Category: Author’s Alley
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A Simple Samhain Tarot Spread for When You Don’t Know What You Need
Three cards, a few honest questions, and absolutely no requirement to reorganise your entire existence. You sit down with your tarot deck, ready for a meaningful Samhain reading. You shuffle thoughtfully. You consider your question. Your brain offers: “What do you even want to know? Is this the right question?” And then your mind goes…
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Chapter vii. Her Name Among the Damned
Nesta did not look at Ilyra’s face. She had learned, over the years, that faces lied. Faces were what people arranged for you. Iron arranged nothing. So she looked at the collar. It sat against the woman’s throat as though it had grown there. Black iron, worn at the edges, rubbed raw where it met…
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The Slow Reader
He read slowly. Not haltingly — his comprehension was fine, his attention genuine — but slowly in the way of a man who treated a good book like a meal worth making last. Celia was a fast reader, had always been, finishing books in the time it took him to cover a third of them.…
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The Almost
They’d almost not met. She thought about this sometimes. If she hadn’t stayed late at the gallery that evening. If he hadn’t come back for the coat he’d forgotten. If the woman at the desk had been different and hadn’t called out to him as he was leaving, prompting him to turn at exactly the…
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Is He Your Soulmate, or Are You Doing All the Spellwork?
Tarot, romantic chemistry, and the small matter of whether he ever makes a plan. You’ve pulled the Lovers, noticed his birthday on a receipt, and heard your song twice while shopping. Meanwhile, he has replied “haha yeah” to the message in which you suggested actually seeing each other. Naturally, you’re wondering whether the universe is…
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The Return
She’d been away for six weeks for work — longer than they’d ever been apart, long enough that the apartment had started to feel, when she finally came home, subtly wrong in the way of places that have been lived in without you. He’d cleaned. Of course he’d cleaned — she’d expected that, knew him.…
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Ancestor Work When Your Family History Is Complicated
How to make room for remembrance without giving every relative a reserved seat at your altar. October arrives, and suddenly everyone online is arranging photographs, baking ancestral recipes, and describing their grandmother as a source of infinite wisdom. Meanwhile, you’re wondering whether yours would interrupt the ritual to comment on your weight (I can easily…
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The Thing About the Car
She was a terrible driver, and she knew it. Not dangerous exactly — she’d never had an accident, technically — but aggressive in a way that suggested a loose interpretation of lane boundaries, and possessed of a confidence in her own spatial awareness that her spatial awareness consistently failed to justify. He never commented. This,…
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Want a Witch Romance? Let’s Talk Magic, Danger, and Spice
How to find your next witchy read… with the chemistry, chaos, and bedroom door policy you actually want. You wanted a witch romance. You bought a witch romance. Three chapters later, the heroine has opened a bakery, adopted a suspiciously intelligent cat, and exchanged exactly one meaningful glance with a man whose personality appears to…
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Chapter vi. The Memory Beneath Ramiel
“Eight will feed it.” The words remained in the dark long after the voice stopped speaking. Nesta stared through the opening. Nothing moved beyond it. No footsteps. No breathing. No conveniently visible ancient monster waiting to explain itself. Only darkness. Beside her, Cassian had gone perfectly still. Emerie was the first to speak. “Well…” Nesta…
