The basement hallways in King’s College of Medical Research were dark, even in the daytime. At night they were like a grave. Rats crawled through corridors that dripped with cold perspiration. The chill in the sunken rooms kept the specimens from rotting and numbed my own flesh, too, through the worn layers of my dress. When I cleaned those rooms, late at night after the medi... Read More

Retvenko leaned against the bar and tucked his nose into his dirty shot glass. The whiskey had failed to warm him. Nothing could get you warm in this Saintsforsaken city. And there was no escaping the smell, the throat-choking stew of bilge, clams, and wet stone that seemed to have soaked into his pores as if he’d been steeping in the city’s essence like the world’s worst cup o... Read More

I don’t let myself think about Watford over the summers. After my first year there, when I was 12—I spent the whole summer thinking about it. Thinking about everyone I’d met at school—Penelope, Agatha, the Mage. About the towers and the grounds. The teas. The puddings. The magic. The fact that I was magic. I made myself sick thinking about the Watford School of Magicks—daydre... Read More