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These inter-connected stories are set in an opulent quasi-historical world of magick and high manners called the Republic of Califa. The Republic is a strangely familiar place--a baroque approximation of Gold Rush era-California with an overlay of Aztec ceremony--yet the characters who populate it are true originals: rockstar magicians, murderous gloves, bouncing boy terrors, blue tinted butlers, sentient squids, and a three year old Little Tiny Doom and her vengeful pink plush pig.

By turn whimsical and horrific (sometime in the same paragraph), Wilce's stories have been characterized as "screwball comedies for goths" but they could also be described as "historical fantasies" or "fanciful histories" for there are nuggets of historical fact hidden in them there lies.

Table of Contents:

• The Biography of a Bouncing Boy Terror!
• Quartermaster Returns
• Metal More Attractive
• The Lineaments of Gratified Desire
• Lovelocks
• Hand in Glove
• Scaring the Shavetail

WFA nominated novella. This novella originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, July 2006. It can also be found in the anthologies Fantasy: The Best of the Year, 2007 Edition, edited by Rich Horton, The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Twentieth Annual Collection (2007), edited by Ellen Datlow, Gavin J. Grant and Kelly Link, Best Short Novels: 2007, edited by Jonathan Strahan, and Telling Tales: The Clarion West 30th Anniversary Anthology (2013), edited by Ellen Datlow. The story is included in the collection Prophecies, Libels, and Dreams: Stories (2014).

This short story originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, September 2004, and was reprinted in Lightspeed, October 2014. It is included in the collection Prophecies, Libels, and Dreams: Stories (2014).

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

Flora knows better than to take shortcuts in her family home, Crackpot Hall--the house has eleven thousand rooms, and ever since her mother banished the magickal butler, those rooms move around at random. But Flora is late for school, so she takes the unpredictable elevator anyway. Huge mistake. Lost in her own house, she stumbles upon the long-banished butler--and into a mind-blowing muddle of intrigue and betrayal that changes her world forever.

Full of wildly clever plot twists, this extraordinary first novel establishes Ysabeau Wilce as a compelling new voice in teen fantasy.

Flora Fyrdraaca wants nothing more than to be a ranger, and for that she must master the magickal - and dangerous - language of Gramatica. But before she can find the ideal teacher, her aspirations are put to the test. Would a true ranger be intimidated by a tentacle that reaches for her from the depths of a toilet? Be daunted by her best friend's transformation into a notorious outlaw, thanks to a pair of sparkly stolen boots? Be cowed by the revelation that only she can rescue the city of Califa from the violent earthquakes that threaten its survival?

Never. Saving her city and her best friend are the least a Girl of Spirit can do - yet what Flora doesn't expect are the life-altering revelations she learns about her family and herself.

Despite her troublesome attraction to magick, Flora has more or less spent her life doing what's been expected of her. Now, at sixteen, she knows that this path has been strewn with secrets. Sure that her true mother, Tiny Doom - long believed to be dead - is alive, Flora becomes determined to find her and leave behind the lies she's been told about who she is. Flora's quest takes her on a journey from lawless islands to the deadly desert, and into an unexpected romance with a brooding stranger who reveals himself to be a kindred spirit. And it all becomes far more dangerous when Flora realizes how desperately their enemies want Tiny Doom - and Flora herself - dead.