The nauseating ammonia smell of squid flora is always the first thing I notice upon waking. Some days it’s faint, but today the wind brings the acrid smell right into my riverside hidey-hole. I peek out at the wreckage of the squid ship—dark, twisted metal covering a half mile of riverfront.
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“April showers bring May flowers.” That’s what my grandma always said when I ran to hide under the table as thunder cracked the sky.
She claimed our family were the shepherds of this process, that the lightning couldn’t reach the plants without our help. Lightning Petal Farmers, everyone else called us.
Namika’s tenth winter was bitter. January’s harsh winds blew into April, and she had a sickness that made her mother frown and the doctor whisper. When the first sakura buds appeared in her family’s grove, Namkia stared longingly from the window. Usually she would be helping her family prepare for hanami, the flower viewing…
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There are two rooms we don’t talk about.
One’s the scullery. No need to talk about it—we live there.
The other’s Miss Mary’s room.
Master Falwell keeps the door locked. Wears the key ’round his neck. Never speaks about the daughter he loved and lost, the wispy girl on the brink of womanhood
Strike a blow against a tyrant and impress a girl at the same time? The opportunity was too good to miss.
Ashdar landed softly in the garden, wrenching his staff free of the vines he’d grown to climb the wall. He checked the runic instructions carved along the length of his staff.
“Come now. You cannot be serious.”
“Oh, but I am. Your colleagues speak most highly of your collection, professor. I’m certain that a few quotes and some pictures would do wonders for my book.”
The old man eyed his visitor. She was pretty and young, with a hint of some exotic heritage
“You lucky dog, you!”
Arthur looked up from watering flower bouquets and regarded the purveyor of this half-compliment with a suspicious eye.
“What are you prattling about now, Ben? Got another scheme in mind?”
Ben, a tall lad with an expressive face and wildly gesticulating arms, grinned widely. He leaned over the flower
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