Running Close to the Wind

by Alexandra Rowland

what was the point of having money if you didn’t have friends?

Not every day you come across somebody so wise and so shoulders.”

“You want me to not cause problems. But you see, Markefa, I have decided to cause problems.”

I will cause … different problems.”

There was one particular thing that Cat did—that all the beauties on this street did, in fact—that Avra did not like at all: Sometimes they looked at him and their eyes went right fucking through him. Like that truthwitch. Like they were noticing something about him and conspicuously not saying anything about it.

Fifty-two is the kind of number that should be sung about for a hundred years.” “I’m a poet, Cat, I know my job.”

I am developing a sense of personal dignity, Tev.” “You are hiding under the bed and chattering.” “It’s a work in progress.

the most crushing setback is to fail in a way that puts people you care about in danger.”

Sharing knowledge freely and openly is a great act of piety, perhaps the greatest of them all.

“When I say ‘one absolute madman,’ that’s not somebody less sane, because nobody’s sane. That’s just somebody who’s decided that leaving his mask off gets him where he wants to be, which is usually somewhere really weird that nobody expects him to go.”