The pool is busier at seven than it would have been in the afternoon - the family rush, kids in from a day of sightseeing, a few couples, a group of men at the far end who've brought drinks from the bar. The air thick with chlorine and sunscreen and the noise of an enclosed pool space, shrieks bouncing off the tile.

I'm in the trunks I've owned for years. They fit differently now - the waistband sitting on hips that have moved, the fabric pulling across the seat, the legs gapping at the inner thighs where the crotch expects geometry that's no longer there.

Chapter Five
Banquet of Broken Dreams

The phone buzzed for about five seconds before she answered.

“Well, good morning. I suppose this means you’re in town?”

“Yeah, you busy?”

“You mean now, tonight or both?”

“Either, neither, both.”

“Just starting work now. Good tonight. You coming over?”

“Will we meet in town around six? Somewhere nice; my treat.”

“OK, send me a text.”

“Will do; see you then”.

Split Victory - Part 2

Chapters 3 and 4

© 2026 Zoë Taylor

In which the first seeds of the mystery are planted. A statue in a sea of chaos, and a stray remark from a coach
leaves its own unique marks on the twins despite their physical distance.

After a man is stabbed in the back and dies, he wakes up in the Labyrinth with a new body, new power, and another chance.

This story takes place in the same universe as my story Invoker.

Torn from his own world and stuffed into the body of a villainess, facing the end of a doomed route he himself wrote, "Amelia" must navigate a world she really should know - too bad she was never great at worldbuilding.

Stuck in a world she (maybe) created, Amelia quickly finds that reality has filled in the details she failed to describe. The characters who were so flat when she wrote them now have nuance, and motives. The kingdom she wrote into existence is experiencing internal strife she never even thought about. And let's not even get into the complexities of the magic system, or the demon that forced her into this situation to begin with...

Oh, and then there's the fact that she's about to be arrested and executed... but surely she can come up with a way to write herself out of that, right?

...Right?

Alejandro never knew what hit him.

The Thing That Knows What It Is
by Joyce Melton

Chapter 4

I had the Saturday morning before Mum would arrive. I tidied up the room, made sure I had everything in my case and what I was leaving was properly hung and folded. It was a cold day, and I was warmly dressed in jeans and a sweater. I had begun wearing slacks and jeans in the evening as the weather chilled.

I found out on Friday the 22 of May in 2026 that E.E. Nally, one of our prolific writers in the Whateley Academy stories, passed away on April 30^th, 2026. It’s with great sorrow that I bring this news to you all. I had chatted with him almost every day or two for quite a while but he had fallen silent somewhere in the middle of February. I thought maybe he was in the hospital and unable to communicate with me but, as I feared in my imagination, he had gotten worse and eventually passed away.

Cover art by Erin Halfelven
©2026, SammyC