only thing I should have expected, but a strangely resent5

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ful disappointment curls in my stomach. Sister Zenuvan did this for my birthday when I was twelve. I’m older now, can’t she see that?

But I still manage to smile and say, “Thank you.”

We go to the little booth at the edge of the square, where Sister Zenuvan pays two coins for me to look at the palace through a miniature telescope. Sometimes the briar opens up a little, and people glimpse a fraction of an arch or window, but today I only see exactly what I saw last time: dark vines winding over each other like a swarm of ants on a piece of rotting fruit.

For a nightmare moment I imagine that’s exactly what lies beyond the briar: a palace rotting and dead and gnawed by insects, the bodies of the seven girls who went before me piled in a putrefying mound at the doors.

Then I push the thought away and step back from the telescope.

I'm not a child anymore. I’ve set broken bones and stitched torn flesh and helped saw off gangrenous limbs. Whatever Ruven has waiting for me inside the briar, I’m not afraid of it.

I will talk to Mother Una tonight.

We go on our way. But when we get to the first house on our list, there’s a crowd gathered. As we start to push our way through, I hear the whispers. “Plague. Death.” When they notice Sister Zenuvan’s white veil, they start to pull away from us—­but from fear of contagion rather than respect, judging by their expressions—­and then we reach the rope barrier the police have strung across the street.

Icy dread winds through my stomach. The house we were going to visit, where the stonemason had gone home to once his broken leg was mostly healed, has a red plague flag over the open door.

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There’s only one sickness we don’t treat at the hospital: the Red Death. The law won’t allow us, and I don’t think Mother Una would either. Everyone who gets it dies, and almost everyone who tries to take care of somebody infected gets it too. The only thing that can be done is to lock afflicted families in their houses until the plague has run its course with them.

It has already finished with this family. A policeman stands watch by the door as two corpse collectors carry out a sheet-­ wrapped body and heave it into their cart.

“Wait here,” Sister Zenuvan says, and slips under the rope to talk to the policeman.

I squeeze my hands around the handle of my basket, a cold ocean of grief inside my chest. There are no more miracles. We know this in the convent, and I know it better than anyone else.

I was eleven when Papa staggered home from a long day at the factory, shivering with fever. My mother said it was no more than a touch of worker’s lung, that he’d be well again with a day or two of rest. But the next morning he vomited blood, and I was already old enough to know what that meant. Mama tried to go for help, but she was dragged back by policemen who nailed wooden slats across the door.

“Fourteen days,” Mama told me, her eyes bright with tears as she stood at the foot of the narrow stairs. “That’s how long the quarantine is. Lia, you keep Colan downstairs with you. Don’t come up for any reason.”

Then she vanished up the stairs to care for Papa, and I never saw her alive again. When I finally dared creep up the stairs—­f ive days later—­they were both already dead, curled together in their narrow 7

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bed, puddles of congealed blood around them.

Colan, my little brother, was only five. He didn’t understand what was happening, and I couldn’t bear to tell him what I’d seen. I thought I’d have time to explain it all to him later. But on the tenth day, his eyes started bleeding. He didn’t know what it meant, but I did.

I held him as he shuddered and vomited blood onto my skirt and died. I dragged him up the stairs to rest with Mama and Papa, and I washed myself as best I could, and then I sat down with my back against the front door, waiting to sicken and die myself.

But when the fourteen days were up, and the police broke down the door, I was still alive. I’ll never know why. It wasn’t a miracle; the gods can’t heal anyone now, not with the shrines asleep and no more saints being created. Mother Una explained that to me in my first days at the convent, clearly enough for me to understand even through my haze of grief.

I’m so caught up in memories that I don’t notice Sister Zenuvan returning until she’s right at my side.

“Anyone?” I ask softly. The words like me hang unspoken between us.

She shakes her head. “No,” she says grimly.

Without another word, she marches away, and I have to run a few steps to catch up. Most of the nuns would have mouthed some platitude to me, but Sister Zenuvan understands grief better than most. It’s one of the things I like about her.

There are five more people on our list to visit. They’re all healing well and happy to see us, and I smile at them in return. But inside the ocean of my grief is slowly turning to a storm of rage.

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If I’d gone to kill Ruven a week ago, that family might be alive today.

As we walk back to the convent, I practice argument after argument in my head. I have to convince Mother Una to let me go.

But in the end, I don’t need to say anything. As soon as we arrive back at the convent Mother Una finds me, looks me up and down, and says, “Wash up and get ready to pray, child. You’re going to the palace tomorrow.”

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LORE OF THE WILDS Analeigh Sbrana Publication date: 14/03/2024 Tropes: enemies to lovers, love triangle, cottagecore, fairycore Spice:

CHAPT ER 1

L

ore Alemeyu collected stories like the raven that lived above the apothecary hoarded shiny pebbles.

But her favorite was the one Mama told about a foolish god whose tricks led to the ruination of humanity. When Lore was little, Mama would use animated gestures, different voices, and accents that became more outrageous with every telling. Lore would fall into giggle fits on her sleeping mat, not caring that the thin layer of hay offered little protection from the packed earthen floor. She would scold the trickster god along with her mother. They would shout through the open window, ensuring their words were directed toward the heavens.

“You made a mistake, Yissa God!” they would shout. “Take us back to where we belong!”

Only much later did she realize that Mama’s version of the story acted as a balm to soothe the uncertainty and fear that coated the town of Duskmere like a dense, heavy fog. Nobody was immune to it, not even the children.

On festival days, which were few and far between, everyone would gather in the town square. Shops would turn their lanterns high, though the oil cost them dearly, and illuminate the blankets that families laid upon the ground. Hands would wrap

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around chipped, steaming clay mugs filled with spiced cider, and people would listen to the elders’ stories of malevolent gods.

Their stories differed from the tale Lore’s mama told her. She liked these less, for they made her cower, clutching Baba’s sleeve.

These versions claimed that their ancestors had angered a powerful god, Brokyr. In retaliation, and to humble the humans, he had pulled them through a void, taken them from their rightful world, and banished them to a land of suffering.

According to the elders, the Cursed Crossing was not a mistake but a punishment.

This was usually where the elders would chime in about the importance of prayer, of hard work, and of being humble while keeping one’s eyes on the stars. One day, they would be returned to their rightful land, they claimed.

Lore would close her eyes tight and pray as fervently as she could. She wanted to be part of the first generation to leave their banishment and return to Shahassa, the motherland.

Then, the mood would shift, someone would sing a lighthearted ballad, and less devastating stories would be told until the children’s eyes grew heavy; they would soon fall asleep on their baba’s shoulders. Young lovers would slip away, their hands clasped tight against the cold.

But that had been years ago. Now, on the nights when Lore put the children to bed at the shelter, she would close her eyes and think back to Mama’s stories. It was those versions that she recounted to the little ones as she smoothed their hair and blew out candles. She shared tales of too much wine and tricks and, most importantly, of hope, though she held very little of it herself.

Lore didn’t tell the children that surely no god or goddess was going to save them. The only person she told this to was Grey.

“What makes you think the elders are right and the answers 2

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lie in the stars?” her oldest friend asked, his brow furrowed as he worked at mending his warmest pair of pants.

“There are many legends, but they all have one thing in common: the sky. That’s why we look through the skyglass on our eighth nameday. It’s why our church has no roof. The answers lie there, I’m sure of it,” Lore replied. She was pouring hot wax into molds. She had spent the last year perfecting the scent of her juniper and sage candles and never tired of making them.

“Well, you know what I think,” Grey said, his raspy voice muffled by the thread between his teeth. He tied off the last stitch.

“That the ‘answers are to be found outside Duskmere’?”

“Why else aren’t we allowed to leave?” he asked, raising the trousers to inspect them.

“Because the fae are cruel?” she suggested.

He couldn’t argue with her there.

“I just don’t see how the answers could be out there if we’re the only humans in Alytheria,” she continued. “Most of our history was lost in the crossing between worlds. We won’t find it in this one.”

“That’s not what you used to believe. You were the one who put this in my head—­t his need to escape and to search out there for answers.”

Lore shrugged. “I told you. My feelings have changed. There isn’t any point in trying to leave Duskmere. That’s a child’s dream.”

The words tasted of ash and Lore had to glance away as she began to trim the wicks on the batch of candles that had already set. She was no longer a child. There was no leaving Duskmere.

For hundreds of years, they’d been confined to the town because the Alytherian fae would never let them leave.

Believing otherwise was a waste of time.

“Well, why won’t you tell me what changed? Aging out of the 3

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shelter, packing a bag, and scouring the world for answers used to be all you would talk about. You used to beg me to come with you.”

“That was a long time ago. Now I have to be here to help Aunty and Uncle—­t hey’re getting much too old to take care of all fifteen children.”

“You’re telling me you’re content to stay here? To live above the apothecary until you eventually move back into the shelter and take Eshe and Salim’s place?” Grey’s voice was exasperated.

They had had this conversation before, and he already knew her answer.

“There is honor in caring for those who cannot care for themselves, Grey. And besides, I love it here.”

The apothecary they were sitting in was small, with an even smaller second floor, due to the slant of the roof. Boxes were heaped around, obscuring their view of most everything. But through an open door, she could just make out her cramped room. It contained everything she owned: her sleeping mat, one crooked wooden shelf that held her clothes and journals, and a stack of books that she’d loved too much to sell. The rest of the space was the studio where Aunty Eshe and Lore made candles, salves, remedies, tinctures, and soap. It was where she devoured stories and copied them out, letter by letter, to sell in the apothecary during her free time. And though books were a luxury, people still cherished and purchased them when they could afford to.

Grey was sitting on a laughably small stool better suited to a child, with his long legs crossed before him and his broad shoulders squeezed in between two shelves filled with herbs and empty jars.

“I hate it when you lie to me,” he said at last. There was a note of defeat in his voice.

Lore frowned, stung. If she couldn’t admit the truth to her4

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self, why would she admit it to Grey? She couldn’t tell him that she still believed the answers were out there, somewhere beyond the barrier surrounding their town. Or that, at night, she still dreamed of leaving Duskmere and solving the great mystery of how her people came to be trapped in these lands.

She couldn’t tell Grey she had another, secret, explanation—­ that it had not been the wrath of an angry god, nor the blunder of an inept one that brought them here. Instead, it was the one thing that surrounded them, that they, as humans, could never possess.

Magic.

She shoved the thought away.

“It’s almost time for me to open the shop. Don’t you have work to do?” she asked as she busied herself with the last of the candle wicks.

“We could still do it. We could leave together. I’ve been practicing with—­” “—­your sword is no match for the sentries’ arrows,” Lore snapped, the words coming out harsher than she intended.

The sentries, members of the Alytherian army, didn’t usually cross the barrier. They guarded Duskmere from outside, wearing their signature blue stripes across their tunics, which signaled to all their rank and that they took pride in shooting down any human who tried to leave.

For a moment, she was freshly eighteen again and back in that dark forest. Her pack was stuffed with everything precious to her. A knee pressed against her back, so hard that she couldn’t pull in any breath. There was a fist in her hair and a cruel voice, hissing, “What are you doing out at night? And where are you going with that bag?”

She had thought she’d known fear—­thought years of food scarcity and deprivation had taught her the meaning of the word—­but nothing had prepared her for that. For the terror of 5

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being caught past the barrier.

She would never forget the smell of the sentry’s blade—­t he bitter scent had burned her nostrils. She later learned, while Aunty Eshe set leeches on her wounds with a practiced hand, that the sentries’ weapons were coated in a substance that slowed the healing process, to make sure that, where the sentries cut, it would scar.

Grey drew her back to the present with a gentle cuff on the shoulder. He was more family than friend; the man knew her better than anyone, and he recognized when her mood had soured. She wouldn’t indulge in the fantasy of escape with him any longer.

She’d changed her tune and expectations that night in the woods three years ago.

“I’ll be late for work if I don’t leave soon.” Grey gestured at the pants he’d just mended for the umpteenth time. “And if I arrive early, maybe, I’ll finally be able to afford a new pair.” He gave a dramatic sigh and pushed one hand through his hair—­a tell for whenever he was remotely frustrated. As always, his black, silky hair fell back into his face in waves.

Meanwhile, all Lore had to do was look at her curls wrong and they would break free of their coils and try their hardest to imitate a cloud.

“I hope so. Those are starting to resemble one of your mom’s quilts,” Lore said with a straight face.

Grey pulled the pants to his chest protectively as he headed toward the stairs. “I’ll have you know I happen to like the quilted look!”

She followed him down the spiral staircase that led to the shop. “Don’t we all?” She pulled at the skirt of her simple cotton dress; she’d had to let the seams out twice now. The dress had grown up with her and was also beginning to resemble a quilt.

Their goodbye was brief. She would meet him tonight after 6

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she closed the shop and checked on the little ones at the shelter.

They’d eat dinner at his house with his mother and little sister, and then they would head to one of their usual haunts—­either the Burgs’ tavern or the lake. This was her life, and for the most part, she was content.

When she closed the door behind him and flipped the sign to “Open,” she knew it wouldn’t be long before customers arrived.

Emalie would be there to pick up the soap order for her family’s shop, and Mai, a midwife, would arrive within the hour to restock her herbs.

A busy shift made the hours pass quickly. It was well into the afternoon when she realized Lex would soon be arriving to pick up the day’s deliveries. Once Lore moved out of the shelter, Lex had taken her place as the eldest. Now fifteen, he oversaw deliveries for the apothecary.

