Wherever Tovar looked, flames engulfed his monastery home. He shielded his eyes and raced for the abbot’s dormitory, praying his mentor hadn’t been killed in the attack.
He found the abbot lying face down. “Abbot Cralin, what happened?”
“Tovar? Is that you?” The abbot turned toward him, clutching a wound in his side.
Mercedes held her breath as the airship landed, its solar sails radiating energy. A gangway lowered toward a long line of eager passengers with tickets in hand.
First: board the airship.
She exhaled a slow breath. It had to be this airship, heading for the district housing the prestigious Leric Institute.
Molly checked both ways before she skittered across the street. Jack kept pace on her right, his hand a warm support on her lower back. Within minutes, the two had traversed several smaller avenues and alleyways, burrowing deeper into the unsavory part of town.
Molly stumbled as her vision wavered, split between two worlds,
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He smelled of cinnamon raisin bread, fresh out of the oven on a crisp autumn afternoon at Grandma’s place. And I hated it. I mean, forget about being a covert secret agent. How was I supposed to concentrate on undermining a criminal mastermind when my own agent partner—and brother—smelled like
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Death crept through the car park. Roddy rushed to the window, meeting his reflection in the pane.
Sunset.
To the naked eye, all was as it should be outside the intensive care unit. Doctors, orderlies, and visitors went about their business with no particular urgency. Roddy, however, knew different.
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“Alice, are you sure you properly calculated the accelerant?” Alpha set the custom incendiary at the base of the wall. “These were meant for breaching reinforced alloys. They’ll vaporize this wood.”
His AI’s smooth voice answered. “I performed a thorough study of the combustibility of wooden structures. The combustion should be appropriate
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The signal was weak but unmistakable: the rebel waypoint. They had made it!
Staggering through thick forest undergrowth, Sam and Tony picked up their pace as much as Sam’s mangled leg would allow. Even though Tony helped support Sam’s weight, every step sent a spear of pain shooting up his hastily bandaged leg,
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The king is dead.
I slump in my best dress on the pew at the back of the cathedral while the funeral bells toll overhead. Outside the church, villagers scream in protest at the leaving nobility, whose emotions stream behind them in trails of color. Amber irritation. Pale boredom. Sour, brown fear.
You have something special in you. A weapon no Komainu can wield. Father’s words echoed in Koji’s mind.
Sitting on the dojo floor, he glanced back, drinking in the beauty revealed through the glass wall. The black sea of space teamed with countless stars. Somewhere out there, a month’s journey from this space station,
Ávila de la Mora peered between the trees of Inverness Wood with a pigeon perched on her shoulder. “You’re sure this is the best entrance, Atlas?”
Yes, the pigeon cooed across their bond. The trinket is not far from here.
As soon as she crossed into the wood full of magical creatures and artifacts,
Six months into the sleep-zombie catastrophe, the survivors knew one thing: they were grateful for the winged, magic sloths.
One such survivor, Leesia, leaped over a crumbling stone wall marking an old boundary between fields. Gasping for breath, she dropped to her knees. Her brother-in-law Rayth joined her a moment later.
Esther held Raphael in her lap and rocked him as he cried. Even at the age of eight, these trying times drove him to cling to his mother. She opened her heart, and his every fear and sadness poured into her.
She smoothed his hair with a trembling hand as the tension in his
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