The water came up to my chest before I felt sand under my boots again, and even then I wasn't sure the sand was real. Everything since the ramp dropped had the loose, sliding quality of a fever dream. The cold of the English Channel had already worked its way past my uniform and into … Continue reading The Lighter
Short Story
Stone Watch
The rain came down in cold, slanted sheets the night Mara Osei discovered the city's oldest secret. She was eleven, small for her age, and had no business being out after midnight. But her cat, Ptolemy, a patchy orange stray she'd rescued from behind the bodega on Alcott Street, had slipped through a torn window … Continue reading Stone Watch
The Crown Remains
The broadsheet had been nailed to the post office door since Tuesday, but Elias Holt didn't stop to read it until Thursday morning, when the smell of old blood had finally faded enough from the square that he could stand to linger. By Order of His Majesty's Pacification Commission. All persons who bore arms against … Continue reading The Crown Remains
The Space Between Us
The thing about small towns is that everyone knows your name — and your family's name, and your grandfather's grudges, and the particular shade of bitterness your people have carried for three generations. Nora Callahan had grown up knowing two things as absolute truth: that the Callahans made the best bourbon peach jam in Harrow … Continue reading The Space Between Us
The Weight of Silver
The trail went cold three miles outside of Ashby, and Lewis Hale was bleeding again. He pressed two fingers against the gash on his forearm — a hunting knife, close call, closer than he'd had in years — and kept moving through the pine forest at a pace that would have broken a younger man. … Continue reading The Weight of Silver
What the Dark Remembers
The dig site smelled like old rain and copper. Christina Reyes had been told to expect that — the mineral tang of deep earth, the particular damp of soil that hadn't seen sunlight in centuries. What Professor Aldrich's textbooks had not prepared her for was the silence. Not the comfortable silence of a library or … Continue reading What the Dark Remembers
The Coldest Case
The sign on the frosted glass door read Morrow Investigations in flaking gold letters, and beneath that, in smaller text that most people squinted at twice: Specializing in the Matters Others Cannot Explain. Elliot Morrow had written that line himself, eight years ago, after the Briarloch haunting. Before that job, he'd been a regular private … Continue reading The Coldest Case
The Weight of the Eagle
The aqueduct hummed. Marcus Varro had never noticed it before — not in fifteen years of service, not through three postings across the empire. But standing here in the pre-dawn stillness of the Virginian hills, listening to the ancient water channels feeding the sprawling city of Nova Londinium below, he noticed it now. A low, … Continue reading The Weight of the Eagle
The Weight of Ash
The summons came at the third bell of the night cycle, when the Celestine Throne's corridors were empty and the great ship hummed to itself in the dark between stars. Maren Solís had been awake anyway. She sat at her desk in the cramped antechamber adjoining the Chancellor's private quarters, pretending to review trade manifests … Continue reading The Weight of Ash
The Most Dangerous Substitute
Gary Pullman had spent seventeen years teaching seventh-grade history, which meant he had developed an almost supernatural ability to look completely unbothered by chaos. This skill, it turned out, would become his greatest liability. He was in Lisbon for a reason that could not have been less glamorous: the International Symposium on Middle School Curriculum … Continue reading The Most Dangerous Substitute
The Confusing Middle 