When the door swung open, the familiar tinkle of the bell cascaded through the shop. Lore opened her mouth to tease Lex for running late as always, but her words caught in her throat.

Two figures were standing just inside the doorway. The warm glow of the oil lamps cast flickering shadows over their inhumanly sharp cheekbones, making their faces look hollow.

They wore mirrored looks of disdain as they studied the space, which felt all the smaller for their presence.

Fae. Lore’s mouth went dry, and she felt as if she could taste their power. Magic rolled off them in waves, permeating the room and her mind, and seeping into her pores, heavy with the promise of violence.

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THE HIDDEN QUEEN Peter V. Brett Publication date: 14/03/24 Tropes: humans vs demons, unlikely and unwilling heroes, epic fantasy

CHAPTER 1

TE AR BOTTLES 349 AR

I

’m Darin Bales, and I’m looking for my mam.

Never knew my da. He died before I was born. Savin’ the world, if you believe I’m telling honest word. Ask around if you like. Walk a hundred miles, and folk will all tell you Arlen Bales went down to the Core and sacrificed himself. How his last act was seen in the sky in the form of great, blazing wards that turned the tide of the demon war, burning the corelings to ash. Even those with him at the time say it. My bloodfather. My mam.

I was there, too, in a manner of speaking. Still in Mam’s belly when he died, but she says I spilled out onto the stone floor of the demon hive just minutes later.

Missed my only chance to meet my da by minutes. Might as well be years. Goin’ back a minute, a single second, ent any easier.

I’m starting to think folk were wrong, though. World still needs savin’. And if they’re wrong about that part, why not the other? My aunt Leesha is a fortune teller. She cast her demonbones in my blood, and there was magic about the throw, to be sure. Her words have replayed in my mind so many times they’ve become part of me.

The father waits below in darkness, for his progeny to return.

Might mean other things. Ent such a fool I’d trust a prophecy to say everything it seems to. But it ent crazy to wonder if something of my da

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is still down there, stuck halfway to the Core, like a cork in a bottle.

Is it?

But while my da might be alive, I know my mam is. And I know the thing that’s got her is trying to fatten her up like a choice pig for a wedding feast.

Din’t know my da growin’ up. Saw other boys with theirs and knew I was missin’ something, but it’s hard to really miss someone you’ve never met.

Mam was the one who was always there for me. Who fed me and taught me and kept me safe. Mam, who felt strong as the sun.

Now she’s gone. Taken. And I’m left to care for myself, best I can.

It’s good I got help, because I don’t think I could do it alone. Since my first born day, folk have been trying to see something of Mam and Da in me, and they always go away disappointed.

And it ent just myself I need to take care of. All those years Mam looked out for me, what kind of son would I be if I din’t come after her?

Even if it means walking into the lair of a creature the Jongleurs have a dozen names for, each scarier than the last. The demon king. The Father of Evil.

Alagai Ka. He has some plan to hatch a new hive queen, and if he does . . .

What did Da even die for, if I let Alagai Ka bring it all back? If I let him feed Mam to a hatchling queen and repopulate the hive with a new generation of demons, just when folk were startin’ to have a taste of what life could be without ’em?

I ent up to the job of stoppin’ him, of course. I’ve got fifteen summers, and the demon king is older than a mountain. Got a bit of magic I can use—­more by frightened instinct than control—­but the Father of Evil wields power as easily as I play a tune on my pipes. Alagai Ka’s got nothin’ to be scared of, and I’ve never felt anything but. If I go alone, I’m more likely to die tryin’ than put a rock in front of his plow.

But I’m not alone. Got a lot of friends, all of them better than me at one thing or another.

Olive Paper’s got magic of her own—­bound to her in the form of muscle and bone. Reckon she could pick up a milk cow and throw it through the barn wall. Demon’s got her mam, too, and she’s none too

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pleased about it.

Selen Cutter ent as strong as Olive, but she’s a fair sight bigger’n stronger than me. Smarter, too. Don’t know I would have dared any of this, trekking hundreds of miles through a desert to find Olive, if I hadn’t known Selen would be around to keep me safe.

Arick and Rojvah, my cousins in all but blood, project confidence and assurance I can never have. Arick is built like a prize bull, and the best fighter I’ve ever seen short of Olive. Rojvah’s music puts mine to shame, luring demons—­and folk—­in close and putting them under her spell.

I can’t save our parents alone, but maybe all of us together can.

Want to get on with it. To get on the road and run at the thing I’m scared of, hoping the momentum, and not wanting to disappoint my friends, will keep pushing me forward when I get too spooked.

But first, we got some business left to attend.

The funeral ent all that different from one of Tender Harral’s Seventhday services back home in Tibbet’s Brook. Bunch of long, loud, boring prayers mixed with bits of half-­sung lyrics, sandwiched between tedious sermons. Only here the prayers and lectures are all in Krasian, and instead of the little chapel up on Boggin’s Hill, I’m in legendary Sharik Hora.

I’ve been in grand Holy Houses before. The Cathedral of the Deliverer in Hollow. The great Library and Cathedral of Miln. Even the new Sharik Hora in Everam’s Bounty—­which took my breath away, first time I saw it—­pales in comparison with the real Sharik Hora, the temple of heroes’ bones in Fort Krasia, or Desert Spear, as the locals call it.

There’s magic here. Old magic, and . . . sleeping, but I can sense it, even if most folk can’t.

It’s different from what I’m used to. Ent like the demonbone magic Aunt Leesha uses, or the raw magic of the Core Mam used to Draw upon. Not like the magic inside me, born in darkness, or the demons themselves, saturated with magic from the dark below.

It’s just past dawn, sun streaming through the stained-­glass windows to fill the place with color and light. Sunlight burns magic away, but it

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has no effect on this place.

Not like it does on me. I’m as covered up as custom allows, showing nothing but my face and hands. Still the light hurts, and not just my eyes.

It dizzies me, and makes my skin itch and burn. Magic comes out at night and clings to me like a stink until sunrise scours it off like sandpaper and a bucket of scalding water.

At night the Temple of Heroes’ Bones comes alive, like it’s got a will of its own. Reckon it does—­shaped by the dying emotions of warriors who gave their lives defending humanity from the corelings.

That . . . purpose radiates from the bleached and lacquered bones that decorate every surface of the temple, a golden light that can only be seen by those with magic of their own.

Chandeliers made of hundreds of skulls stare down at us. I can sense every bone in a body, even if I ent got names for ’em all. Altar’s got a bit of everythin’, arranged like a jigsaw, floor-­to-­ceiling. Even the chalices and fonts pool blessed water in the tops of human skulls.

Alcoves around the room hold entire skeletons of great kai, captains of the demon war, holding spear and shield even in death. The pews are made of thigh and calf bones, lashed and glued together. Even through three layers of cloth between my bottom and the seat, I can feel the texture of bone. I squirm at the places where joints meet.

It’s unsettling. Even a little scary. But I feel safe here, too. This is one place the demons can’t touch.

Everything stinks of incense, and the chemics used to prepare the dead. For once I don’t mind. Helps mask the smell of thousands of worshippers, their sweat and perfume and the clay dust on their sandals.

Like Seventhday services in the Brook, the pews in Sharik Hora are divided, with men stage right and women stage left. It’s a bit old-­ fashioned—­the Free Cities stopped the practice ages ago—­and one of many reasons I used to skip services whenever I could get away with it, which was most of the time.

Here it means I’m on the men’s side with Olive, Arick, and a few hundred Sharum warriors. Meanwhile, Selen and Rojvah are stuck across the aisle from us with the women.

Don’t make a lot of sense to me, splitting up families across the aisle like this. And what about folk like Olive, who fit on both sides? Or

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maybe neither.

Not that she looks out of place. I’m the one who doesn’t fit. Everyone in my row, Olive included, has at least six inches and a hundred pounds on me, not counting their armored robes, which puff them up even more. And it ent exactly subtle that I’m the only one not wearing black, or Krasian robes at all. Stand out like a sheep in a nightwolf den.

Across the aisle, Selen stands out just as much. She’s taller than most men, and towers over the other women, thick with muscle and puffed by armored robes of her own. Like me, Selen refuses to dress Krasian, which has its disadvantages. Rojvah blends better in her clerical white, but I know she hates it.

Someone coughs, startling me enough that Olive spares me a glance.

“All right, Darin?” she asks, too quietly for others to hear.

My senses work differently from other folk’s. Nose like a hound and ears like a bat, Mam used to say. Words whispered to the Creator are as clear to me as those shouted across a taproom.

But it’s more than that. I can feel the heartbeats of the others in my row, vibrating the bones of the pew. I can taste the tea and spiced meat on their breath, and tell you which ones snuck a swig of couzi before services. A fly on the windows a hundred feet above our heads sounds like it’s buzzing right in my ear. If I look up, I could count the facets of its eyes.

“Fine,” I murmur, and Olive is happy to retreat to her own thoughts.

Everyone’s got a broken heart today, but Olive most of all.

Sometimes my senses come in handy, but mostly they’re more trouble than they’re worth. I hate crowds like this, but just like in the Brook, sometimes you can get away with skippin’ services and sometimes you can’t. Nothing for it now but to endure.

I focus on the loudest voice, Damaji Aleveran, speaking from a pulpit designed to use the acoustics of the great dome to project his sermon far and wide. It gives me a place to lay my attention, and that helps keep the other sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and touches from overwhelming me.

I don’t pay much attention to his words—­some tampweed tale about how everything is the Creator’s will—­my other senses tell me more. I know what kind of bleach was used on his pristine white robe, and catch

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Peter V. Brett

the scent of parchment and ink on his fingers. I count the lines on his face and smell the years on him, but Damaji Aleveran is haler than most men his age. I can smell his strict diet, and see the calluses on his hands.

Beneath the layers of robes I hear firm muscles bunch and shift against the cloth.

Aleveran’s heartbeat is strong and steady. That and his scent tell me he believes what he’s saying. Believes the Creator is up there in the sky, looking down on us and caring what we do.

Not every Holy Man does. Some give a convincing performance, but I ent easy to fool. The ones with doubts and good intention I can forgive, but not the ones who lie on purpose. But plenty of folk have real faith, and I envy that. Wish I could believe everything happens for a reason. That everything’s gonna be all right.

Wish it was that easy.

At last, the main service comes to an end, and attention turns to the bodies lying in state at the front of the altar—­two princes and a princess.

Clerics file out of the front rows of pews and ascend the altar, with the men of the council of dama standing stage right, and the women of the council of dama’ting standing stage left as they speak prayers over the fallen.

Already the bodies of the other martyrs who fell on new moon have been turned over to clerics who specialize in boiling away flesh and bleaching bones to add to the power of this place. Selen says it’s barbaric but if I’m to tell honest word, I think it’s beautiful.

Still, it ent every day there’s a set of royal bones to add, much less three. Prince Chadan, grandson of Damaji Aleveran. Prince Iraven, Olive ’s half brother. And Princess Micha, Olive’s half sister.

It’s hard to think of Nanny Micha as a princess, much less a famed warrior, but turns out she was both. Mostly I remember her as a stern but loving shadow, following along just out of sight as Olive, Selen, and I romped through the halls of Aunt Leesha’s keep, oblivious to the dangers beyond the wards. Micha was more bodyguard than nanny, even if none of us knew it.

It’s a bit of a scandal for her to be on the altar, even so. In thousands of years, no woman has ever had her bones displayed in Sharik Hora, but these days, heroes’ bone magic is sorely needed. Desert Spear is a

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shadow of itself, the outer city destroyed, and sand demons still form storms out on the dunes. The Majah need all the protection they can get.

Krasians are good at letting pride get in the way of their decisions, but I hope they ent fool enough to turn up their noses at the bones of a powerful martyr just because she’s a woman. I can sense Olive’s tension about it, but there’s not much I can do.

Like Micha, this Olive is different from the spoiled princess of Hollow I grew up with. Here she is Prince Olive, a famed kai’Sharum with a demon kill count to make many an older and more seasoned warrior green with envy.

Olive doesn’t smell like she used to, either. Before coming here, don’t think she ever went a day without a bath. Truer is, she was more likely to have two than skip a day, with soaps that smelled like a flower garden’s sick-­up. Not to mention all the paints and powders and fragrances she layered on the moment she was dry. Now she smells more like a man than I do—­all sweat and dust and hava spice. So different, I almost didn’t recognize her at first. Almost.

But same as back then, beneath it all, she still smells like Olive Paper, the first friend I ever had in the world. Magic quickened Olive and me faster in the womb than other children. We were walking in weeks, and chasing each other around the room for almost a year before Selen found her feet. I learned to smell Olive’s moods before I learned to speak.

Right now she’s full of sorrow and anger in equal measure, and who could blame her? She’s lost almost everything, and it din’t have to be this way.

I expect someone who smells like that to be weeping, or raging, but Olive keeps her composure out of respect for the dead. It is not appropriate for Sharum men to cry in Krasia, or to question Everam’s will when He calls His warriors back to Heaven, if you believe that sort of thing. Olive didn’t used to, but a lot has changed, and I’m not sure how well I know her anymore.

To my right, Arick stands and smells much the same. Micha was not only Arick’s aunt, she was his mother’s spear sister, and perhaps the first warrior of renown who accepted him for who he was. Like Olive, he blames himself for much of what happened in the demon tunnels, even though it ent their fault.

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Across the aisle on the women’s side of the temple, emotion is not only allowed, it’s encouraged. Rojvah is openly weeping, but it’s more performance than true sorrow. Her sobs are carefully controlled in motion and volume, displaying her mourning without interrupting the services, or failing to keep up with the litany of prayers. And why not? She barely knew any of the deceased.

