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But she had died, nine years ago, and his father had contracted, as if a weight had settled on him and concertinaed him downward and inward. Everything in the house had felt smaller—diminished and less brave—after that.
And so he grew older and taller—they were a tall family, with gangling legs and finely made hands—and he waited. What he was waiting for, Christopher couldn’t have explained: he only hoped, in a way that burned in his lungs and stomach, that there was something more than that which he had so far seen. The animals felt like a promise.
“They follow me around whenever I come to town,” said Frank Aureate, gesturing to the gulls as Christopher approached. His voice was deep, Scottish. “It’s always been that way, with the animals. I wouldn’t mind, you know, with the gulls, except that they make eating outside a task. They take an aggressive interest in my sandwiches.” He unlocked the passenger door.
There was something vivid about her, something tremendous, as if she might be about to erupt.
He looked very stubborn, and very upright, with mud and the blood of the kludde still on his clothes, and Nighthand smiled half a smile, and felt old, and poured most of a bottle of brandy into his coffee.
It smelled of something rich and woody and slightly overpowering: like money, distilled. She
Untroubled by the sphinx, the griffin, one of life’s great anticipators, quivered with hope at what might come.
“For instance: consider the greatest riddle of all—what you should do with your one brief life? The answer is different for each person. There is no neat answer, though many have tried to offer one. There are no answers to being alive. There are only strong pieces of advice.” “Such as?” said Irian. “The wisdom of a sphinx would be worth hearing.” The sphinx swept her eyes over them. “For example”—and she looked at Christopher, at Mal—“stop expecting life to get easier. It never does; that is not where its goodness lies. Or”—and she looked at Irian, at Nighthand—“do not wait for people to be
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The thought of what had happened took up so much of his chest that he was barely able to breathe.
Christopher had never, until then, known what it was to break your heart. He had not realized it would feel so physical; that the place in his chest where his lungs should be would feel like broken glass. It hurt to breathe.
She spoke in the dark. “I wish someone had told me.” “What?” “About the worst question.” “What question?” “The question What if I had done it differently?”
won’t pretend that you’re forgiven. Your kind are excused so much, so often, so easily—a flash of money and all’s well. I won’t play that game.
Jealousy is not like anything else. It is a locust. It eats a great deal that cannot be spared.
It is possible to wound a sphinx, it turned out: you do it by breaking their heart.
His love for Mal had been the finest part of him—he knew that already. It had made him brave. It is what is meant by miracles. And though she was gone, the love burned on.
The lavellan has no interest in harming humans unless provoked, but its definition of provoked is a broad one and can include sniffing, laughing, and all forms of interpretive dance.
