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If you’d come along during those years, I would have killed you just for looking at her. But I’m not a teenager anymore. I can think with more than my hormones now, enough to understand that the only person who gets to say what Lola wants is Lola.”
Let me—” “No.” The word came out of him like a bullet. It was so sudden, Lola actually flinched. Valente used the opportunity to step away, putting a foot of distance between himself and her drooping fingers.
She knew she was in for a rough ride since Paladins didn’t seem to come in anything less than hardcore,
His pencil dug into the paper, writing the words in vicious gouges.
You can live, Valente, but only if you stop being what Victor made you and start being what you made yourself. “A spirit?” Valente asked in a low, trembling voice. A legend, the Black Rider corrected.
The Paladin looked appalled. “It was a mole the size of an eight-year-old with a giant fleshy nose covered in little fingers!” “I’ve seen weirder,” Simon told her
Nothing is over until you’re dead, and even then, the gods negotiate.
“I am not ashamed to do what must be done,” the Paladin said. “But it will be more efficient not to constantly be interrupted with different versions of the same question.”
Morgan snorted. “As if I’d tell someone how to be more powerful than myself. A fairy kingdom’s size is directly proportionate to what its monarch can provide. I chose desire because humans never seem to run out of it, but even that pales next to the excess of cheap carbohydrates this world can produce.”
The queen rolled her eyes. “You do know giving them gossamer accelerates their growth, right? All that creativity and freedom goes straight to their heads. You’re going to end up with hundreds of brand-new fairies gunning for your crown if you don’t watch out.” “That’s fine with me,” Lola said, washing her hotel food down with a huge gulp of champagne. “My city needs people, and you don’t get rebellions if you don’t treat your citizens like the enemy.
“Again.” “I can’t… do it again,” Simon panted. “You must,” she told him sternly. “There are only two choices left to you now: do or fail.
It was highly infuriating, but the reason Victor had kept Jamie around for so long was because he trusted her to tell him the truth even when it wasn’t what he wanted to hear. Kings who lost touch with reality were kings in decline,
Humanity was even less reasonable about its heroes than it was about everything else, demanding sainthood and wrath in the same breath.
Your anti-dragon messaging never caught on like the anti-fairy stuff did. People just like them too much.” “They’re still monsters.” “They’re popular monsters,” she insisted. “Bethesda might laugh about eating babies, but she’s got a hardcore following, and the rest of her clan is even tougher. It doesn’t matter how much negative PR we run. It’s just not possible to come off as heroic when you’re attacking the family of the dragon everyone in the world calls ‘The Peacemaker.’”
You rose to power as an underdog, but now that the world believes you’re an unbeatable god, everyone you fight seems sympathetic by comparison. It doesn’t matter what enemy we match you up against. People just don’t like watching a strong man stomp down a weaker one.”
Victor couldn’t fathom the desperation that had led to such a terrible decision, but the first rule of war was to never interrupt the enemy when they were making a mistake.
Every time one snaked up to wrap its copper tendrils around the cut end, a fairy no bigger than his thumb appeared to slice through the connection with a sword made from the sharpened quill of a porcupine. It was so unexpected, so utterly bizarre, Victor had to watch it happen three more times before he finally accepted what he was seeing.
Victor’s abuse tended to be subtle and personal, good for breaking wills but not for generating outrage. In true Queen of Desire fashion, though, Morgan’s show was as tawdry and sensational as any news channel could wish. She’d even added children and dogs to the crowd Victor was yelling at to really tug at the heartstrings.
“You can’t,” Victor said as the giant hand lifted him into the air. “You can’t do this! You’re a city, not a death god!” A city with the world’s highest murder rate, the spirit reminded him as she pulled him toward the broken ceiling.