But her tears are real. I don’t know how she manages to cry on purpose—­or why anyone would—­but even beneath her paints and perfumes, I can taste her tears on the air as she deftly catches each drop with the flat edge of a tear bottle before they can streak the kohl around her eyes.

Standing next to her, Selen ent one for powders, or for sobbing, but she loved Nanny Micha more than her own mam. Even in this crowd, I can pick out Selen’s scent. I know it like my own. Her pain is real, silent tears leaving wet, salty lines glittering on her cheeks. I wish I was there to comfort her, but maybe it’s for the best I ent. Never been good at that sort of thing.

I’m sad, too, but I’ve never understood the way other folk carry on about their feelings, trying to display what’s right there in their scent. I worry folk think I’m heartless, sometimes. Reckon I could fake it like Rojvah, but it feels too much like lying.

The Krasians don’t seem to notice. I am a man to them, and warrior class, though I don’t look it. Sharum men are meant to embrace sorrow and joy alike, putting both to the side.

It’s a small comfort, with everyone in the whole rippin’ temple watchin’ me.

Ent prideful to say it when it’s true. Krasians think they’re being subtle, but they’re all stealing glances at our row while pretending not to. I hear their whispers. About Olive and the others, yes, but mostly about me. About how I’m the Par’chin’s son, and what that means.

My father, Arlen Bales, has a reputation with the Krasians. Even in New Krasia, modern and at peace for fifteen years, folk have divided sentiments about his name. Creator only knows what it means to the Majah.

Could be worse. Least they ent talking about how I was born in the abyss and have demon blood, like Krasian gossips like to do up north.

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Still, don’t like to be center stage if I can help it.

But Olive needs this, so I play my part. Ent much for prayer, but neither was Da. Wrote about it in his journals. Used to murmur watermelon over and over, so folk would see his lips moving and think he was praying along. That trick wouldn’t fool me, but others can’t see and hear like I do, especially while doing their best to pretend they ent paying attention.

“Chadan asu Maroch am’Majah,” Aleveran booms, pulling my attention back to the altar as he sweeps a hand over the bodies. “Iraven asu Ahmann am’Jardir am’Majah. Micha vah Ahmann am’Jardir am’Kaji.

Who bears witness to their glory?”

There are stirrings and murmurs throughout the pews, though it was all arranged in advance. The warriors who bore witness to what happened below were unanimous in who should speak for them.

Heartbeats are like faces to me. I know Olive’s powerful beats as well as any. The solid rhythm when she’s at rest, the heavy thumps when her blood is up. But now it’s something I don’t hear often, pounding fast like a hare with a hound at its heels.

Olive’s da’s name, like mine, carries weight—­and not all of it good.

The Majah used to believe Ahmann Jardir was the voice of Everam.

Plenty of them still do, whatever their leaders say, which is why Damaji Aleveran and his councilors would be happy to never hear the name again.

But unlike me, Olive Paper ent one to run from a fight.

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THE BELL WITCHES Lindsey Kelk Publication date: 09/05/2024 Tropes: family secrets, witches, first love

There is always a before and an after, that’s what she told me.

Before my father died, before I came to Savannah, before we all learned the truth about who I really was. Before was easy. After was more complicated.

Before Bell House.

Before Wyn. Before my grandmother.

After the wolf.

Before I fell in love. After I took a life.

There is always a before and an after.

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Before

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Chapter One The first thing that hit me was the heat.

My dad always used to say there was nothing like a southern summer. He’d sit on the couch, sipping on a glass of lemonade so sweet it made my teeth itch, talking about days when the air got so thick you could taste it, and the only thing that could chase it away was a good old-fashioned thunderstorm. But no matter how many times he’d warned me, nothing could have prepared me for the real thing.

I shuffled out of the backseat of the car and stepped onto the sidewalk, the heavy humidity pressing down on me, and peeled my already damp hair away from my forehead. Here I was at last: Savannah, Georgia, the town where my dad was born and raised.

And now he was dead and buried in a completely different country, three thousand miles away.

‘Emily?’

A sweet, sing-song voice called my name from the other side of the car.

‘You OK?’ Ashley, a pretty young woman with a long brown braid, examined me with a furrowed brow. I nodded my head even though I 3

was not OK at all. How could I be?

‘Well, here we are, home sweet home,’ she said, hitching her purse up onto her shoulder as the driver took my single suitcase from the trunk. ‘What do you think?’

Staring up at the building behind her, I felt my mouth fall open.

‘This is home?’ I asked, unable to process. ‘You live here?’

‘I do,’ she replied. ‘And so do you. Don’t get excited, it’s just a house.’

But saying this place was “just a house” was like saying a Formula One race car was just the same as a Toyota Corolla. Sure, they both had four wheels and an engine but they were not the same thing at all. The elegant white building in front of me was a work of art. It sat apart from its neighbours, as though it was too grand to be associated with such riffraff. It was taller than the other buildings, the gentle grey roof reaching higher into the sky and lined with decorative but dangerous-looking spikes, as if a pigeon would dare, and each large sparkling window shone in the early evening light, all of them too high up from the street to offer anything other than the most tantalising tease of what might be inside.

‘I think “house” is underselling it,’ I told Ashley, pulling the straps of my backpack tight against my shoulders. ‘Are you sure this isn’t a hotel? Or a museum?’

‘Definitely isn’t a hotel,’ she replied with a chuckle. ‘But it does sometimes feel like a museum. There’s a lot of history inside those four walls.’

An iron gate swung open on well-oiled hinges, welcoming me into a garden full of fragrant flowers and blossoming trees as I followed Ashley up a set of stone steps to a pair of imposing double 4

doors, dark wood gleaming against the powdery white walls of the house. Between my jetlag and the humid evening air, my vision was soft around the edges. I felt like I was in a dream.

‘Welcome to Bell House,’ Ashley declared, holding the front door open and ushering me inside. ‘Let’s go meet your grandmother.’

If it was possible, the inside of the house was even more grand than the outside. I hovered by the door as my tired eyes took in the glossy floors of the foyer, the imposing curved staircase in front of me and every immaculate piece of antique furniture. The walls glowed a soft sage green and when I looked more closely, I saw the silk wallcoverings had been painted with twisting vines that crept up and down, all over the house. Sleeping Beauty’s castle through the Mayfair filter.

‘It’s amazing,’ I breathed, hands still welded to my backpack, afraid to touch a thing. ‘I just can’t imagine anyone actually living here.’

Ashley replied with a half smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

‘And I can’t imagine living anyplace else.’

‘Why would you ever want to?’ asked another voice. ‘When we have our own little slice of heaven right here.’

One day earlier, when I opened the front door and laid eyes on Ashley for the first time in my life, I knew right away that we were related. The dimple my dad hid underneath his beard was on full display in her left cheek, her mouth quirked up at one side before she committed to a full smile the same as his, and most startling of all, the two of us shared the exact same shade of bright green eyes. We didn’t need all the paperwork she presented to Anwen, the family friend I’d been staying with since dad’s accident. What 5

were stamps and seals and protocols when the family resemblance was clear as day? And it wasn’t just the physical likeness. While Ashley sat in our living room, explaining how she was my dad’s estranged younger sister, my aunt, and that I had a grandmother I’d never met waiting for me in Savannah, there was a pull in my bones I couldn’t explain. She was telling the truth. Something in me that whispered we were the same. The kind of confirmation you could never get from a piece of paper.

And now, as a tall, elegant, older woman descended the stairs, the same promise pulsed through my veins. We were the same blood. Only this time instead of the altered reflection of my dad I saw in Ashley, I saw myself smiling back at me. Our hair was different, hers was red where mine was brown, but other than that, it was like someone had taken all my awkward facial features – my wide set eyes and broad mouth – and reassembled them beautifully, balancing them out with elegance and grace.

Looking at her was like staring into the world’s kindest funhouse mirror. Could this really be my grandmother?

‘Hi, I’m Emily,’ I said, fumbling for the right words. ‘I’m your granddaughter.’

Her arms were around me before I could finish my sentence and tears streamed down my face at once. She smelled like flowers and herbs and the summer sun but underneath all that, there was something warmer, more familiar. She smelled like my dad.

Eventually she released me, cupping my face in her hands and I could see she was crying too.

‘Any fool could see it,’ she whispered, her own emerald green eyes rimmed red. ‘Oh my goodness, I can’t tell you how happy I am to have you home.’

Ashley yawned loudly as I stared in silence, mesmerized by this beautiful face and already missing the warmth of her hug.

‘Catherine James Bell, may I present Miss Emily Caroline 6

James,’ my aunt said after clearing her throat. ‘And Miss Emily Caroline James, this is Catherine James Bell. My mother and your grandmother.’

‘But you look too young to be a grandmother,’ I blurted out quickly, too tired to mind my manners. Her skin was porcelain pale and translucent, without a single visible blemish or line, and she wore her long red hair pulled back in a soft French pleat, not one grey strand in sight. There was no way she was old enough to have a sixteen-year-old granddaughter, let alone a thirty-sevenyear-old son.

Catherine laughed loudly as she wrapped her arm around my shoulders, shepherding me into the parlour.

‘Oh, I like you already,’ she said. ‘Ashley, darling, how was the flight?’

‘Awful, thanks for asking.’

My aunt peeled off her cardigan and dumped it over the high back of a blue and white chair before rolling up her shirtsleeves.

‘How about some tea?’

‘Sounds divine, and perhaps a little snack?’ Catherine looked down at me kindly, one questioning eyebrow raised. ‘Unless you’d like something more substantial. I myself cannot stand to eat a full meal after a hot, busy day like today but you are still a growing girl.

We can’t have you going hungry.’

‘A snack sounds good,’ I mumbled, still struggling to find my voice. ‘Thank you again... grandmother?’

The word lingered on the tip of my tongue as I tried it on. Nope, didn’t quite fit yet.

‘Why don’t you call me Catherine for now,’ she suggested as Ashley left us alone in the parlour. ‘And no more thank yous, that’s an order. There’s no need to thank family for being family.’

I bit my dry, chapped lower lip as she guided me to sit on a powder blue loveseat before dropping neatly onto the couch opposite.

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Catherine was so perfectly put together, I couldn’t help but feel like a schlub in my plane rumpled travel outfit but if she was judging me as harshly as I was judging myself, it didn’t show. All I saw on her face was sheer joy, her eyes lit up with wonder and staring at me like I was the eighth wonder of the world.

‘We’ll do a tour of the house when you’ve had chance to rest,’ she said, leaning forward to beam at my hot, pink face. ‘Oh, Emily, you really are your father’s daughter, aren’t you? I would recognise those eyes anywhere.’

‘The same as yours and Ashley’s,’ I replied.

Catherine nodded and leaned back against the couch while I shifted around in my seat. Exhausted as I was, I couldn’t seem to sit still.

‘Scientists might call it a dominant gene,’ she said with a wink.

‘But as my grandmother would have said, there’s simply no denying a Bell.’

Only I wasn’t a Bell. Or at least I didn’t know I was until Ashley showed up twenty-four hours earlier. Until yesterday, I was Emily Caroline James, confused sixteen-year-old daughter of Paul and Angelica James, the father who died when his car smashed into a tree during a summer storm two months ago, and the mother I lost when I was just a baby. Yesterday, I was at home in Wales, an orphan. Now I was in Savannah, gazing into the face of a dead woman.

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SHADOWSTITCH Cari Thomas Publication date: 09/05/24 Tropes: witches, fated mates, star-crossed lovers, family secrets

They met in secret. They met in darkness. Light was not welcome.

The stars pulsed weakly above. They were not welcome either. The walls rose thick and ancient around them. Walls of stone; walls woven with bone and magic; walls built not to keep things out, but to keep things in. Beyond – London roiled, restless by night, blaring and bellicose, but within, silence reigned. Silence prickled. The Tower of London had never truly belonged to the city.

One robed figure in the centre, four around the outside. The moon was dark above – the Dark Moon made for the darkest of deeds. They raised their heads but the night recoiled from what lay within their hoods – for they could hardly be called faces at all. Half flesh; half skull. Half living; half dead. One half reflecting the light; and the other sucking it into their dark caverns – the voids of their face where once eyes and nose and lips had once been, and now, only rot and bone and hollows deep as death.

They opened their mouths – one side: cheek, lip and tongue flexing; the other: skull, teeth and chasm – and they spoke, but the words were too terrible to comprehend. Words that could have shrivelled the night; plucked the stars from their orbits; stopped London in its tracks; turned everyone within it mad with fear. Words more dead than alive.

They echoed like a trapped thing, their echo rebounding between the walls, climbing higher and higher, desperate and hungry, clawing for life, for death, and then, over the walls, escaped—

Flying off into the night, black as the feathers of Hel.

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Buried Do not bury your dead for they live among us. While their spirits remain active in Hel, their earthly bodies should be regularly bathed, fed and honoured with offerings; their death days celebrated and their altars attended to.

– Tending the Dead, Hel Witch Initiation Stage One

I won’t look down.

I won’t look down.

I won’t look down.

Anna pulled the cord between her fingers. It was habit more than anything. It offered no comfort now, no knots left in it to hold her together – only rough, bristled cord beginning to fray, like a memory. It had once contained so much of her: her joys, her fears, her silenced griefs, her buried longings, her rage and hate; her love, perhaps. Her life with Aunt ordered into tight bindings of everything she had not been allowed to feel.

But the knots were gone now – why can I still not feel?

