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He certainly expected me to react with fear and caution. Which just goes to show you that no matter how old something is, centuries don’t necessarily make it all that bright.
Build a man a fire and he’s warm for a day,” I said. “But set a man on fire and he’s warm for the rest of his life. Tao of Pratchett. I live by it.
It’s tough to get one of the Little Folk to care about discipline. On the other hand, they really aren’t terribly impressed with danger, either.
“But trust isn’t one of those things that lends itself well to math.” “Sure it does,” Bob said. “You trust somebody, they betray you, you get a negative value. You never trust, they can never disappoint you, you break even.”
I heard someone walk out of the alley behind me, and my body went tense and tight, despite my weariness. Then a young woman’s voice said, in a passable British accent, “The Little Folk are easily startled, but they’ll soon be back. And in greater numbers.” I sagged in sudden, exhausted relief. The bad guys hardly ever quote Star Wars. “Molly,” I breathed. A tall young woman dressed in rather shabby secondhand clothing crouched down next to me and smiled. “Hey, boss. Welcome home.”
I always thought it would get easier to be a person as I aged. But it just gets more and more complicated.
“A bunch of people are gonna be mad at me, I’ve got some kind of medical issue that’s going to kill me in a while if I don’t deal with it, oh, and the island’s blowing up tomorrow and taking a whole lot of the country with it if I don’t fix it.” Thomas gave me a steady look. “So,” he said. “Same old, same old.” “I think it’s nice that there are some things in this world you can rely on,” I said.
Lara, Thomas’s half sister, was the power behind the throne of the White Court of vampires. Lara was gorgeous, brilliant, and sexier than a Swedish bikini team hiking up a mountain of money. As a potential enemy, she was a little scary. As an occasional ally, she was freaking terrifying.
One of Winter’s most dangerous creatures—most dangerous hunters—knew all about my friends. That was something that a smart man would be concerned about. I reminded myself that just because someone is courteous, it does not necessarily mean that they aren’t planning to vivisect you. It just means that they’ll ask whether the ropes holding you down are comfortable before they pick up the scalpel. Cat Sith might be an ally, for the moment, but he was not my friend.
I hate not knowing things. It’s enough to make a guy wish he could use the Internet.
“I’ve got time for banter. Just not for games.”
Meddling with time is an irrationally, outrageously, catastrophically dangerous and costly business. I encourage you to avoid it at all costs.”
“I love evading representatives of the lawful authority,” Thomas said, watching the car go by in his rearview mirror. “It’s one of those little things that make me happy.”
You hear the phrase “I felt like I was being watched” all the time. There’s a good reason for that—it’s a very real feeling, and it has nothing to do with magic. Developing an instinct for sensing when a predator might be studying you is a fundamental survival trait. If you’re ever in a spooky situation and have a strong instinct that you are being watched, hunted, or followed, I advise you not to treat those instincts lightly. They’re there for a reason.
Paranoia—because why should the conspiracy theorists get to have all the fun? I just couldn’t see any of these people turning on me, no matter the influence. But if you could see treachery coming all that easily, Julius Caesar might have lived to a ripe old age.
Karrin glanced around at all of us and then said, “Translate that from nerd to English, please.”
“I welcome the question. I make no promises as to the answer.”
I’d seen her naked once, and she was really good at it.
Molly’s One-woman Rave spell could get more attention than a crash at an airshow.
She took my hands. “I’ve seen things in you over the past day that . . . concern me.” “Concern you.” “They scare the holy loving fuck out of me,” she said calmly, by way of clarification.
