Hemlock & Silver

by T. Kingfisher

simply dead, without possibility of appeal. I was eleven and still believed in the fundamental justice of the world.

There is a crazy-wild delight that comes over you when you discover something new, something extraordinary. If you try to share that and people look at you blankly, it’s crushing. But if there’s someone else there to say really?! and take fire with enthusiasm alongside you—well, that will keep you going for a long time.

Cook, who was from Tohal originally and normally helped me practice, had banned all such discussion from the kitchen the day that I learned to conjugate the word vomit.)

collapse, death … It turned out that the sort of adults who were willing to listen to children prattle on about puppies and kitties and ponies and parties got a bit twitchy when a small girl began lecturing on toxicology.

“That’s the thing about learning. You get to keep it.”

“A triumph of enthusiasm over medical knowledge.”

Actual unicorns seem to be as rare as honest men.)

Any nonzero number of talking cats is significant!

She should have looked like a statue, but somehow she didn’t. The overall impression was of a human standing very, very still.

This and the rest of this section is the most deeply disturbing thing I've read since The Hollow Places.

I wondered how many words he was allotted a week and whether he had been going into a deficit with all the talking I’d been demanding.

Should you happen to be dying and have a choice between me and a cactus to nurse you, the cactus will likely be less prickly and do a better job.