The sky was the emptiest sort of grey, ravens scoring its colourless murk as they moved between the trees, their shrill, indifferent calls the only music in the mute air. The funeral guests huddled around the open grave, their coats black and slick as the birds, their faces grey and bleary too, as if they'd been carved out of the drizzle. There weren’t many in attendance – some of Aunt’s work colleagues, a few neighbours, a handful of old acquaintances. No Binders. Selene stood out among them in a pur-

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ple outfit that bordered on inappropriate. Her hair, brighter than anything for miles, tumbled beneath a wide-brimmed hat. No one else seemed to notice that she was entirely dry beneath her umbrella although the rain was coming in sideways. She tried to catch Anna’s eye but Anna could not meet it. Instead, Anna looked out over the vast, modern cemetery.

Aunt would have approved of its efficiency and organisation – endless rows of polished graves, as faceless as death itself. Some had flowers tucked beneath them, wilting in the rain; faded offerings. No one would leave Aunt flowers. No one would visit her grave. It would soon be forgotten, lost among the masses.

I won’t look down.

I won’t look down.

I won’t look down.

Anna clutched the limp and lifeless cord, the world warping and bending around her. Was she really here, at Aunt’s funeral? Aunt. My Aunt. Was Aunt really dead? It didn’t feel possible. Aunt had always seemed invincible. An inescapable force. Anna tried to imagine what freedom might feel like but all she could see was grave after grave after grave. How could she live when Aunt was the one who had always given her life shape and meaning? How could she live when Aunt’s death was her fault? All my fault.

I won’t look down.

I won’t look down.

I won’t look down.

But the cold of the ground began to rise up – over her feet, climbing up her legs like stiff roots, wrapping around her – squeezing – darkness swallowing Anna’s mind as she remembered. The day she had undone her knots coming back to her in a devastating blur of images: the Binding 3

ceremony, vines tightening, rose petals flying, Attis's blood erupting, her hand in Effie’s, their magic uniting, the ragged sound of Attis’s breath returning – the most wonderful sound she’d ever heard; the Golem’s fingers around Aunt’s neck as she gasped for air – the worst sound she’d ever heard. The world had turned to magic that day and Anna at the centre of it, sewing its threads into something powerful and terrible.

“Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust: in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ.” The priest bowed his head and the guests followed suit.

I won’t look down– I won’t look– I won’t– I– Anna looked to the sky. To the leaves dragged from the trees. To the desperate emptiness inside of her. And then – she looked down.

There it was. Aunt’s coffin gleaming at the bottom of the grave.

Aunt down with the dirt and the worms and decay – everything she’d always hated. Anna tried to look away but she couldn’t. The darkness had taken over now – swallowed her. She was down there too. She couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe – falling and falling with nothing to hold onto— A scream tore through the air.

Another. Another. Screams erupting all around her. Anna struggled against the darkness – her head jerking back up – trying to understand what was happening, but what she saw did not make it any more comprehensible…

The guests were screaming. All of them. Eyes flared wide, mouths gaping, features carved with terror, hollow screams rising from deep 4

within. Mrs Chapman, their neighbour, gripping her face and shrieking; another guest stumbling backwards as they erupted; the priest dropping to his knees and howling to the heavens, as if it held none of the answers he’d promised. The ravens in the trees screeched along, a wretched choir, the noise unbearable, shredding the sky to pieces, so loud it seemed it would wake all the numb and silent dead.

Selene was the only one not overcome. She looked at Anna aghast and then raised her hands to the air and called out: “Alsamt!”

The screaming stopped abruptly.

Slowly, the funeral attendees began to return to their senses – shutting their mouths, shaking their heads, adjusting hats and coats and clasping hands together once more, as if nothing had happened. As if they hadn’t just lost their minds.

The priest clambered back to his feet, continuing. “Now, let us say the Lord’s prayer—” The guests cast their eyes back down to the grave, and the service trudged along through the rain to its bitter end.

Anna did not look down again.

*

They held the reception at Aunt’s house on Cressey Square. The place had never been so lively – guests nibbling at sandwiches and sip-

5

ping on sour wine as they offered Anna limp, insincere smiles – so sorry for your loss. Anna nodded her way through the room like a hollow wind-up toy, saying the right things, feeling nothing, Selene playing the gracious host – yes, we were old friends. I know, so terrible, a heart attack at such a young age. We’ll miss her terribly. Anna suspected most of the guests had only come so they could snoop around – to judge and sneer at the house of the woman who had judged and sneered at them.

No one stayed long. After an hour, the whole thing was done and dusted – Aunt’s life wiped clean like an accidental spill no one would remember. Love is all that is left of us and you had little of that, Aunt. Anna and Selene sat in the kitchen, Selene trying to chase away the silence with chatter, making her way through a bottle of wine.

“Thank the Goddess that’s over! Some man had me cornered for half an hour talking me through his fly fishing collection. I do hate cowan funerals. So sombre, so much black. Black is for seduction, not for mourning. I want my funeral to be bursting with colour and men falling to their knees. Champagne fountains. Dancing all night. Wild rituals beneath the moon. It’s not a funeral worth attending if there’s not some nudity—” She tried to catch Anna's eyes with a smile, but, giving up, tipped back her glass. "Are you sure you don't want some? It might help take the edge off things.”

Anna shook her head faintly.

"It's not the funeral wine if that’s what you’re worried about. I filched it from the drinks cabinet. One of Vivienne’s best I hope. Makes it taste better knowing it would piss her off.” Selene cackled but Anna didn’t respond. Selene bit her red lips and put down the glass. “Matchstick, what happened at the service…”

Anna tensed. She could still hear the screams, she’d been hearing them all afternoon. She lowered her eyes, shrinking into her seat. “I didn’t 6

do anything…”

“I know you didn’t do it on purpose,” Selene said softly. Too softly.

“But I’m worried, darling. Your emotions… your magic – they broke free. You have to allow yourself to grieve. It’s OK to cry—” Selene reached a hand towards her. Anna looked at it, not knowing how to take it, not knowing how to cry. She stood up from the table, gathering the plates. “I better clear up.”

Selene sighed behind her. “Don’t worry, darling, I’ve got cleaners coming any minute. Are you sure you don’t want me to arrange removal men too? We can get this place all cleared out—” “Not yet,” Anna replied abruptly.

“OK.” Selene sounded unsure. “Well, why don’t you check there’s nothing else you want to bring back with you before we leave?”

Anna looked around the kitchen. Aunt’s tea towels. Aunt’s glasses.

Aunt’s weighing scales. Aunt’s shopping list, half-written on the fridge.

The scent of her still in the air – magnolia perfume, garden soap, the sharp oil of her hair. Anna didn’t want to pick through it all, to pack it up, she just wanted to shut tight the doors of the house and leave it all to rot.

“It’s all yours now,” Selene muttered inauspiciously.

It was. Anna had learnt the full truth of it all now. Her mother, Marie, had bought the house quickly and quietly with family money left to her after her father had died. After Marie’s death, Anna had inherited it, not that she’d ever known. As Anna’s guardian, Aunt had simply taken control of proceedings and had chosen to move them in. Why? Why live in the house where you killed her? It was a fine house, a respectable neighbourhood – Aunt would have liked all that, but no, that was not the reason. Anna knew Aunt would have wanted to be close, to soak in the blood of her sins, to live beneath the shadow of the curse, to keep a dead7

eyed Golem-version of Anna’s father in the third floor room where she’d killed Anna’s parents. Punishment and pleasure. Pleasure and punishment. They were one and the same to Aunt.

Anna wondered why her mother had chosen this unassuming house on this unassuming street in Earlsfield. Perhaps its inconspicuousness was exactly what she’d been looking for – somewhere to hide, to disappear so Aunt and the Binders wouldn’t find her. But they had. Once Anna was eighteen and could legally sell the place, she would, but until then, she just wanted to lock its terrible memories away.

The doorbell rang.

“The cleaners!” Selene jumped up from her seat, clearly glad for the distraction. “Go on, have a quick look around, see if there’s anything you want to keep. Or burn. I’m a dab hand at sacrificial bonfires.”

Anna managed her first smile of the day. She went through the other door into the quiet of the living room and it died on her lips. She could see it all before her – the Binders lost in their magic, thorns piercing flesh, Attis and Effie bound in the centre, Aunt beckoning Anna to kill them, kill them, kill them…

The room before her was chilled and bare now. Everything as it had always been – the photographs of her and Aunt along the mantlepiece, Aunt’s books on the shelves, the roses – withered now – still in their pot.

Anna walked past Aunt’s armchair, still moulded to the shape of her head.

She drifted a finger over Aunt’s Bible on the table beside it – Aunt had used it to select their embroidery verses from. Stitch in, stitch back…

Anna turned to the piano last. It tugged at her from somewhere deep but she snipped the thread. It had never been her piano. All the music she’d ever played, all the moments of joy in her life… all of it had belonged to Aunt. Aunt had been conducting the whole damn thing.

Anna could almost hear the sound of the metronome ticking with Aunt’s 8

judgement even now. The feeling of Aunt over her shoulder ready to tell her she wasn't doing it right – to play faster, slower, different, better; to be more than she was. Never enough. Blood began to well up through the cracks in the keys, onto the floor— Anna blinked and it was gone.

She stumbled from the room and into one of the cleaners. “I’m – sorry, sorry—” The woman smiled. “Want me to start in there, love?”

“Sure – I – yes—” Anna made for the stairs, wondering if she was going mad. Will I ever be free of Aunt? Will I ever breathe again? She looked up the stairway and could feel it already. The darkness of the third floor room pouring down from above – a flood that would drown her. She hadn’t been up there since that night but it had filled up her dreams ever since. She would go there now and face it. Lock it shut and be done with it forever. No way out but through. Aunt had used to say that. She’d never believed in giving up easily, Anna had to give her that much credit.

Anna started upstairs. On the first floor, she walked past her old bedroom, the shadow of her and her Aunt flickering in the corner of her eye – Aunt combing her hair in the mirror as they had done every night of Anna’s life. She passed Aunt’s room, still as meticulously ordered as ever. She stopped at the bottom of the next staircase. Her legs felt suddenly like stone, the stairway above her narrowing and stretching out as if it would go on forever. As if she’d never reach the top. One step at a time.

You can do this. She began her ascent. Each step harder than the last. The air seemed to thin, a dizziness took over her, her feet growing heavier, like anchors trailing through sludge. The darkness pushed down on her, squeezing the breath from her. She gripped the bannister, pulling herself upwards… one more step… one more step… Her vision began to cloud 9

at the edges. She leant forwards, feeling as if she might faint. One more step… it took every last scrap of her effort in her, and then— She rounded the corner at the top and scrabbled for the light switch.

The light came on but the shadows did not dissipate. The silence slipped itself around her.

The door ahead was open.

It felt wrong to see it that way. Its secrets released. The room in which Aunt had killed her parents. The room that had contained their family curse for sixteen years. Open. The curse was out there now. Inside of me now.

Anna propelled herself towards the door. Once inside, she twisted around, expecting something to jump out at her. But there was nothing – no ghouls or Golems or Aunts waiting to get her. Nothing but a room.

Someone had opened the curtains and made the bed. Light streamed in.

And yet, Anna could feel the violence as if it were written into the walls, a language made of blood and screams and terror; as if somewhere, what had happened here was still echoing over and over…

She spotted her mirror on the dressing table. The mirror she’d made out of magic and moonlight, the mirror that had helped her get into the room, cracked into pieces now in its case, a shard fallen loose beside it.

She picked up the broken slice of glass and placed it back into the missing space. She gasped. The pieces of glass began to melt together, turning briefly, mesmerisingly liquid like the surface of a lake finding stillness after a storm. And then – the mirror was whole again. Anna tapped the glass and found it solid, only the smallest whisper of a hairline crack at the bottom where the large shard had rejoined. But when Anna picked it up – she almost dropped it again.

Aunt’s face stared back at her. For a split second, Anna had thought it her own face – the same high cheekbones, red hair, green eyes. But it 10

was Aunt. Anna moved her head to the side and Aunt’s moved too. Anna’s insides turned to worms, writhing and twisting with horror. She felt her own face drain of colour, but the face in the mirror did not. It flushed with life. The eyes gleamed. A smile played dreadfully along the lips.

Aunt tipped her head back and began to laugh. It was Aunt's laugh too, like vinegar poured on a laugh so that it was puckered and sour and bitter and taunting. Blood dripped down the walls behind her— “Matchstick—” Anna spun around to find Selene in the doorway. “Darling, are you OK?" Anna held the mirror to her chest, her heart hammering against the glass. “I – yes, I’m fine.”

Selene’s frown deepened. “You shouldn't have come in here."

"I just wanted to…”

“I know, but places like this are better left shut. No point opening old wounds. Come on, it’s miserable in here, let’s go.”

Anna noticed that Selene had not crossed the threshold of the door.

The room held dark memories for her too. Selene turned and Anna quickly wrapped the mirror in an old sheet – round and round like a shroud.

She tucked it under her arm and followed Selene down the stairs.

Selene slowed on the landing and swivelled back to Anna, fluttering her fingers. "Actually, darling, there was something I'm looking for. Perhaps you could help?" Her voice was light but there was tension beneath.

Anna took a moment to answer. Aunt’s face was still in her mind.

“Er – yes, sure. What?”

“Oh, it’s nothing really. Just a ring. A trinket. It used to be mine. I already checked Vivienne’s jewellery box but it wasn’t there. Anywhere 11

else she might have put it?”

“There was another box in her room… I can check.”

