It doesn't take a WiseMan to understand what the crows flying over Lord Bastien's manor mean, even if they're all too scared to say it out loud.

Lord Bastien is a good man-- that is an unimpeachableunimpechable truth of our society. He is prompt and proper, and his work with the lesslesser fortunate is widely acknowledged.

The condensed version would be to conjure that he was quite the soul of m...

I can’t stop looking at my reflection, and I don’t want to.

I want to stare into this glorious crystal— I want it to share its reversed truths with me. I want it to tell me absolutely everything I’ve missed in the past eighteen years.

Oh, but _would_ that a mirror could remember.

But it doesn’t, and the images reflected on them are not trapped within their frame, and the sight is gone faste...

You never know what roams the streets of this city.

It hides in the night and the mist and the fog. It disappears in the foliage of crooked alleyways and senseless dead-end streets, and it is forgotten amidst the crowds of passersby who do their best to forget that there is strength in numbers.

The clicking of solitary heels against the pavement disrupts the stillness.

It is not night, but t...

First and foremost, I would like to make it abundantly and transparently clear that I am not happy with this proposal either, but it had to be made.

You may choose not to believe me, but this was the lesser of all evils, all things considered— whoever disagrees with this, I formally invite to propose an alternate solution. I assure you, whatever you offer, I can give you five reasons it would not...

Loss hits differently when you’re the one walking away.

You can tell yourself it’s for the best, that anyone in your position would do the same, if not now, then sooner. And yet it still feels like throwing the towel early. It feels like you’re done trying, and all the promises you made to yourself about seeing it to the end were gone with the wind. You feel like a liar.

But what else can you ...