Fylecs panted heavily, still adjusting to his added heft, and belched loudly. “Okay,” he breathed, petting the sides of his massively engorged gut and inching back slightly toward the couch. He was sitting rather helplessly on the floor of his apartment, weighed down by his distended belly, which was so full of struggling humans that its wobbling girth nearly covered the entire length of his legs.

When his back touched the front of the couch, he sighed and ga

The Carnival was by design a place of magic and wonder, an ephemeral place whose delights belonged to the same rosy corner of memory as fantastical dreams. The design in question was that of Emery Till, the so-called Ringmaster.

Truth be told, he could not rightly be called the master of the traveling band of performers and attractions so m
uch as the overtaut twine that somehow kept them all together. His hair, when not hidden under a gaudy hat to keep u

The sun was crimson along the crest of the hill, rays spreading into the rosy dusk, and Warner and Elisha stood apart from the rest of their company. The ungroomed crest of his feathered head towered a few feet above her messy braids, half undone over her elven ears. The raptor-man’s left wing was tattered and crooked, and his talons pierced the ground, clinging to the earth.

Beyond the hill lay the road to battle—the last battle of a war they had been fighti

A woman from the village was wandering through the woods, foraging for herbs and mushrooms. The clouds peeking through the branches overhead were dense and gray, and with the first drop of rain, she decided to head back for the day. As she turned, a small green frog hopped in front of her and croaked loudly. She stopped, astonished as the frog peered up at her with large, golden-brown eyes. “Good day, madam,” it said in a small, throaty voice.

With a cr

The wood-framed pane was
heavy in Kera’s hands as she cautiously lifted it from the windowsill. The night was quiet, even through the howling gales that circled the upper tower of the palace, and she listened vigilantly to the slide of wooden parts—a single hitch or splinter could disturb her meticulous cloak of silence. But Kera was not afraid.

As soon as she had opened about a foot of space, she gently released the pane, testing its stabil

Cydris grunted at the sound of a low rumble in his ear and stirred awake to find his face pressed into
a slimy nook of flesh, his awkwardly-bent arms pinned to his sides and his legs scrunched up tight behind him. “Oh, shit.”

He jerked his body to the side, jostling the stomach lining as it rippled down in leisurely waves. The sound of gentle breathing was undisturbed, and he tried a few more cramped kicks before he paused to evaluate his pre