They entered Aunt’s room, Anna doing her best to ignore the scent of Aunt’s perfume still souring the air; the uneasy feeling, as she reached into Aunt’s bedside cabinet, that she might be caught in the act. She pulled out a small wooden box – she’d come across it when she’d searched Aunt’s room the year before. It had been full of all sorts of bits and pieces.

Selene took it hungrily and began rifling through the contents, discarding old tickets and receipts, trinkets, a white key – Attis’s skeleton key! – Anna picked it up off the floor and put it in her pocket as Selene’s breath caught. She was holding a thick, plain band between her fingers.

It was exceptionally ugly – its thickness uneven, its metal dark and tarnished.

“Is that it?” said Anna, doubtfully.

Selene slipped it onto her finger. It looked out of place next to the vivid, twinkling colours of her other rings.

“Why did Aunt have a ring of yours?”

“Oh, I leant it to her once…” Selene stared down at it, looking both relieved and burdened. Anna knew there was more to the story but she didn’t have the energy left to question it now.

She stood up. “I’m going to get some fresh air. I won’t be long.”

“I’ll just have to open another bottle of Viv’s wine in the meantime.” Selene winked. “When you’re ready, we’ll go home.”

Home. The word rose up, adrift. Anna didn’t know where home was anymore. It wasn’t here in this empty, besieged house. It wasn’t there either – in Selene’s house in Hackney. Effie’s and Attis’s house. It did not belong to her. They didn’t belong to her.

12

Anna made her way to the gated garden in the middle of Cressey Square. She took out Attis’s skeleton key and put it in the lock. It opened with an easy click. He had used it once to get inside. That day he had visited her here came back to her like sudden colour, a vivid flare burning the grey film of the day away.

No. She would not remember it.

She traced her old route down through the garden, the trees around her tugged this way and that by the wind, leaves flying, her hair caught in the crossfire. The plants around her were threadbare, clutching on to life.

She made it to the oak tree and slid to the ground, its trunk so familiar that somewhere, deep down, her heart began to ache. The rain had stopped but the earth was soft and damp, droplets falling from the leaves like the tears that would not come.

The day passed through her mind in a dark, unstable blur. Anna turned her thoughts from it. She’d become good at that – closing the doors in her mind and keeping the keys hidden where even she couldn’t find them. She tried not to think of them. Effie and Attis. Attis and Effie.

Where they were. What they were doing. They’d gone away together.

Together.

Her eyes wandered over the grass, to where she and Attis had laid in the garden and not in the garden at all. A magical world he’d created for her and then taken away. The boy she and Effie were both fated to love.

Effie. My twin. My sister.

Anna still couldn’t wrap her head around it. She’d spent her entire life believing she was all alone in the world except for Aunt and now Aunt was dead and Effie was her family. She heard Aunt snicker inside her head: Out of the frying pan and into the fire…

13

The curse rose up around Anna like black smoke – uncontainable, uncontrollable, overpowering.

One womb, one breath, sisters of blood, bound by love, so bound by death.

How far did it go back? How many lives taken? Twin sister after twin sister fated to love the same man and to tear themselves apart over it – one sister to kill the other. Anna would hardly have believed it if she hadn’t seen it, hadn’t lived through the destruction it had already caused.

Part of her wished she’d never unleashed the secrets of the third floor room, had never discovered the truth of it all. How her Aunt and her mother had both loved her father. How he’d chosen her mother and it had driven Aunt into the hands of the Binders, twisted her magic and her mind, until she’d taken her revenge: binding her father’s will, forcing him to kill her mother and stab himself in the heart. How Aunt had framed it all as a crime of passion and separated Anna and Effie in secret, raising them apart only to bring them back together at sixteen to let the curse do its work all over again.

And it had.

The curse had threaded Anna, Effie and Attis through the eye of its needle and now it was waiting to sew the next chapter in its dark embroidery. But how would it unravel? Whose hands controlled the threads and whose life was to be cut short? Was there any choice in it or was the pattern already formed? Her mother had tried to unthread it, Aunt had tried to tie it in knots, but it had got them both no matter what they did. Aunt had still killed her mother. And I killed you, Aunt.

Anna fell to her knees.

I killed you. I killed you. I killed you. Will I kill Effie too?

She raised her head to the sky and screamed – but no sound came 14

out. She watched as every leaf on the oak tree fell one by one. She didn’t look away until the last leaf had fallen, the branches left bare as bone.

What’s happening to me?

She couldn’t trust herself and she couldn’t trust her magic. She’d seen what it could do; felt it. Anna took the cord out of her pocket and tore her fingers through the earth. Once the hole was deep enough she dropped it in. Earth to earth. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. She pushed the soil back over it and covered it with the fallen leaves.

Buried.

15

THE TEMPTATION OF MAGIC Megan Scott Publication date: 23/05/24 Tropes: forbidden love, fated mates, enemies to lovers

Prologue Nicole When I was a girl, my mother tried to explain how vicious I’d become.

I was only three years old at the time, so didn’t yet understand the sleeping depth and darkness of my immortal urges or the fact that we were the most powerful supernatural predators on Earth. But my mother knew.

And she warned me.

“Our kind was made, darling girl, at the dawn of time. By the Goddess of Death.”

She did it gently as I sat on her lap and clutched a lock of her dark hair, so it curled, shining, over my chubby fist like a maternal gauntlet.

She taught me about the supernatural creatures that existed in our world, hidden amongst humans.

And the beings called Empyreals—like us, dear girl—that could transform into their greatest predators to hunt and kill them.

She read from her ancient bestiaries, the pages crackling as she turned them, revealing the research she’d compiled, the sketches she’d made. They told of long paradisical golden ages when creatures had lived in harmony with humans, back when the world was ancient and new. Then dark storms of time when the deadliest of those supernaturals massacred their way through the world, until Empyreals had stopped 1

them.

Some of her drawings frightened me. The anarchic variation of creatures, the very reason our strange metamorphic powers were so necessary. When I think of her sketches now, I realise they’re why I love art so much, having spent those formative years cuddled in my mother’s scent with the cape of her hair around me, my heart fluttering like a little bird’s. They proved there was so much more to our world. And while its history and myth were hidden to humans, it could be captured in art, keeping alive its irreparable inhuman truths. From then on, I was captivated. Not quite, not yet, understanding the beings she depicted were real. That they could hurt me.

Or, more accurately, that I could hurt them.

She taught me of this dangerous and sometimes violent world because she had seen it, fought it, and though it had scarred her in numerous invisible ways, she had emerged immortal and indestructible as a piece of ancient sculpture.

But there was one thing, despite our deadliness, that could threaten her.

“If you ever see another Empyreal my love,” she would ask me every night, “what do you do?”

Even now, I remember my learned replies. “Play pretend.”

My mother would sigh and kiss me. “Yes. But if one of the Wake’s Empyreal discovers that you’re also an Empyreal? If I’m not there; if your father isn’t there, what do you do?”

Sometimes, in my dreams, I see her dark, haunted eyes so clearly, they wake me with a catch in my throat. Hers were eyes that had seen eternities, and slaughtered her way through most of them.

2

But when she asked me again, her gaze was as clear and as serious as I had ever seen. “What do you do?”

“I run.”

I got my first glimpse of that reality less than a year later, when our secret lives hiding from the Wake collided in the deadliest way. When the organisation that was supposed to keep our supernatural world safe by using Empyreals as its loyal hunters, sent one to hunt down my mother, and kill her in front of me.

I learned then, in a way she’d never been able to make me understand, that Empyreals were the most dangerous predators in the world.

No human nor creature could compare. That was the way they—we— were meant to be. Urged by an ancient, wild hunt within.

But there was one thing as deadly as an Empyreal’s hunting urges: the hunger of the Wake. To them, the information my mother had accumulated; the secrets she’d uncovered about the very workings of our supernatural society and the organisation that ran it, were just as deadly as her goddess-given powers.

After that night, I hoped never to discover the breadth of my metamorphic nature, yet wished with a desperation born of grief and curiosity, that one day I would.

I would never trust an Empyreal again.

Even the one that slumbered in me.

3

Chapter One Nicole Present Day The painting felt, in the dark gold light of Estwood’s Museum of Art and Antiquities, like glimpsing the immortal urges slumbering inside her.

Nicole’s head tipped back.

It was just a glossy poster displayed in the foyer, surrounded by marble and lit with a spotlight. Most visitors had walked right past it.

But then, Nicole had always felt a palpable draw to paintings of Empyreals.

The Wild Hunt of Odin, read the gold cursive script. Being generously loaned by the esteemed Mythography Professor, Diana Westmoore in two weeks’ time.

Nicole’s eyes raked over the painting. In it, Empyreals streamed from the heavens on their endless metamorphic hunt, riding a sky cleaved by wicked clouds. The cold gleam of the moon illuminated one corner and its inky battlefield, while the archaic gold of the sun in the other backlit the flying hunt of warriors.

This was the title piece of Nicole’s undergraduate art history dissertation. But it also had hidden within it, the last message from her moth4

er. The one that might keep her family safe from the Wake forever.

“There you are!”

Nicole blinked, tearing her attention from the painting’s lure. Her thumb stalled its thoughtful back-and-forth stroke over the broken button on her cuff. Its sharp edge tested her skin, but little could pierce it.

Her fingers slid from where they’d tucked beneath the sleeve to the silky blood-coloured lining, and she turned to find her best friend.

Remedy Winters strolled through the crowded foyer. No matter what Remi said, the melody of her voice always drew attention, and her beauty kept it. The low lights brought out undertones of gold and purple in her brown skin and a sharp lick of black eyeliner accentuated her dark eyes as they ran over Nicole’s face.

“How did I know I’d find you here?” she asked with a smirk, coming to a stop in a perfume of violets, the camel-coloured coat draped over her shoulders brushing Nicole’s tweed jacket.

Nicole smiled, recalibrating. “Probably because I’ve been visiting it for days. The curator has asked me to stop loitering in front of the poster.”

Remi laughed. “Didn’t he run away from you last week?” A few human visitors turned to the sound of a Siren’s joy. Humans knew nothing about supernaturals, not that they lived amongst them in every town and city in the world. Nor anything about the organisation that kept supernatural society safe and secret: the Wake. Humans believed the supernatural was something that belonged in paintings, or movies. And yet they still sometimes looked a moment longer, their senses whispering that there was something about certain things or people.

Nicole wondered if, as some sensitive humans could, the curator knew on some level that she wasn’t human. That she could hear the 5

bloody rush of his pulse beneath his skin. That she could kill him in an instant. Not that she would, or wanted to. She was a predator to deadly supernaturals, not humans. That didn’t mean she hadn’t noticed as her teenage years spiralled closer to twenty that some people found it difficult to keep eye contact with her, apparently, intense dark eyes.

It would be even worse if she ever had her first transformation. Until then, her Empyreal power felt like a being separate from herself, and Nicole could keep telling herself she was just like a human. Gentle.

Safe.

And always, in control.

“All I did was ask to check on the progress of the painting being moved here. Yet every time he sees me, he acts like I’m the harbinger of the Wild Hunt.”

Remi shook her head, eyes sparkling with mirth. “He’s probably just jealous you get to work with Westmoore’s whole collection while he’s having to bend over backwards to have one of her paintings in the museum. How long has he been asking her?”

“Almost as long as I’ve wanted to see them, too.” Nicole returned her attention to the painting and sighed. “Ten years.”

“And here it is.” Remi’s head tilted, her soft curls brushing Nicole’s cheek. “It’s so . . . vicious.”

Nicole said nothing as a complicated twist of fascination and longing went through her. She’d spent years combing through the pieces in the museum, looking for paintings of supernatural origin that might fit her mother’s last clue—divino artista—which meant, among other things, supernatural art. But besides the Celtic artefacts she loved and nineteenth-century paintings of ships in dark storms, there hadn’t been what she was looking for. So she remained convinced the answer lay in West6

moore’s infamously secret art collection, and the sprawl of supernatural antiquities kept private in her local coastal manor.

Tonight, Nicole would finally find out if she was right.

“Come on,” Remi said. “I want a coffee and you don’t want to be late for your first lecture, do you?”

Nicole smiled, letting Remi steer her away from the painting’s lure.

Warm sea air breathed up under her loose white satin shirt as they came outside. Estwood felt gorgeously academic this morning. The sky had turned overcast with a slowly encroaching storm, giving the air a warm magnetism and muting the gold and greys of the historic stone buildings. It made the distinctly non magical place feel almost mystic and even more ancient and Celtic, set as it was between Devon and Cornwall on the south coast of England.

“How did the meeting with your supervisor go?” Nicole asked as they headed down the museum’s wide steps and onto the cobbled streets.

“He approved my dissertation, thankfully,” Remi said. “So don’t forget, when you see the collection let me know if there are any Siren or Mermaid paintings with instruments in, ok?”

“Yes, of course.”

Remi’s research into the history of music often had her pouring over old texts describing the world’s most ancient instruments, lost to time.

Nicole didn’t know the full extent of the reason Remi and her family also hid from the Wake, but it had brought them to Estwood and bonded them tighter than Nicole had ever dared to wish for.

“Great,” Remi squeezed Nicole’s arm softly. “Thanks. What about you, did you catch Westmoore this morning?”

7

Nicole sighed, thinking of the enigmatic Professor. “No, I tried her office, but it was locked. I think the lecture or tonight are my only chances.”

They walked through a narrow adjoining alley which branched onto the next street and passed the old church-come-library where Nicole’s father worked. The lantern-lit entrance to the university’s oldest buildings was next, along with its grassy quad where students milled about, their bikes tied up beneath ancient Victorian streetlamps.

