Esteemed banker, elder, elf, Tobias Everly, hired me to steal the thing. I’d worked for undesirables before, but elder Everly was managing accountant and proprietor of Lordling and Abbot’s Stronghold and Savings. He was a businessman and upstanding gentleman dandy up front—long silver hair, blue eyes, amicable smile to melt the pantaloons off any noble … More Cozy Flash: “The Witch Box”

Dima fumed. Other villagers prepared pendants and banners for the Ancestor Veneration march. No way she’d do that. Bad enough she despised all memory of her late grandmother. Worse, the embroidered silk banner gave her a rash. Instead she found a small pole, attached the dreaded banner and summoned her friends the cockroaches. So many … More Cozy Flash: “Well, Well”

Glorin the dwarf snuck back underground, hoping his absence hadn’t been noticed. He had managed to steal away again to the surface to tend his little garden, but now it was time to return to his family tasks. After all, metal didn’t work itself. But one day soon, Glorin hoped to leave the smithy behind. … More Cozy Flash: “Glorin the Dwarf”

The dragon was dead. The glory and treasure had been won in that trove, thought indomitable. Lucaine and her faithful friends had succeeded in liberating the vale of Vankle. She now traveled back down the road that had led her there, this time alone and on a different quest, a red cloth token her most … More Cozy Flash: “Path to the People”

“I swear to you, this baby is a monster,” Sansavi said as she pushed the pram back and forth across the black bridge of Zairahm. Normally the motion calmed the baby, but this time it didn’t work. The baby just kept on crying, wailing like a doomed soul in the ninth circle of Hell. Sansavi’s … More Cozy Flash: “Demon Child”

The swordsman said, “Fetch me the rooster.” And his daughter obeyed. Elizabeth left the castle quickly and crossed the street in her search. She knew which rooster he meant—the great, black rooster, almost as large as she was, with one eye green and the other gray, that lived in the house on Tumble Hill on … More Cozy Flash: “Elizabeth and the Egg-Laying Rooster”

It was a small thing, air-light, tissue-thin, barely an impression left in the great, good green into which it was born. The spark that brought it to life was also a mere whisper, a molecule or two of breeze floating among a soft spring mist just before dawn. A small thing, but not helpless, even … More Cozy Flash: “Dreaming of Violets”

The esteemed firm of Babbitage and Esqueaken is pleased to present Your Highness Alphonse I, Regent of the Hundred Isles, warlord of our glorious campaign against the known world, billable hours for your litigation against the pretender, the false claimant against your son, in the dispute of the named Chosen One of the Kingdom. All … More Cozy Flash: “Billable Hours for the Disputed Rights of the Chosen One”

It’s one of those lazy days. Scout had meant to get up earlier, she really had. But their bedroom window had caught the morning sun so perfectly, kissing her face and encouraging her to stay in bed just a few minutes more, a few minutes more… She’d been out late last night, after all. She … More Cozy Flash: “A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing”

Fleet Mac Wood knew arguing with pack goats was futile. The ranger lived with three of the beasts. He told them daily not to eat his tent, not to chew his boots, and not to wander into the mountains where bigger animals—or worse things—would eat them. He corralled them. They leapt the fence. Hobbling was … More Cozy Flash: “The Problem with Pack Goats”