The Knight and the Butcherbird

by Alix E. Harrow

She came to us as any apocalypse does: slowly at first, and then all at once.

You see the pattern, don’t you? That’s the true work of a Secretary, of course: not only to remember the stories but to make sense of them. To find the patterns and fashion them into answers. Why do people change, Sir John? Because they are cursed, pursued, poisoned, trapped, under siege. Because they have to.

Nothing grows on a grave while you’re standing on it.