Estwood was the perfect blend of ancient and new: pale, ornately carved townhouses circled a great mermaid fountain, and the surrounding shops featured delis, bakeries and other essentials. It had everything you’d expect of a little Cornish town: ancient looking teahouses nestled beside art galleries and crystal shops. Then the academic necessities; bookshops, art supply stores and cheap coffee-come-wine bars where students could get drinks all hours of the day and night. More modern glass buildings sat between the old ones like invisible extensions into the present, inextricably interlinking the campus with the town itself.

After retrieving their coffees—a lavender oat coffee for Remi and an americano with cream for Nicole—they approached the glass fronted lecture building, nestled between the folklore and art history townhouses where a flood of students waited inside.

“I’m going to try and catch her,” Nicole said as they stepped into the cool, modern interior.

“Good luck,” Remi said, turning to head to her lecture. “But, let me know how it goes tonight, ok? I know you’ll figure it out.”

Nicole’s lips tipped up, thinking of the wealth of supernatural artefacts and the academic excitement of figuring out her mother’s last clue.

“I have with all the others,” she said with a shrug.

8

The last had led them to Estwood, but there was one element of it she hadn’t figured out, that had kept her awake at night over these last years, winding that low coil of worry in her gut. Knowledge, her mother had always told her, was power. Because the more Nicole knew about the supernatural world, the easier it would be to keep her family safe. And, beyond continuing to live a blissful secret life in Estwood, keeping her family safe was Nicole’s one and only goal.

The one she’d let nothing come in the way of.

Remi smiled. “She’d be proud of you. Her little mythographer.”

An unexpected knot of heat tightened in Nicole’s throat. She’d only been three when her mother had been murdered. In some ways, too little time to remember her—as powerful and mythic as she was—and yet those simple words meant so much. “Get out of here before you make me like you even more.”

Remi laughed and waved, and Nicole watched her go. She’d never had a friend other than her siblings before. Being hunted, fleeing from one safe house to the next; fearing the Wake over their shoulder, had made it impossible. Especially to find another supernatural who understood not just their plight, but how it felt to hide the very essence of who you are.

To shrug on humanity like a coat every morning before leaving a house full of supernaturals.

Nicole’s fingers rubbed against the rough hem of her mother’s jacket as she turned back to the bank of students. They were strangers, all of them. But all humans.

Nicole took a breath and raised her chin slightly. As a child, she’d been paranoid in a crowd like this, unsure if someone in her midst was a creature capable of triggering her first transformation. But now, she was 9

excited for the anonymity of university. She’d been craving the freedom this year of research offered her over the more rigid types of undergraduate degrees.

This course was a foundation year offered by Estwood University— the specialised Arts school—allowing teenagers who’d just left sixth form to pick a dissertation and study any humanities classes they desired to complete it. It meant Nicole could take classes in Celtic History, Mythology and Folklore, Gothic Literature, and of course Art History. All of which allowed her to study the supernatural in some form or another.

If she couldn’t be around it in real life, this was the next best thing.

She’d managed to design a dissertation that allowed her to straddle both worlds, using human-made paintings that—unknowingly to the humans—depicted real creatures. It gave Nicole the excuse to leaf through every human folkloric text she might need, searching for real supernatural truth. Just as she had in human literature and art: gothic classics, Angela Carter’s dark fairy tales, smutty paranormal novels and a few shockingly made, yet mysteriously bingeable supernatural TV-shows.

She’d laughed herself hoarse watching those with her sister and Remi.

Nicole paused in the entrance to the colossal lecture theatre, longing catching in her throat.

The room was dark and tiered, the seats circling a giant screen like a crescent moon. Laptops were gleaming to life where people were finding their seats. Nicole peered over to the empty podium where Professor Westmoore was due any minute. On screen, it showed a mythological oil painting, gleaming darkly, and the words Introduction to Art History.

Nicole headed up the steps and took a seat, scenting the rough fabric of the chair, varying coffee orders and new books. There was also the conversation and perfume of every person in the hall. She was used to overstimulation after eighteen years of heightened hearing, strength, 10

sight and speed, so tuned it out as she pulled out her laptop and set it on the attached folding arm. She tried to smile at people who began to fill in the positions around her, their eyes snagging on her a little longer.

Nicole scanned her reflection, finding the same dark eyes and dark hair as her mother.

The same deadly urges.

Sleeping, she reminded herself. Controlled.

As the lights dimmed, she sat up straighter and her senses unfurled.

Nicole caught a gleam of movement by the podium, her anticipation heightening.

A moment later a voice pierced the darkness. “Mythography.”

Professor Westmoore’s voice was unhurried and elegant, with the gentle rasp of age and the subtle power of someone inhuman. It caused the hairs on Nicole’s body to rise. She hadn’t heard this voice since the storming night her father and siblings first came to Estwood, fleeing a supernatural encounter that could have ruined their lives forever.

“Researching mythological art is a seriously understudied speciality.” A short, gleaming cap of silver hair became visible as a spotlight bloomed on the stage, revealing a woman who appeared somewhere in her eighties.

Even from across the lecture theatre, there was something Elfin about her features, yet Nicole knew the art collector and professor was actually a powerful Seer, like Nicole’s father and sister, and likely much older than she appeared. Nicole had an unusual flicker of Seer abilities. It was unheard of for an Empyreal to have any other gift than the deadly reflex to transform into a murderous supernatural’s natural predator.

“During this year,” Westmoore continued, “my lectures will take you through a myriad of supernatural images, some from my own collec11

tion.”

Backlit artworks flooded the dark, lighting student’s faces in flashes of blood-red or royal blue. On the screen, moony-eyed Pre-Raphaelite nymphs tugged Hylas into violet water, thick with lily pads; all their red hair drenched to an ancient rust colour. Then, nineteenth-century oil paintings of mermaids and satyrs appeared. Delicate watercolour illustrations of Faeries. Armoured men spearing great dragons and gallivanting scrawny devils in fiery depictions of the Last Judgement. Jewel toned bestiaries from the Middle Ages with chimera-like creatures—rivalling the bestiary sitting in Nicole’s family library.

The supernatural array concluded with a Celtic cauldron, raucous creatures dancing around the bronze rim, and a twisted torc that snagged Nicole’s attention. The ancient gold necklace swirled with anthropomorphic patterns, made to look like slowly moving creatures.

“Today,” Westmoore said, “I encourage you to forget what you think you know of the world. Because if these artists didn’t all believe such creatures were real, they entertained the supernatural through allegory, fairy-tale or religion and with such artistic fervour that might make you believe they were. You will be shown, that beneath the human history of the world, art reveals a secret, seething, supernatural one.”

The Professor looked directly at Nicole in the crowd. They were the only two in the room that knew the creatures in these paintings were real and how magic and vicious the world truly was.

Except in Estwood, Nicole reminded herself as her excitement turned bitter with worry. We’re safe here. Hidden.

“To these artists,” Westmoore continued, “the temptation of magic was too strong to ignore.

Let me show you why.”

12

MOONSTONE Laura Purcell Publication date: 23/05/24 Tropes: gothic, shifter romance, sapphic romance

Martingale Hall 1822 I never knew there could be fear like this. Not fear of an outside force, of being harmed by some ghoulish monster; this time, the danger comes from within.

I cannot win or lose the fight. I’m on both sides and my own strengths have turned traitor against me. My parents always called me a spirited girl, but what did that truly mean? Was it a power for good or for evil they could see, rising as I grew?

Two sides of Camille Garnier battle for possession, even grapple for the pen I hold rigid in my grasp. Cost me what it may, I’ll write everything down. Should the worst come to pass, and someone find Martingale Hall awash with blood, there will at least be this: proof that I tried.

That I never wanted to harm a living soul.

My arms itch. A thousand insects seem to scurry beneath my skin. I go to scratch – stop. My fingernails resemble talons now; there’s blood at the cuticle from where they’re growing, too fast. They’ll scrape away my flesh, pull off the cloak of humanity I’m trying so hard to wear.

How long can I keep this in? How long before the physician Mr Leiston realises mine is no ordinary malady? He’s about a mile away but I smell him already, churning up damp earth as he rides along on his plump, meaty horse. My ears detect the thump of his heart, the rush of 1

blood pushing through his veins … And now I have drooled and stained my paper.

He wouldn’t believe me if I warned him off. That’s the worst part.

No one will comprehend the danger until it’s too late. My cautions are dismissed as ravings. I wish they were! I’d much rather be mad than … what I fear I shall become.

So this record must stand.

Colour fades from my eyes. I started to write with brown ink, but now it seems grey. Everything is turning grey. That wasn’t how it started. No. The first colour I remember before all this began, the colour that set everything into motion was a burning, furious red.

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Chapter 1 November 1821 Red welts stood out on my knuckles, livid reminders of where the cane had struck. When I clenched my fist, I could see my bones shifting beneath raw skin. I covered them with a pair of kid gloves. That was the way of my parents: to conceal anything disagreeable. But although gloves hid the marks, my pain and my anger remained.

I’d hoped they’d forget to administer the daily punishment on my last morning, yet Miss Scott had arrived as usual, looking as if all her birthdays had come at once. I’d itched to snatch the cane from her, but it was fighting back that had landed me in trouble to start with. I hadn’t given up, exactly, only decided that I wasn’t going to expend any more energy on this place. It would never change. I was the one who had to change, and they wouldn’t allow me to come home again until I did.

Arranging the last essential items in my reticule, which hung suspended from my wrist, I put on my bonnet and tied the ribbons beneath my chin. The girl in the mirror appeared altered. Older. Her eyes redrimmed from tears, her lips set in a pout. I decided I liked her better that way. She looked like a woman who might find her own destiny.

All my luggage had been carried down ahead of time, so I was the only piece of unwanted baggage to be loaded up. I didn’t wait to be summoned. I descended the wide, carpeted stairs with my head held 3

high, all false bravado, but my effort was wasted, for no one was around. Most of them had gathered in front of the house to watch me go.

It was only as I approached the entrance hall that my mother appeared and drew me to one side. In the novels I read, a mother always imparted essential wisdom before the heroine’s journey. They’d take a tender leave of one another and shed tears. That wasn’t the way of the Garniers.

Mama handed me a package wrapped in brown paper and string.

‘Please give this to Lucy. I cannot have my goddaughter thinking I’ve forgotten her.’

I took it sullenly. ‘But you did forget. You forgot all about Lucy and your dear friend Rowena until you had a use for them.’

The blush that hit her cheek told me I’d landed pretty near the truth.

‘That is not so. Circumstances have kept us apart.’ She straightened her cap. ‘It was not easy to persuade Rowena to host you, Camille. She’s only made the sacrifice because I helped her, in her time of need. You must be on your best behaviour.’

‘That’s why I’m going, isn’t it? Because my best behaviour isn’t good enough.’

She grimaced. ‘I see there will be no talking to you. We had better get you underway.’

‘Yes, yes. Get me out of sight so you can forget about me, too.’

Sighing, she led me to the door. I wanted to needle her, to provoke her to emotion, but my words bounced off her like rubber. It didn’t matter. In a few minutes I’d be sitting in the carriage, trotting fast in the 4

other direction and leaving Mama as an ever-shrinking figure behind me. Who knew if I’d ever see Martingale Hall or its spreading chestnut trees again? Part of me hoped I wouldn’t. I wanted to go, to be rid of these people who’d rejected me.

If only my brother Jean were still here. This would all be easier with him by my side, but his studies had obliged him to return to Oxford, and so there was only Pierre, fixing me with a basilisk stare and beside him, Papa, tapping his cane against his thigh, anxious to be gone.

On the other side of the entrance, near the topiary, stood a bevy of servants. Baby Emily squalled in the nursemaid’s arms. In her infant rage, my youngest sister understood me in a way the other siblings never could. Gabriel hid behind the same nursemaid’s skirts, afraid of me now; Alexandre and Marie whispered in their secret twin language.

Things had been strained between me and my sister Marie since it happened. Resentment still simmered in her brown eyes, but after a hurried exchange, she detached from Alexandre and came over.

‘Write to me.’ There was an awkward pause and then she threw her skinny arms around my neck.

I hugged her back hard. ‘I will if I can. Mama says there are no servants or post offices where I’m going, at the ends of the earth. No chance anyone will be troubled with the sight of me.’

Emilie’s furious screech carried on unchecked.

‘It’s ruined for me too, you know,’ Marie said softly.

‘What is?’

‘Coming out into society. Marriage.’

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I swallowed a wad of guilt. ‘No, it isn’t. In three years everyone will have forgotten this. You’ll be the perfect debutante. You’re everything Mama and Papa want.’

She squeezed my shoulder, unconvinced. ‘This is not goodbye. It’s au revoir.’ Then she went back to her twin.

They made the perfect picture: the children with their servants and a redbrick mansion behind them. The illustrious Garnier family. I no longer formed a part of it.

‘Say your goodbyes, Camille. We must make a start while the weather holds.’ Papa was going to ride with me in our own carriage for the first fifty miles or so, before I was left at the mercy of the stagecoach.

I’d have two solid days of travelling, providing conditions were fair.

I stared blankly at the sea of stiff faces. Other than Marie, no one else bothered to come forward or even wave. ‘Goodbye,’ I said, hollow.

Miss Scott, the governess and my own personal nemesis, had to bite her lips to stop her grin.

One of the horses stamped in its traces. Our manservant, Bill, confirmed that the baggage was secured to the back of the chaise. It was time; I was finally leaving. It didn’t feel real.

