Jessica had built up some tolerance to odd events, so when a splash of spilled ink started to move she did not doubt her senses, but just watched it coalesce into a humanoid figure smaller than a fingernail.

The shining black golem briefly turned its featureless head towards the lamp, then trudged in the opposite direction, shrinking as it left an uneven trail on the tabletop.

Jessica mopped it up with a paper towel before it reached the taped-down image she was working on. Staring at the now immobile blot, she wondered if she should have had ethical concerns.

Inspired by the prompt "spilled ink takes on its own life" by Becky Allen

Metal rattled gently as Freya rooted through the content of the tin. Wardrobes, suitcases, savings boxes long destroyed had left their keys in the collection, probably to be forgotten, or maybe to be reused. What the girl was looking for was - ah! A small slip of brass-plated tin, a triangular head.

Diary locks had been always the same, or nearly so, for decades, or if there was a slight difference, the locks were so badly made the key worked, anyway.

Freya stayed sitting in the storeroom dust and tried the key. She smiled and relaxed happily when her hoard of secrets opened.

Her breath caught as she caught sight of the writing. Blue ink instead of green gel pen. That's mother's handwriting! In my diary! A look on the cover confirmed it; even the signs of wear matched.

Freya locked and unlocked the book again, still seeing the cursive writing instead of her own rounded block letters.

She bit her lip and looked towards the door. It would be a while before her mother came home, so Freya might as well have a closer look.

The parlour was familiar, but Brice's position in it wasn't. He had seen it on a handful of occasions when he had assisted Madame Nesca while she negotiated business with particularly valued partners here. Finding himself in the overstuffed chair and offered excellent wine left him wondering what in the world was going on.

Standing pointedly inside his door, the suspect grinned. “No, you can not come in, warrant or no!”

Jenna took a breath, meaning to answer that. The door slammed shut in her face, so she sighed instead. From his criminal record including activity in an anti-supernaturals group a decade ago, neither his recognising her as a vampire nor his reaction came as a surprise. Still, it was annoying in its pettiness and shortsightedness.

Usually she would be partnered with someone who did not require invitation, but there had been some roster-shuffling tonight, leaving the pair of vampires the option to watch the house to keep him from running and call for reinforcements. To arrest one unarmed little loser with a habit of blogging rants against supernaturals while drunk. Embarrassing.

While she walked back to the squad car, a grin spread across her face. She had foreseen trouble like that, and both brought the right equipment and made sure with the chief that she could use it.

She hefted the sledgehammer and stalked back to the house. Invitations were required to cross a threshold, true. But it had turned out that if you removed the entire wall, the problem disappeared.

Inspired by the prompt "How does a vampire cop serve a warrant, if he has to be invited into a home?" by Royce Day

"Deliberate entry" is the name of an existing SWAT tactic. This is not it. Dynamic entry versus deliberate entry at policeone.com

The owner of the BMW that had had its routine inspection walked back into the repair shop a bare minute after leaving, making the mechanic raise his eyebrows briefly.

“Is there anything wrong?”

“I can’t open the door. I think you gave me the wrong key.”

“Well, let’s check.”

When they were in the parking lot where the car waited to be picked up, the customer pointed the key at the car and pressed the button for the central locking system. Nothing happened.

The mechanic held out his hand, and received the key. He walked up to the car, stuck the key in the driver’s door lock, and unlocked it.

The owner flushed. “Um. That is…”

Don’t grin, don’t grin, he’d think it’s rude. “Sorry, I didn’t notice the battery’d run out. I’ll replace it, should just take a few minutes?”

“Yes. Yes, thank you.”

Marie had taken the tour through the historic town centre several times a year ever since the muncipality had declared it tech-light - only technology that had not been available in the 20th century or before allowed. Watching the other tourists was part of the charm. Some, like her, welcomed the break enforced by leaving behind all their gadgets for a few hours, others became twitchy. She suspected the ones from the latter group who looked excited with it might see the visit as sort of a dare - “can you go that long without checking your mail and not go nuts?”

Sometimes the same young folks would gasp at and compliment the tour guide’s ability to remember all these details about the town’s history.

Marie, however, had a different suspicion, so when one young guide stumbled over his script, led them to the marketplace and called for a shopping break, she watched him rather than scattering with the others.

He looked around, raised his hand but dropped it before it cleared shoulder-height when he noticed her.

She approached him, and asked in an undertone, “Something wrong with your augmented reality glasses?”

“Ma’am, modern tech is banned here.” He looked pained.

“Sure it is. And companies follow rules.” The young man might have taken her sarcasm as less good-humoured than it was. “And how long does it take you folks to memorise exactly the same script?”

He coughed and looked away. “Longer than I’ve been reading out the tour. They’ll fire me.”

“I could take over. Heard it often enough. Maybe you’re lucky and no-one complains.”

“You can? You would?” He checked his hopefulness and asked, “Why?”

Marie grinned. “Oh, I just love being right.”

This takes place after Scatterbrained, but should stand on its own, too, as flash goes.

The girl pausing to look at the old council hall clockwork ticking away in its glass case caught the librarian’s eye—her signal orange cycling helmet was hard to miss. After a few seconds of looking around and flicking the leaves of the green plants around the reading corner, she started prowling the shelves.

It was almost half an hour later when the librarian spotted her again, helmet still clinging to her head. The girl bit her lip and looked around, nervous and confused, so the librarian walked up to her.

“Hello. Can I help you?”

“There are too many things.”

The librarian frowned when she saw that there was a book lying on the sisal carpeting in the corridor the girl had come from.

“What are you looking for?”

The girl turned her head from side to side a few times, face screwing up to a distressed grimace. “I forgot.”

“Now, don’t worry…” The librarian trailed off.

The girl had raised her hands to wipe her eyes, and looked at them in wonder. “LIBRARY” was scrawled in big letters across the back of her left wrist and hand. The child looked at her palms. The left said “Do not forget: Go to the LIBRARY.” The right palm was more puzzling. She twisted her hand around, as if to see if the writing was upside down, but got distracted, ending up looking over her right shoulder towards the shaft of light leading up to the skylight over the stairwell, and holding her right hand loosely in front of her, palm up.

The librarian leaned forward and tried to read the scrawl, but couldn’t decypher it. “Are you all right? Would you like to phone home?”

“I, no? I know the way. Yes, I do.”

Her puzzled frown turned into a wide grin when she glanced at her right hand again. “Oh, ANGEL!”

“Angel?”

“Yes, I think my angel is in trouble, it’s why I forget stuff and can’t sit still! Can you help me?”

“Maybe.”

Written by request of Lyn Thorne-Alder

After a reflexive burst of chaotic magic, the fairy flitted to the closest water lily leaf, stood feet apart, and twisted to pull a sticky lump off her wings.

“I can’t believe you did that,” she snapped at the frog following her. “Do I look like an insect? Do I look edible? I’m bigger than you!”

The frog looked at her forlornly. It would have apologised, if only she would have given back its separated tongue, instead of waving it around for emphasis.