A Sorceress Comes to Call

by T. Kingfisher

Like many men not overly encumbered by intelligence, he had a great deal of cunning in avoiding personal unpleasantness.

One of the advantages of age was that you could think a great deal while simply sitting still, and no one would poke you and demand that you go and do something useful.

The Ladies’ Book of Etiquette said that interrupting was “very ill-bred,” which, coming from Miss Florence, was a judgment so savage as to consign the victim immediately to the fires of Perdition.

“I’m fifty, you know.” “Yes, and if you were a man, you’d be considered barely old enough for politics.

“Beautiful women have an easier time of it, at least while they’re young and beautiful. The rest of us must develop style. It’s not so easy as beauty, but it lasts longer, and it’s less brittle.”

If a man keeps bringing up another woman’s name, be on your guard. He’ll tell you that they’re friends or that it’s over between them, but if her name’s on his tongue, it means she’s in his thoughts.

sometimes it didn’t matter if you broke. You kept going. You weren’t given a choice.

“I go to confession whenever the guilt gets to be too much.” “And how often is that?” “It hasn’t happened yet, but you never know.

“Madam.” He frowned at her. “I am a butler. Do you truly believe that I do not know how to dispatch a houseguest if required?”