But you never cared at all, did you? — Every weeknight begins the same way. My purse slumps to the floor. I shrug off my coat at the door before replacing it on its hanger in the closet. Then I toe my heels off and switch to the comfort of slippers. …

A Poem — i don’t know about you, but there are so many stars i’ve wished upon past midnight just for a glimmer of your affection but the wishing well always runs dry, no matter the coins i throw into the abyss and loving you was like that and loving you was phantom…

Who can say we’ll ever meet again? — Dear Scarlet, You might laugh if you ever see this letter. Scarlet. That’s not your name. I actually never had the chance to ask what your real name was. We were two ships passing in the night that way. Scarlet — that was the moniker I gave you because of…

100 Faces in 100 Stories — No91 — Sarafina Aurelion — you’ve never heard her name before, have you? You look puzzled. It’s all right. You might know the girl she helped. Does the name Cinderella sound familiar? Ah, yes, there we are. You do know that name. Surely you’ve heard whispers about her fairy godmother. The one who turned evil and cultivated her own army of goblins and wildfolk? The one who’s terrorizing the Fairlands as we speak?

When will life stop being cruel? — Dear Ben, I know you said you never wanted to hear from me again. I can still picture your face, how your features twisted as you looked at me — and I want to sob all over again because I never thought I’d see hatred in your eyes. Not directed…

100 Faces in 100 Stories — No90 — As the battlefield fogged with smoke and the cloying smell of death, I saw the woman walking from body to body as if she were a specter. Only when she passed over me, her eyes alight with a solemnity I had come to know well, did I take a staggered breath. Her eyes flashed wide, a startled expression coming to her face. “You live,” she said as if the words were a marvel.

I don’t know what to say anymore. — Dear Sarah, I know this letter is out of the blue. To you, I was probably just lost in a sea of faces when you walked into the room, dropped your white robe, and shifted poses every fifteen minutes during that two-hour life drawing class. …

100 Faces in 100 Stories — No89 — I told Lyssa there was no point in staunching the wound. The damage had already been done. Tears collected in her eyes as she pressed her already-bloodied hands over the hole in my stomach. “No, I can do something. Jori, please, I can help you — ” I lifted my own blood-stained hand to Lyssa’s cheek. “Princess, you have to go. You’re the Dreamer. Everything depends on you now.”

Oh, all wild things long to be free, don’t they? — You might think me mad that I never asked to see his true face. What proper woman would act in such a way when a strange man comes to her bedchamber past midnight? The servants had warned me of the odd things that happened on the moors in the build-up…