These Dreaming Spires: A Dark Academia Anthology

by Olivie Blake, Marie O'Regan (Editor), Paul Kane (Editor), Genevieve Cogman, Faridah Abíké-Iyímídé

Overview

A NEW SEMESTER BEGINS

A beguiling, sinister collection of 12 more dark academia short stories from masters of the genre, including Olivie Blake, Genevieve Cogman, MK Lobb and more!

Twelve original dark academia stories from bestselling thriller writers – imagine darkened libraries, exclusive elite schools, looming Gothic towers, charismatic professors, illicit affairs, the tang of autumn in the air… and the rivalries and obsessions that lead to murder.

Featuring stories from:
Olivie Blake
Genevieve Cogman
Ariel Djanikian
Elspeth Wilson
MK Lobb
Jamison Shea
Kate Alice Marshall
Erica Waters
De Elizabeth
Taylor Grothe
Kit Mayquist
Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781835410196
Publisher:	Titan
Publication date:	09/02/2025
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.46(h) x 1.29(d)

About the Author

Marie O’Regan is a British Fantasy Award-nominated writer and editor of horror and dark fantasy fiction. She is the author of four collections, Mirror Mere, Bury Them Deep, In Times of Want and Other Stories and The Last Ghost and Other Stories, and her anthologies include Hellbound Hearts, The Mammoth Book of Body Horror, Carnivale: Dark Tales From the Fairground, The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories by Women, Phantoms, Exit Wounds and Wonderland. She is Co-Chair of the UK chapter of the Horror Writers’ Association and lives in Derbyshire, UK. She tweets @Marie_O_Regan

Read an Excerpt

GOD, NEEDY,

ENOUGH WITH THE SCREAMING

Olivie Blake

It was Calvin’s fault. She loved him beyond measure but he was an idiot. He always said things like what’s the worst that could happen? And then bam. She’s off to the loony bin.

Her mother was very tearful on the morning the van from the college came to take her away, which was rich. Nothing else about the day was out of the ordinary. Seraphina was an orderly person, some might say rigid (Calvin said so often, fondly, with a twinkle in his eye), so she went about her day as normal. She woke up and washed her face vigorously with cold water and soap. Patted dry. She brushed her hair with one hundred and fourteen neat strokes and then tied it back neatly with a ribbon, navy blue to match her cotton sweater, the most practical one she could think of for something like this. She packed all of her clothes very crisply and was rightfully perturbed when she was told she’d have no need for them. By that point her mother was openly sobbing. Really, Seraphina thought with an exasperated inner sigh. All this over a boy!

“I don’t think this will take long, do you?” Seraphina said paci- fyingly to her mother, who couldn’t answer, which was just as well. “Seraphina Fenwick?” asked a man in a starched white uniform. “Out of curiosity, what would happen if I said no?” Seraphina replied.

The man looked squarely at her. He was too old to be inter- esting to Seraphina. “Better stamp that out now, lass. The mistress don’t care for sass.”

“Pity,” remarked Seraphina. “Would we even be here if I weren’t so goddamn precocious?”

By then Mama was well engrossed in the proverbial wailing and gnashing of teeth. “Let’s just go,” suggested Seraphina to the man at the door, turning to her mother one last time to say, “Just so you know, none of this will stop me from seeing Calvin. He loves me and I love him.”

If there was any response, it was incomprehensible. “Well, all right, then. Be good,” Seraphina added to her sister Cherubim, Chair for short.

“Bye,” said Chair without meeting Seraphina’s eye. She’d been terribly moody for weeks, positively swaddled in adolescent angst. Seraphina couldn’t remember having been so mercurial at fourteen. Well, but younger siblings could be tiresome, this was a fact. “Will you live at the asylum forever, do you think?”

Seraphina looked at the man in the white uniform. No doubt his role was something custodial and therefore he might not be an expert, but there was no one else to ask. “How long does it take to graduate from this program?”

“You’ll be evaluated on arrival,” said the man. “The mistress will decide about your placement from there.”

“Well, then how long does it usually take for a student to leave?” “Patient,” the man corrected her. His nametag said Joe but Seraphina preferred to imagine it was something else, like Nettle.

“And none so far have been returned.”

“Hm,” remarked Seraphina thoughtfully before turning back to Chair. “Probably two weeks, then, is my guess.”

“Oh,” said Chair. “Bye, then.”

Seraphina’s father wasn’t there, which was not unusual. He was a professor who did something very serious and important for the college, though he rarely discussed it with any of them, lesser minds as they were. He was hardly ever home, which was for the best. Whenever he did deign to make an appearance, talk at the dinner table usually revolved around what to do about Seraphina.

Who, for the record, hadn’t asked, thank you very much.

Seraphina had once told Calvin she felt gravely misunderstood by her family. He’d said well, of course she was, it wasn’t technically possible to understand someone like her, to which she said I’m not trying to be funny Cal, I’m really trying to express something to you – you know, vulnerably. I really feel as if I’m misunderstood, like I don’t know, I’m just different. And then Calvin said okay my queen, deepest apologies I am listening, which is when Seraphina realized she really loved him. It was understandable, though, that the last straw for a wayward girl in a town like Midway Blossom would be getting caught after an evening liaison in the woods.

Put bluntly, Calvin wasn’t appropriate for a girl of Seraphina’s upbringing or her socioeconomic standing. Upon discovery of their relationship, safe to say that a good old-fashioned conniption had been had. It really did not get any more banally Puritanical than Midway Blossom, where most of the great families had lived for generations, waging a time-defying war for good morals and right conduct in the most archaic sense. Calvin was a poet and a musician, a vagrant one according to Seraphina’s mother, and of course there was the matter of his skin. So all in all, everything was a little bit suboptimal for anyone with a small brain.

What did Calvin and Seraphina usually discuss? A little of everything. He told her long, imaginative stories and she enjoyed them, especially when they were over and it was her turn again to talk. Calvin was a really marvelous listener – perhaps the dictionary definition of rapt. And when Seraphina had told him she was being sent away, Calvin had said my dearest, I take the blame, with all my heart I swear there will be a reckoning. Which surprised Seraphina, not because it wasn’t accurate, but because she was unaccustomed to anyone in her life taking accountability for anything. So she said it is your fault, Calvin, but don’t worry, I’m pretty sure I’ll be out of there in two weeks, tops. And when he said I’ll wait for you, she said you’d better, after all we just discussed it’s completely your fault I’m going in the first place, and that was that.

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Olivie Blake
"Lethally smart. Filled with a cast of brilliantly realized characters, each entangled with one another in torturously delicious ways" CHLOE GONG


"As much a delicious contest of wit, will, and passion as it is of magic, this book is half mystery, half puzzle, and wholly a delight." HOLLY BLACK

From the Publisher