Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $9.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Crystal Cage
    Crystal Cage
    Crystal Cage
    Ebook54 pages

    Crystal Cage

    By Reis Asher

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Alyssa's father wants her to settle down and become a happy wife and mother, as befitting a woman from one of the noble Houses, but Alyssa has other ideas: she wants to be an inventor. Her first invention, the crystal-powered teacup warmer, has earned her an invitation to study at the Institute and she accepts, hoping to meet her personal heroine Lady Isabelle and to be herself outside the confines of her rigid upbringing.

    Left disappointed when Lady Isabelle proves to be dismissive, Alyssa is soon captivated anew by Prince Artan, who hides a secret himself and teaches Alyssa far more than the technology she's come to study. But relationships between teachers and students are forbidden by the Institute, and they aren't the only ones who will suffer should they get caught.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherReis Asher
    Release dateSep 24, 2019
    ISBN9781393328308
    Crystal Cage

    Read more from Reis Asher

    Related to Crystal Cage

    Related ebooks

    LGBTQIA+ Romance For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Floating Around

      Jun 1, 2024

      Floating Around
      11 min read

    • Article

      Snow day & Other Poems

      Nov 1, 2024

      I set a tea kettle on top of a snowman.I’m pretending I don’t have laundry to do,that the drywall isn’t crackedin the bedroom, that I’m stillthe sixteenth inch thick bar of steelI was in my twenties, when if you bent meI sprang back to where I’d been

      4 min read

    • Article

      Amanda’s Naked Truth

      Oct 26, 2020

      Amanda’s Naked Truth
      6 min read

    • Article

      A Letter To My Son

      Mar 5, 2020

      A Letter To My Son
      7 min read

    • Article

      Six Sonnets

      Jan 1, 2021

      Goldenrod, I could say, you know, everybody wants somethingfrom me, but, well, everybody wants something and nobody wantsnothing from me, goldenrod, towhead, beast. Goldenrod, you packthe meadows like gold-plated sardines. I have heart palpitationsbu

      3 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Nov 1, 2022

      Day after Thanksgiving. I give thanks for Eveto beat the rush of appreciating hernext year and let her sleep inuntil three hundred o’clock.Thank you light on the mountainfor being my star on cloudy nights.Thank you all the guns I’ve never ownedand ki

      6 min read

    • Article

      A Chip Off The Old Block

      Jun 5, 2022

      A Chip Off The Old Block
      9 min read

    • Article

      I, Von Economo

      Oct 10, 2022

      I’d never seen a Bentley Mulsanne in the flesh, not even in the chop shops where I sold the luxury cars I boosted. Yet there it was, parked behind an inner-city soup kitchen with its signature hood ornament of silver wings stretched wide to the heave

      12 min read

    • Article

      Sage And Smoke And Stones

      Sep 1, 2024

      Sage And Smoke And Stones
      11 min read

    • Article

      Mrs Macarthur’s Secret Diary

      Jun 17, 2020

      Mrs Macarthur’s Secret Diary
      7 min read

    • Article

      Mrs Macarthur’s Secret Diary

      Jun 17, 2020

      Mrs Macarthur’s Secret Diary
      7 min read

    • Article

      Heave’s Whisky

      Feb 27, 2024

      Heave’s Whisky
      7 min read

    • Article

      Shards

      Jun 1, 2018

      Shards
      6 min read

    • Article

      Time & Other Poems

      Sep 1, 2024

      Isn’t it annoying, how you can read allyou want about the past, but not go there?Collect whatever you want from back then,whenever, put it on a shelf. You can evendecide you like a time period, hit up eBayor Craigslist, and in no time you can havealm

      7 min read

    • Article

      Family

      Jan 27, 2020

      “A father would do well, as his son grows up, and is capable of it, to talk familiarly with him; nay, ask his advice, and consult with him about those things wherein he has any knowledge or understanding. By this, the father will gain two things, bot

      3 min read

    • Article

      Dispatches From the Trenches of Domestic Life

      Mar 2, 2018

      Six years ago my wife gave me a pair of house slippers. My first ever. A domestic present I thought signaled some new phase of my life. I thanked her. Tried them on. Plush fur lined the inside. I stood up to make a show of enjoying them. Then she han

      6 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      Nov 1, 2021

      I have an endless appetite for starfruit,for biting my teeth into the universe and spitting outthe space junk, for licking the rings of my favorite planetsand never slicing my tongue. There’s a story I shareabout my birth where angels circle my dead

      2 min read

    • Article

      Choosing the Flowers

      Oct 10, 2022

      Choosing the Flowers
      10 min read

    • Article

      Announcing The winners Of Our FLASH CONTEST

      Feb 29, 2020

      I sever the first two fingers of my left hand on a Tuesday. They fall to the ground at my feet, causing a momentary confusion as I wonder what tree has dropped this odd fruit. Then I see the crescent scar left behind by a fish hook and know that thes

      8 min read

    • Article

      I Used to Give Men Mercy

      Feb 12, 2018

      I Used to Give Men Mercy
      12 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Mar 1, 2024