Bill unfolded the steps and held my hand as I climbed in. I sat down, looked out of the window. Already my home and family were behind glass. Untouchable.

The carriage rocked as Papa stepped up and shut the door behind him. ‘Are you ready?’

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I didn’t deign to reply.

Papa thumped his cane against the roof and the horses lurched into motion. The perfect portrait of the Garnier family blurred. I wouldn’t crane around in the seat and look back. I kept watching the window, the empty space beside me, because from now on that’s all there would ever be.

We travelled quickly at first, sticking to the well-paved toll roads.

Papa said nothing and I was grateful for that. Conversation would be utterly beyond me.

The world slipped past my window: farmers sowing their stripped fields or driving their sheep to be culled. Men in country smocks and gaiters, women still tanned a deep brown from their summer spent working the fields. Everyone seemed to have a purpose, a place to be. I didn’t even know where I was headed.

My parents had made my destination a great secret, telling me it was somewhere in Yorkshire but nothing more specific. The weather would be even colder up there. I tried to imagine the chilly months ahead, without a maid to light my fire and fetch me hot chocolate. I couldn’t.

I’d never had to shift for myself.

I pulled out the first book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses and read for a while about Daphne being turned into a laurel tree. But Papa’s blissful silence couldn’t last forever.

‘We have formulated a plan to repair the damage,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Your mother has given out that you are travelling to a spa for a nervous disorder. Hopefully, people will come to believe that illness, or even hysteria caused you to act as you did.’

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I gripped the book tighter. ‘Why not tell them the truth? That I was being forced into it?’

As usual he remained formal, passionless. ‘Because we must have a more reasonable excuse than mere filial disobedience. Mr Ibbotson would be well within his rights to sue us for breach of contract. It is all such a terrible shame. A squandered opportunity. Marriage to a sensible man and motherhood would have calmed you down.’

‘Motherhood? I’m only sixteen years old.’

‘And what of that? Your mother was wed at sixteen. Pierre arrived on her seventeenth birthday, and look at her now.’

Yes, look at her. Lines on her face, dark shadows beneath her eyes, her figure running to fat after carrying seven children. Her fate would be bad enough, but there were worse outcomes. Just a few years ago, we’d all had to wear black for Princess Charlotte who died in childbirth.

She’d perished at just twenty-one, never fulfilling her destiny to be a queen.

My eyes sought the picture plate in the book: Daphne with bark closing over her breast, leaves blossoming from her fingertips. Legend said she’d become a laurel tree to escape from the lust of the god Apollo. If only I’d been able to get rid of my unwanted suitor that way. ‘I’m not like Mama, I don’t want to marry young, and I told you that in no uncertain terms. You can’t be surprised that I acted as I did. I don’t regret it.

I’ll never regret standing up against oppression.’

Papa scoffed. ‘Oppression! Is it oppression to be provided for, to have your parents arrange a profitable match for you? Listen to yourself, you sound like a Revolutionary. What would your grand-père say about 8

all this?’

‘Something tedious in French, no doubt.’

Now I’d done it. Criticising Grand-père was akin to sacrilege. We’d all grown up with tales of his heroic escape from the French Revolution.

Papa viewed me like something he’d wiped off his shoe. ‘Do you still fail to grasp the enormity of what you have done? This is no time to be flippant. You will not return home until you can prove, really prove to us that you wish to amend your ways – ’ ‘I have nothing to prove. You’ve made it quite clear that I’m not fit to be your daughter. Perhaps I no longer want to be.’

Part of me wanted to kindle my father’s rage, to see him out of control, if only to prove that he really cared for me. But he just pressed his lips into a tight line and stared out of the window.

The wheels swallowed another ten miles. The sun began to set. It felt like our carriage was gradually shrinking with the light. I had to put Metamorphoses aside and return to the real world, to the thick soup of discomfort between me and Papa. I took care not to meet his eye.

At last, we turned off onto a wider road. A thread of gold touched the dark horizon and I saw another vehicle for the first time in ages.

‘We are approaching the Rose and Thorn,’ Papa infirmed me coldly.

That was the coaching inn where we were spending the night. My ordeal was over: tomorrow, I’d only have to travel with a servant. ‘Good.’

The inn was set back from the road, spanning three sides of a cobbled courtyard. Servants dashed to and fro, taking luggage, carrying lamps.

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Boys led sweating horses towards the stable block. We pulled to a halt and Bill helped me out. Our own team of horses stood with their heads bowed, foam dripping from their lips. We’d barely given them a rest.

‘I sent ahead to secure rooms and refreshments.’ Papa offered me the crook of his arm to lean on. I baulked. It was a show, a pretence of gallantry I wanted no part in. But this would be the last time. Reluctantly, I rested my hand upon his elbow and we went inside.

The place was a mass of wooden beams. The landlady emerged, her face rosy and bright. She recognised Papa at once. ‘Mr Garnier, good evening! Nice to have you back, sir. Come this way, the parlour is all prepared. My goodness, the young lady looks awfully pale. I’ll fetch her some wine at once.’

A great brick fireplace dominated the parlour. Toby Jugs leered down at me from the mantelpiece, their lips spread in grotesque grins. Horse brasses glimmered dully from the wall as we sat down upon a sofa. The landlady summoned a boy to remove Papa’s boots.

Usually, Papa and I were only together for a confrontation. It felt bizarre to sit with him in this convivial atmosphere. I didn’t know what to say, if it wasn’t an argument.

A waiter brought a tray with wine, pots of tea and coffee and a selection of newspapers. Papa picked up a glass of wine and swirled it. ‘How much,’ he asked awkwardly, ‘has your mother told you about Rowena?’

‘Hardly anything.’ I poured myself a cup of tea. ‘Only that they were friends, and she had a sickly daughter. We were christened together, weren’t we? That’s why Rowena’s my godmother and Mama is Lucy’s. ’

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‘Yes. That much is true. Yet …’ He shifted uncomfortably. ‘If you are going to live with Rowena for a time, you ought to arrive armed with all the facts. Ignorance can only cause blunders.’

I sat forward, my weariness forgotten. ‘Is there a secret about Rowena? I thought it was strange that we’d never met, and no one will tell me where she lives – ’ ‘Do not be so eager to consume scandal, Camille. It is unbecoming in a young lady.’ Even now, on the eve of getting rid of me, he was unable to stop finding faults. ‘What befell your godmother was a misfortune.

A circumstance best concealed.’ I sipped at the tea, impatient for him to go on. ‘Rowena’s maiden name was Talbot. The Talbots were a wealthy, respectable family from Yorkshire.’

‘So how did she come to be friends with Mama, in Lincolnshire?

Who was her husband?’

‘If you will forbear to interrupt me, I shall explain all that,’ Papa sighed. ‘Rowena was orphaned at a young age and grew up in the care of a guardian, near to your mother’s family.’ He took a swig of wine. ‘I made her acquaintance soon after our wedding – she and your mother were always close. I liked Rowena. A sensible, agreeable lady.’

I didn’t know how to interpret that. Papa’s approval probably meant I’d dislike her. Yet she’d agreed to take me in for a while when even my own aunts refused, so there must be kindness there.

‘But Rowena’s marriage took her away?’

‘Her wealth enabled her to travel more than us. She would go up to London for every season. Unlike you, Camille, she knew it was her

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duty to find a husband. She managed to catch the eye of a baronet who seemed … ’ he stared into his wine, ‘… ideal. The entire match was perfect. Rowena would bring him capital and he would bestow a title upon her. They were very much attached to one another. It was a union of love and sense. There was nothing wanting.’

I hadn’t imagined this: my godmother as an heiress, a baronet’s lady.

That was the kind of thing you boasted about in society; I would have expected my parents to make the most of our relationship. But Rowena wasn’t living at a grand estate now, was she? Mama said she didn’t even have servants. ‘So what happened? Did Rowena’s husband die?’

Papa nursed his glass. ‘The baronet appeared to be everything charming and gentleman-like. Upon reflection, perhaps he was a little too charming. We heard nothing from them after the wedding. That seemed natural. But time went on. Your mother grew concerned that her letters went unanswered. When we finally saw Rowena again … it was in the middle of the night. She arrived on our doorstep, without warning, in such a state as I have never … ’ He stopped his sentence and started again. ‘She was with child and grievously injured.’

‘Injured?’ I repeated.

‘Yes. No doubt she still bears the scar. You ought to prepare yourself for that. Do not stare or make some ill-bred comment upon it.’

Trust Papa to focus on that. ‘I won’t! But what caused her injury?’

Again he grew uncomfortable. ‘You are aware of my principles, Camille. I would not usually condone a wife deserting her husband, let alone carrying off his unborn child, but really her wounds were of such a nature …’

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‘She left her husband?’ This was a scandal even worse than mine.

It thrilled me for a moment, to think there was another person who couldn’t stick to society’s suffocating rules.

‘One thing I will say; Rowena is not the type to run without cause.’

My mind caught up with me; I digested what he was truly saying and my excitement died. The injuries, the wounds. Rowena’s husband had been a violent man. He’d hurt his wife while she was pregnant with his baby.

‘That’s awful,’ I said quietly. ‘Is that why Mama never sees Rowena?

Because of the divorce? The case must have gone through the courts.’

Papa shook his head. ‘No. The marriage still stands. Rowena would not hear of confronting her husband. Her greatest fear was that he would find her. She scarcely waited for her child to be born before she set off again, against all medical advice. Poor Lucy was premature: wrinkled, downy, her eyelids fused shut. She shared your Baptism because no one thought her likely to live for long.’

‘But … where did they go?’

‘Rowena and Lucy now live in great secrecy at a place called Felwood Lodge. It’s an abandoned hunting cabin, belonging to the Talbots.

She still worries that her husband will find them. He has a legal right to take the girl, after all. That’s why we did not advertise the exact location you are travelling to, and why we struggled to get Rowena’s agreement.

But we helped her after her scandal. Now she is returning the favour.’

The injustice of it nearly took my breath away. ‘Couldn’t you have done something? Rowena is the victim here. She shouldn’t be living her

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life in hiding like a rat! Why didn’t you go and confront this baronet yourself?’

‘It was not my place to interfere. Besides, it was better for young Lucy to grow up free of her paternal family and any … claims they might choose to make upon her.’

I despised him. My own father was a coward, refusing to act even to defend a pregnant woman. I shouldn’t be surprised he was washing his hands of me. ‘So if I’d gone ahead with my wedding, and Mr Ibbotson proved to be unkind, what would you have done then? Would you have given me the same answer? That it’s “not your place to interfere”?’

He coloured. ‘Mr Ibbotson is not a violent man.’

‘How can you be sure?’ A conversation we’d once had flashed in my memory.

Papa drew his shoulders back. ‘I would not have chosen Mr Ibbotson if I had doubts about his character.’

I thought of Mr Ibbotson, who liked horses, and would always talk to me of them when we danced. Once, when I had stepped back too far from him, he’d put his hand on my waist, leant in so close that I could taste his breath and whispered, ‘Every filly can be broken. She may snort, she may toss her head, but she will always come to know her master.’

I shook my head free of the memory. ‘You’d had no doubts about Rowena’s husband, either! You just said so yourself. He charmed you.

Then, when he showed his true colours, you were too afraid to question him. At least Rowena got away. It sounds as if my godmother is braver

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than you’ll ever be.’

Papa’s jaw set, but he didn’t snap back. ‘I hope to God you are right.

I hope Rowena has acquired the skills necessary to survive this world alone, and can teach them to you. You will come to regret your folly at the wedding soon enough. I have no doubt of that. The tragedy is that there is nothing to be done. In one foolish day, you have blighted yourself for years to come.’ He took a final swig of wine. ‘I am no coward, yet I will admit to this: I am afraid when I think of your future, Camille.’

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BAD GRACES Kyrie McCauley Publication date: 06/06/24 Tropes: sapphic romance, first love, island stranding

Prologue.

If you don’t look closely, you might think that the girl is asleep.

You would be wrong on two counts.

First, that she is asleep; and second, that she is a girl.

Her eyes are closed, and her cheeks are roses, wind-bitten but flushed with the promise of blood and life. If you don’t lean in, you won’t smell the sweet-sour death notes in the air around her, or notice that though the warmth hasn’t quite left her face, the tips of her fingers are already a bright cerulean blue. They are the color of the Morpho butterfly, or a clear spring sky, or a bluebird when the sun strikes his feathers just so.

They are also the color of death.

The skin of her shoulders is too pale, her bloodlessness stark against the brilliant growth of dark green moss all around her. She is sprawled on a raised mound of pine needles and earth, and a trail of small indigo mushrooms circles her head, not unlike a crown.

From a distance, the soft dusting of blade-shaped scales above her ears could be mistaken for white-blond hair, and the protrusions from her back would stay hidden underneath the strange stillness of her body.

Strange, if you think she’s merely asleep. Not so strange if you know she’s dead.

Stranger still are her wings, but they are folded and broken underneath her, undiscovered by your curious gaze.

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She lies on the forest floor, body broken, a single drop of blood smeared on the edge of her lip. It is nearly dry, its color darkened from the brilliant flash of fresh blood. Now it is maroon and looks more like a bit of smudged lipstick forgotten from the night before.

The night before, when she had still been alive.

She had stretched those wings out, testing their weight as well as her own resolve. She’d climbed to the highest edge of cliff on their island, overlooking the sea. It was a view unmatched by any other her whole life—whether that life was a thousand years ago, or perhaps just one, it was hard for her to say. Time made less sense here.

