More from the Hugos shortlist, in the form of Seanan McGuire's two contenders in the best novellette category. Both are set in the same world as McGuire's
October Daye stories; both expand the backstory of two of the most important characters in the series, Tybalt and the Luidaeg, in years before their time with Toby; both are
available for download from McGuire's web site; and both are straight up excellent.

Set in 1666,
Rat-Catcher opens with Rand, the prince to London's Court of Cats, indulging his taste for Shakespeare. His evening is interrupted when his tyrannical King orders him to attend a summit of all London's fae. The King's carefully planned snub, dispatching his prince rather than going himself, backfires when Rand hears another fae prophesying the destruction both of London and of the fae city of Londinium in fire and plague. When the King refuses to hear his emissary's report, Rand has no choice but to challenge for leadership of the court and, after a costly struggle, he leaves his old self behind and becomes Tybalt, King of the Cats.
The outcome of the story is clear from the moment the year is given in the opening section, but the true story is one of growth, of putting aside childish things, and of accepting the costs and burdens of adulthood in exchange for a chance to make the world a better place. Restoration London is well imagined — although, in a moment of stupidity, I managed to confuse the Shakespearian performances of the Duke's Company for those of the King's Men until I remembered that Shakespeare died in 1616! — but the principal focus is on Rand's rejection of his King's arbitrary and violent rule in favour of a more Enlightenment approach intended to save as many of his people as he can from the coming fires.
In Sea-Salt Tears opens with Elizabeth, a young selkie, at a party to mark the passing of a transformative seal skin to one of her contemporaries. Here she meets Annie, a Ronan born without the ability to change herself, and through a series of parties over a number of years during which Elizabeth continues to brood about her failure to be selected to bear a skin, the pair fall into a relationship that ends with Elizabeth moving in with Annie in San Francisco. Years pass and, despite promising to remain with Annie forever, Elizabeth finds herself unable to decline when her mother passes on her seal skin. The gift, a poisoned attempt to split up Elizabeth and Annie and to force Elizabeth to obey her family's expectations, comes complete with a final sting in the tail: the final discovery that Annie is actually the Luidaeg, the sea witch, and the discovery that the selkie's origins are tangled up in the witch's terrible curse.
A small-scale story,
In Sea-Salt Tears packs a melancholy emotional punch right from the very start, when an older and sadder Elizabeth opens with a framing narrative that explains that things aren't going to end happily ever after. We're then thrown into the world of the selkies where every member of the younger generation struggle to please their elders, in the desperate hope of receiving the next available seal skin as a reward for their good behaviour. But, as Elizabeth discovers, this cuts both ways: nervous Tempe is given a skin because she tries to walk away from her heritage; her reckless Colin is given a skin to balance Tempe's timidity; and so on with Elizabeth being stepped over on every occasion until the moment when she feels unable to reject the offer that promises to destroy all the happiness she's managed to accumulate so far.
While both stories are excellent, I think I prefer the bitter-sweet
In Sea-Salt Tears especially when considered as a standalone piece.
Rat-Catcher adds more to the Toby stories, but there's something really wonderful about seeing McGuire in quiet, reflective mode.