      I was trying to look a little less like myselfand more like other humans, humans who belonged, so I put on a skort.Purchased in another life, when I had a husband and wrote thank-you notes and held dinner parties,the skort even had its own little poc

      6 min read

    • Article

      THE greatest LOVE

      Oct 21, 2021

      THE greatest LOVE
      10 min read

    • Article

      Letter To My Younger Self

      Dec 4, 2019

      Letter To My Younger Self
      4 min read

    • Article

      Love Sounds

      Oct 10, 2022

      My daughter’s getting married. She is thirty-two and beautiful. I remember—it seems like just the other day—when she was sprawled and breathless. There she was, flat on her back, covered by pink panda pajamas, the odor of sleep drenched in her pillow

      13 min read

    • Article

      Remains

      Sep 1, 2017

      THIS IS what you think your mother’s remains will look like. The ash will be black, like all that soot in the fireplace. It will be heavy, like wet sand. There will not be too much of it. It will fit in a small urn with intricate designs on the borde

      6 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      Jan 1, 2022

      cook lobster. They’re loyal sea rubies and deservebetter than a pinch of lemon and herbed butter. But I’ll shower hot enough to brighten you, makezinnias of your shoulders and steal the towels when it’s over, your water-tattooed back a garden before

      3 min read

    • Article

      Part 2 A BOY CALLED EVEREST

      Feb 1, 2022

      Part 2 A BOY CALLED EVEREST
      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Crystal Cage

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Crystal Cage - Reis Asher

      Crystal Cage

      REIS ASHER

      Alyssa's father wants her to settle down and become a happy wife and mother, as befitting a woman from one of the noble Houses, but Alyssa has other ideas: she wants to be an inventor. Her first invention, the crystal-powered teacup warmer, has earned her an invitation to study at the Institute and she accepts, hoping to meet her personal heroine Lady Isabelle and to be herself outside the confines of her rigid upbringing.

      Left disappointed when Lady Isabelle proves to be dismissive, Alyssa is soon captivated anew by Prince Artan, who hides a secret himself and teaches Alyssa far more than the technology she's come to study. But relationships between teachers and students are forbidden by the Institute, and they aren't the only ones who will suffer should they get caught.

      Crystal Cage

      By Reis Asher

      All rights reserved.  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher, except for the purpose of reviews.

      Edited by Tracey Pennington

      Cover designed by Aisha Akeju

      This book is a work of fiction and all names, characters, places, and incidents are fictional or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is coincidental.

      Second Edition September 2019

      Copyright © 2019 by Reis Asher

      Printed in the United States of America

      I would like to thank everyone at Less Than Three Press for bringing The Crystal Cage to fruition, especially my editor Tracey, whose brilliant insight helped me build a better story. Many thanks also to Aisha for the amazing cover art.

      Crystal Cage

      The Institute loomed before me like a veritable palace, its gardens lush and green, hydrangeas and violets in vibrant bloom adorning neatly dug flowerbeds. I passed through great cast iron gates with haste, the driver directing the carriage at my command. Gravel crunched beneath the horses' hooves and the carriage bumped slightly as it drew to a halt.

      I inhaled deeply, suddenly self-conscious about my mode of dress. My overalls were clean but hardly the kind of attire I should attend the Institute in. Father had been right when he said I should wear a dress, but the frilly pink monstrosity the servants of our house pulled from the garderobe almost made me weep in horror. In my defense, I had tried to don the gown, only to feel like a stranger in my own body. The mirror reflected an unfamiliar face back at me and I recoiled, finding the lie I'd borne in silence for years too much to endure any longer.

      I tore the dress off and grabbed my overalls as my maid protested, her offense a shrill discord in my ear. My undershirt fit like a glove, my pants following soon after, followed by the loose overalls. The faint scent of grease lingered in the air, and it smelled like home, a far cry from the eye-watering perfumes Father had chosen for the occasion. I grabbed my goggles and fled from the house before he could inspect me, pressing an extra twopenny piece into the coachman's hand to make haste from the grounds. I tied my hair into a neat bun with my own hands, long used to doing things for myself without the brood of maids who wanted to make me a 'proper' lady.

      I couldn't do it. I couldn't be the high society lady Father wanted me to be. That's why I was at the Institute in the first place—trying to maintain some sense of honor for our house. It was clear to see that I wasn't going to be a good wife, and so the only hope I could have of avoiding shame on our family name was to enter the realm of academia. I had applied to the Institute, sending them a small invention I had been working on: a heated cup that used crystal power to keep tea at its proper temperature. The crystal mines had seen an unprecedented yield over the past few years, and now a resource that was once rare and expensive was falling into the hands of common folk. It opened a whole new world of invention for me, and that was when I knew I couldn't deceive others any longer if I wanted to be happy.

      I was not a lady, a mother, or a wife. I was an inventor, my only children the ideas that took form and shape in mechanisms that improved the lives of ordinary

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1