In the fairy tales, people go chasing after stardust because of its supposed magical properties. Legends are passed down of heroes anointed with the stuff and of diseases cured. There was one tale that my mother used to tell of a unicorn who had never tasted anything but stardust and you could ride her into magical realms. Stardust is the tears of angels, the remains of miracles.

Maybe there is some stardust in the universe that’s like that, but I have found it’s nothing but radiation and horrific burning. Leastways, it’s the stardust that gave me all these awful scars.

Ralph couldn’t stand the tenebrous gloom that hung over the hovel and did everything he could to bring a bit of life to the place. Once, he tied ribbons around the frog legs, but they caused the spell to misfire. Instead of being cursed with thirteen years of bad luck, the enemy king found himself with a penchant for curly hair. Another time, he ruined a batch of poison apples by adding cinnamon. His master was constantly berating Ralph’s predilection for bright-colored robes.

It was never easy being gay, but it was especially difficult as a warlock’s apprentice.

Simon skipped home with a proud smile. He’d traded his family’s last gold piece for three magic beans. He was so looking forward to seeing his mother’s face.

The ruin extended beyond just the family. After the first heavy rain, the beans came alive and began eating all the villagers. Simon insisted the old witch had promised they were vegan beans, but no one had time to listen.

Brian wasn’t sure how it happened, whether it was the Christmas wish just before his father’s death, or the aftereffects of some magical spell uttered generations before in his attic, but every night, when his mother wasn’t around, his toys came alive.

His life was now a living hell. He didn’t mind the work itself, but the beatings and tongue-lashings were, to his mind, excessive. If only the toys would tell him what they wanted in a calm manner, he’d finish everything without complaint.

The white rabbits used by over 90% of the working magicians in Europe and North America originate from a single farm in rural Holland. The family-owned estate specializes in churning out the best rabbits in the business. In addition to being fed and groomed, they are taught the many necessary skills expected of them.

But mostly, they are just expected to fuck like bunnies.

She had only one weakness, but as with others of tremendous power–Achilles, Samson–it would be that weakness that would be her undoing.

In the end, it was a bucket of water that occasioned her demise. Once she had tasted water, it was impossible to continue life as a witch.

Everyone knows when it comes to doing magic, widows are the worst. They’re always going on about love spells or hunting down unicorns and mermaids to achieve eternal youth. None of it ever works.

And that’s how I ended up with these golden testes.

Every morning, the dirty children that wandered the streets in search of easily obtained coin and crumb gathered. They did their best to stay out of sight, hiding behind shadows and around corners in the nearly empty lane. The neighborhood denizens prized the hour as the quietest of the day.

It was a dangerous thing, to watch a miracle being wrought.

In the Hall of Magi, ballots were being counted. Never, in countless centuries of magical practice, had attendance been so high. The last hundred years, however, had been the worst. Spells, once isolated to nomadic shamans, were unstable in the growing metropolises. Magic, by nature, was exceptional, and it thoroughly resisted regulation. Even without some dark lord, how many villages were regularly lost to innocent prodigies of pyrokinesis? Families to inadvertently summoned demons?

The final vote was tallied; the expected result announced. Unanimously, the gathered had voted to break their staves. And so, by consensus, magic disappeared from the world.

Robert shifted through the pile of old books. He quietly shone his light from title to title, but had begun to have doubts.

“Only when necessary.”