Through A Glass Darkly Shakespeare Novels & Stories

All grew quiet as the actors appeared, walking across the grass, and the play began. Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. It all came rushing back to Sage. He remembered seeing this play the first time it was performed, back in 1594. He had seen it in the Globe, on the banks of the Thames, standing with all the groundlings, thousands of people crammed in together, watching it. He remembered being mesmerized. And now here he was, 400 years later, and it was still as fresh to him as the first time he’d seen it.

Instead, I grab a boring Shakespeare play. Macbeth. I sit in the armchair and force my eyes over the old English. It's a tragedy about ambition, guilt, and blood from what is written on the back. Fitting, I suppose. I force myself to focus on the text, using the dense language as a wall to keep my own messy thoughts at bay. My finger traces the line where Lady Macbeth instructs her husband on how to deceive the King: “Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under't.”

Taking the book from Alma, she found a passage from William Shakespeare's Hamlet; "To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles And by opposing end them." To be or not to be Queen, that is the question. She read the passage out loud to Alma, "To die, to sleep; To sleep, perchance to dream—" She was cut off by the Prince who had entered the room and finished the passage for her,

He stopped scrolling and read the full poem, his skin growing cold with gooseflesh as he did so. Along the shore the cloud waves break, The twin suns sink behind the lake, The shadows lengthen In Carcosa. Strange is the night where black stars rise, And strange moons circle through the skies, But stranger still is Lost Carcosa. Songs that the Hyades shall sing, Where flap the tatters of the King, Must die unheard in Dim Carcosa. Song of my soul, my voice is dead, Die thou, unsung, as tears unshed Shall dry and die in

“In their castle beyond night Gather the Gods in Darkness, With darkness to pattern man’s fate. The colors of darkness are no monotonous hue- For the blackness of Evil knows various shades, Full many as Evil has names.” Karl Edward Wagner

*Permiton* Our plan is terrible. It’s risky and rushed, based more on instinct than certainty. Still, it’s the only one we have. I stare down at the ancient text splayed across the marble table, the brittle parchment threatening to crumble beneath my fingers. The ink has faded in places, the script so old it bleeds together like veins across stone, but I’ve read it four times through, and I keep coming back to the same haunting phrase. “Shadow that clings can be burned by light unclaimed.”

The dark felt alive, liquid, pressing against him . swallowing him And in the distance, whispers uttered secret, unknowable things. He turned but saw nothing, only more darkness. His throat constricted, panic swelling, and his teeth grinding as the whispers came and went, came and went . . . mene, mene tekel upharsin There. A light. Flaring in the distance, piercing the darkness around him. He glimpsed only lurching shadows in the flares but as each grew brighter, fragile hope blossomed in his heart.

That night, across the world, every reflection in the Blackwood estate rippled once—harmless, unnoticed. Water. Glass. Polished steel. Each shimmered briefly before going still again. And from somewhere deep within the shadows of that stillness, my voice whispered to the world: “The light burns bright… until it learns to look at itself.”

THE FINAL PERFORMANCE BEGINS AT MIDNIGHT STAGE: GLASS ROOM PLAYER: WRENLEIGH AUDIENCE: BLACKTHORN OUTCOME: UNKNOWN Dorian stared at the wall like he could burn it down with thought. Penelope’s voice broke the silence. “We have less than six hours.” Isolde whispered, “Then we stop waiting.” The Glass Room. Isolde had never seen it. Only whispers. An urban legend inside Velvet’s most private corridors. A space without shadows. A room where nothing could hide. She stood at its entrance now. No velvet curtains here. No baroque gold. Just white floors and transparent walls.

~This chapter contains graphic sexual content~ I pushed the door open and the room was pitch black as promised, the light from the hall showed a little closet by the door and it was open. I let the door close and lifted my purse off quickly, to set it down so I would be able to find it later. “Hey Eve, you found me,” I heard a voice from much further in the room. “I guess so,” I said, putting out my arms trying to feel around. Did he want me to walk back there or should I wait here for him?