She’d faced the vast open ocean ahead of her and saw only the dark endlessness of the midnight sea. Endless miles of water, surrounding her completely all this time. Some days it had felt like a prison around her, and other days a refuge. But now it was time to go home. Time to launch her body off the cliff edge and let the air whip across these wings she’d once cursed but now prayed to.

Don’t let me fall, she had asked the wind, her wish a silent echo repeating in her mind as she crept forward until her toes were exposed over the cliff. With only air beneath them, she felt a sharp tug at her navel from deep inside. Gravity was lying in wait like a leviathan in water, ready to pull her down to the sharp rocks and inky nothingness below.

It could have been sheer desperation that finally forced her feet from the edge just as dawn broke over the sea. The kind of desperation that comes when all other options have been exhausted.

But the truth is that it was love that made her take that final, terrible step over the edge. Love tempered by fires that few ever knew in their 2

lifetime. Love that made her not only willing to take the risk, but eager to take it, simply for the hope of it all.

She fell so fast she barely remembered to stretch, stretch her wings, but she did remember, and she gasped when the wind caught beneath them.

She rose quickly after that, catching a warm thermal draft that lifted her up, away from the rocks, until she circled over the island, a small speck among the cotton candy clouds. She closed her eyes and basked in the warmth of the sunrise on her face. She opened them again and found the early light of the morning reflecting off the softness of her wings, so thin the light shone through them, glowing pink.

Icarus flew, she thought.

In that moment, suspended above the island, she felt truly free. It was a potent sensation, more powerful than anything else she’d experienced in her life. Ironic, to taste its sweetness so near to her death.

She was glorious, before the fall.

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ACT I: The King’s Ship “For my part, the sea cannot drown me.”

—The Tempest, Act III Scene II

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Chapter One. By the time I was twelve years old, I had lived in thirteen different homes.

There was something profound about that year for me. It was like standing on a precipice wishing I could jump already, even though I knew the fall might kill me.

Age twelve was my year of great epiphanies. One after another, like lightning chasing thunder, each of them changing the trajectory of my life in a way I didn’t understand at the time. The first was the bittersweet realization that no one was coming to save me. Bitter to know that loneliness, and sweet to taste the freedom of no longer waiting on anyone else. If I wanted anything, I had to take it for myself. It was also the year that I learned my sister hated me more than anything in the world.

She was right to hate me. I was the troubled child, the rebellious one.

I was the girl who set fire to House Seven. No, it was House Eight. The DeLucas.

We were there only a month before I found our foster dad’s lighter and set the living room curtains ablaze. After that, we cycled quickly through houses nine through twelve. A history of arson doesn’t exactly boost a foster kid up the placement list, and I did absolutely nothing to

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reassure new parents willing to take me on. In House Ten, I cut off my own hair, sheering it as close to my scalp as I could, ignoring the hot flash of pain and blood when the scissor blade found flesh, leaving a thin line of a scar just at the hair line on my forehead.

I’d seen the notes in our shared file once. Our case worker had been distracted, taking an emergency phone call, hoping to find us a new placement in time for the holidays. I’d just burned bridges at House Twelve by punching their biological son in the face. I still think I should have gotten credit for all the times I didn’t punch him even though I wanted to. Some faces are just so very punch worthy.

Everly was ignoring me, reading on the other side of the room. Everly was always reading. Foster parents loved that about her.

I grabbed our file as soon as we were alone and began to flip through it. Everly is a good student, polite, quiet, well-mannered. She likes to draw and reads three grade levels up. She is kind, and though a bit shy, seems eager to make friends.

Predictable. Boring. I turned the page.

Violet is temperamental, sometimes volatile, and occasionally violent with herself and others. Uninterested in making social connections. Liv has a diagnosed attention disorder and struggles in school. History of self-harm.

If anyone was trying to get to know me just from these pages, their outlook would be grim. My entire life was a series of incidents, laid out in black ink bullet points by weary social workers. I scanned the rest of the pages. There was nothing on it I didn’t already know about myself, but I realized my file was full of half-truths. No one knew why I cut my 6

hair or punched my foster brother or set a house full of people on fire.

Probably no one ever would know. People tended not to care about the why, and I didn’t care to tell them.

At the bottom of the page was a space for recommendations. I’d been with the same caseworker for six or seven years by then, and I knew she hated me for what I’d put Everly through. Enough to recommend that if we didn’t find a good placement for both of us soon, we should probably be separated.

And yet it wasn’t until House Thirteen that I realized the depth of my sister’s resentment. It was just a few days before our shared thirteenth birthday—a birthday that only our social worker acknowledged, with kids’ meals from the local burger place and a few gently-used “new” clothes from the donation bins.

I woke in the night to a pillow pressed to my face, held down with every bit of strength Everly had, though that wasn’t much. We were both scrawny, scrappy little things, with long, ever-tangled hair and feral looks in our eyes. But Everly tried her damnedest that night. I was the problem. I was the instigator. The literal fire starter. A liability. I understood her logic perfectly. If she could just take me out of the equation, maybe she could find a family that would keep her for more than a few months.

The policy of child protective services is to keep siblings together.

I’m sure they thought we were a comfort to each other, a hand to hold as we shoved all our belongings into a black garbage bag to move from one foster placement to the next. But Everly had stopped reaching for my hand years ago. Her anger had built steadily and quietly, until she couldn’t bear it anymore. Until she tried to kill me, just so I would stop 7

ruining her life.

That night I scratched at her until her arms and hands were slick with blood. It was fortunate for me that no one really cared about our basic hygiene at that point and my nails had grown out, long and sharp. I was like a rabid creature, clawing at her until she let go of the pillow on my face. I left deep gouges from her elbows to the backs of her hands.

Everly collapsed onto the bed beside me, sobbing.

“I hate you,” she whispered between hiccups as I wrapped my arms around her.

“I know. I know you do. It’s okay. I forgive you. I understand.”

I continued to murmur low words of comfort until she fell asleep. In that moment, I understood her better than I ever had before. Finally, she was angry the way I was angry. Finally, she fought to survive, instead of living quietly in my shadow, always a step behind me. It was the first time I saw her as her own unique self. Before that, she’d felt like an extension of me. When she hurt, I hurt, like a skinned knee, raw and stinging in all the places I was exposed. But she wasn’t a person I loved, and I wasn’t someone she loved. We were more like strange appendages of each other. Or tumors, nestled deep in each other’s guts and heads.

Undetectable until it made us sick.

After that night, I stopped setting fires, both literal and figurative. We still flew through the next three houses in quick succession—this time for reasons besides me—and then we met the Millers.

Rachel and Toby had been married for two decades and had decided early on that they didn’t want children. It wasn’t until they neared their 8

fifties that they changed their minds. They had their dream careers, a beautiful house in San Diego, and a neat retirement plan on the horizon, but by some strange twist of fate, they also wanted us.

They loved Everly instantly. They tolerated me. And at first, that was enough. I’d learned to adapt to a thousand changes before, and this last one was easy once I accepted it.

Still, I never felt lonely before the Millers.

They didn’t mean to exclude me. I’d built the walls all myself, I couldn’t be upset that no one was willing to do the hard work of climbing them to be close to me. Especially with Everly standing right out in the open, ready for love.

I tell myself that that’s why I decide to leave. To let Everly have the family she always dreamed of for herself. I’d hardly be the first foster runaway. No one would miss me, Everly least of all. We’d eventually reached a kind of tentative balance in our relationship, something more like endurance than warmth.

But it is Everly who leads me to my way out. It’s no more than a coincidence, really. Or luck, for perhaps the first time in my life. She leaves the paperwork right in the center of the dining table. An invitation to apply, one among dozens that Everly receives for some prestigious opportunity or another. She wouldn’t have glanced at this one twice—it is a writing contest, and Everly prefers math and science. She wants to be an environmentalist one day. She doesn’t notice when I slip it off the table and into my backpack.

Volatile, and occasionally violent, uninterested in making connections.

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I’d never understood the phrase lone wolf—even wolves have packs.

Instead, I think of a bear. Solitary. Volatile. Occasionally violent. That was me. Never meant to be part of a family. But singularly capable of surviving even the harshest of winters.

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QUEEN B Juno Dawson Publication date: 18/07/2024 Tropes: sapphic romance, witches, strong female characters Spice:

A blade falls . . .

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19 MAY 1536

Lady Grace Fairfax The Tower of London

The Tower and the sky were the same hopeless grey. When the moment came, all was quiet. So quiet, in fact, that they could hear the head hit the wooden platform they’d erected on the green. Thud. It bounced once, and rolled once. Appalling, and undignified.

No provision had been made for her burial. She had been a problem to be solved, and now it was done. No man had prepared for the immediate next, and so it fell to the women.

For now, it was enough to get her away from the watchful ghouls at the scaffold on the centre of the courtyard. The ladies-in-waiting took the head and body into the chapel, and wept. Their vulgar display was quite ghastly, and the men left. Just as the women had known they would.

Only six witches remained in their coven.

For weeks, they had been detained in the royal lodgings, sharing in the queen’s isolation. It had not been hard to convince Cromwell to allow them to share these final weeks in captivity with the queen; they’d scarcely needed magic. A man preoccupied with self-preservation above all else.

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And so they had attended her until the very end. It was their duty, but more than that, they loved her. Clothed in black and grey, they had marched the final procession to the gallows.

Struggling to keep her stiffening limbs aloft, the women now lay the queen’s body to rest on the floor before the altar. It was day; the candles were not yet lit. Absurd and unsure, Lady Grace Fairfax cradled the head as a babe. As the others looked to her, she placed it next to the exposed collar. Eyes closed and lips parted, she didn’t look like Anne at all; so slack and unrefined. She didn’t look at peace, she looked dead, some wet trout at a fishmonger. Grace tugged the white cloth from the altar, a golden cross clattering to the floor. She placed it over her face.

The women drew close, formed a circle around the body. Now, a dreadful quiet.

Grace looked to her fellow witches. Why was no one doing anything?

‘Well?’ she said impatiently. ‘Revive her.’

The viscountess, Lady Rochford, clasped the silk blindfold to her breast, her knuckles white. ‘Heresy, sister. We cannot.’

Grace ignored the outburst, instead turning to the old woman, the healer. ‘Nan, can it be done?’

Nan Hobbs dutifully held her papery hands over the body. After a moment, she shook her head. ‘There is nothing to heal, child.’

‘She is the queen,’ Grace spat. Sour bile burned under her breastbone.

She knew this coarse conduct was beneath her, but how could someone of Anne’s magnitude be gone with such scant ceremony? After days of torturous waiting, and weeks of slow decline, it had taken a casual second.

Lady Jane Rochford, now, Grace supposed, their de facto leader, passed through what thin daylight filtered through the stained-glass windows of St Peter ad Vincula. She sighed. ‘She is queen no longer. Seymour’s girl 3

will be upon the throne by week’s end.’

‘No queen of mine,’ Lady Margery breathed, crouching at Grace’s side.

‘Nor mine,’ agreed Grace.

There followed yet more silence. The air in the church felt oddly relaxed, and Grace found it disrespectful. The nerve of the world, turning when hers had stopped still. The column of meek sunlight advanced across the slabs. In these turgid minutes, Grace reckoned with the truth.

Anne was gone, and no witch would bring her back. She was a fool unmasked, because she had not allowed herself to believe it, not truly. How she had courted some divine intervention, if not from the king, from the Mother. She’d have entertained, in her darkest moments, the treacherous tongue of Satanis himself.

And guilt. Such guilt. She could have stopped the blade. Any of them could have. Anne could have, instead of reading her carefully rehearsed lines so dutifully. She could have made the executioner plunge his blade into his own chest. They could have shown the world, at last, what it really was to be a witch. Alas, a display of their nature would bring a rain of fire down upon all witchkind. That, or they were cowards. Grace felt the air around her skin fizz. It was tempting to turn this fury outwards, but for what? She could have saved her. She had not.

The church door whined open, breaking her from her stupor. Isabel and Temperance, returning from the White Tower, carrying between them a plain wooden box. ‘What is this? Where is the coffin?’ Jane said, her face still ashen.

Grace did not much care for the viscountess, but she had not yet seen the woman weep, and she respected her grim resolve in the face of this grinding misery. She looked weary, her eyes sunken and cheeks hollow.

Her husband and her sister-in-law, gone both, in a matter of hours. Their 4

swift downfall was just that, a terrible fall, a plunge. Perhaps Jane’s grief was yet to catch her up. Grace knew a dark tide would engulf her eventually. This was only the start.

‘My lady, there is no coffin,’ Temperance said, unable to meet her gaze.

‘What?’ Grace blinked in disbelief.

‘This was as good as we could find,’ Isabel, the youngest in their coven, said as they set down the grimy arrow box.

‘They mock us,’ Grace snarled. ‘Killing her wasn’t enough. Now they defile her.’ She looked to the sky beyond the windows, feeling her eyes turn black. She summoned howling westerly winds. Grey clouds, irate, pooled around the Tower. This day, this city, would mourn Anne Boleyn.

They would hear the Mother scream in righteous fury.

Lightning lit the chapel, soon followed by a doleful rumble of thunder.

Jane Rochford clamped a hand on her shoulder. ‘Lady Fairfax, I implore you. Reserve your vengeance. You shall require every last drop for the traitor.’

Indeed. There was only one cure for a witch who betrays her coven, and it was purifying fire. Grace Fairfax would find the witch that forsook their gracious queen, their high priestess, her Anne, and she would eviscerate her.

She would avenge the woman she loved with blood.

5

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