The light filtering into the cells dims to an orange glow, and the scent of smoke and burning meat starts to carry through the air. The doors to every cell simultaneously grind open, and the guards - those not part of the walls of the dungeons - wait to lead the prisoners down the hall and up a set of stairs worn practically ramp-smooth ( Read more... )

Sunset, days after the vanishing of the first group, the Carnival goes oddly still. The rides don't stop, the crowd keeps moving, but in spite of all the noise and motion there's a frozen feeling in the air, like everything in motion is just a collection of confetti in a shaken snow globe ( Read more... )

Summer in the Wood has always belonged to the Fox, and the weather has taken a distinct turn in that direction now ( Read more... )

She may have consented to eating the fairy food, much to her private horror, but Kat still doesn't trust anyone here ( Read more... )

Quorra is standing in the rain, holding her coat wrapped tightly around her and a newspaper over her head as a pseudo-umbrella (it’s not working very well). She darts between the overhangs of buildings whenever there is one, but otherwise, it’s a walk in the rain, and it’s probably getting a bit dark out ( Read more... )

It's an hour or so to sundown, and the barracks are full of golden sunlight and long slanting shadows. Harry's standing just outside the barracks walls, in one of those patches of deep late afternoon shadow, staring off in the direction of Tempest's castle with an expression most people who know him well would be deeply concerned about.

Harry ( Read more... )

Kat has found her way to what looks like a back hall. She thinks it is, anyway. No one's come by in the last hour ( Read more... )

Should the castle's residents be wandering as evening falls through the windows, they might hear the soft strains of music coming from down a hall, around a corner, behind a closed door. Regardless of where they are, or how far they are from the source of the sound, it will lead them all to the same place: a veranda high up on the castle's southern ( Read more... )

Quorra, Sam, Castor, and Kat had arrived at the Castle while it was still dark, and they'd split up fairly quickly--for the most part.  Quorra had stayed with Sam, and she'd been spending a lot of time taking in every detail of her new surroundings.   The architecture was quite unlike anything she'd ever come across, and as much as it was still not ( Read more... )

Well, this had been a wasted endeavor. The longer Adrian spent at the Castle, the more restless and urgent his desire to get out of it and just figure this place out became. He wanted to check on those down in the barracks, wanted to seek out Adric and Takato and Wiegraf and just... make sure that those who hadn't been eaten by a monster had ( Read more... )