ZaihaWind whipped through my hair as the boat skimmed across the choppy surface of the Vichtas Reservoir. It was the largest lake in the southeastern region of Ardin known as Vichtas Major —the drow homelands— and was home to innumerable species of magical creatures. A Magizoologist's playground.It was eight months almost to the day since my first trip down Hellebore's gullet. I spent six of them as Hellebore's personal food slave. She devoured me more times than I could count, at least once

It would happen on Saturday. After Anise reformed (but before she was subjected to an incredibly thorough punishing for failing to perform her TA duties as ordered), she was informed that Lamitte and Heptalia had agreed upon Saturday for the proposed, er, "reenactment," and Lamitte wanted her to come too. She immediately said yes, of course. It had been two weeks, and the only mermaid she'd seen was the flash of a pink tail on the carriage ride up. She ran past the lake every morning on her dail

Dive deeply into a drop of water, anda hundred oceans will
flood youLook into a mote of dust, anda million nameless
beings will jump outA hundred harvests rest in a germ of barley
seed, andin the right light, an insect’s wing reflects the
sea.Why be surprised?Deep in the pupil of my eye lie cosmic
rays,and the center of my heartbeats with the pulse of the
cosmos.
-Mahmud Shabistari
~
Sensation
poured like a torrent into Maria's mind as she awoke. The impulses
were alien, unfamiliar; pressure p