Unnatural Magic

by C.M. Waggoner

all problems could be solved with hard work, a pleasant smile, and advanced mathematics.

You couldn’t argue with a blizzard or with Tsira’s mother, but at least the blizzard wouldn’t criticize your logic if you tried.

She was, however, irreproachably polite, and she thought that one of the essential abilities of a polite and genteel young lady was to create pleasant fictions in order to preserve her companions from unpleasant truths.

“If believing in the rights of ladies to publicly engage in serious scholarship and of gentlemen to publicly wear a delicious magenta taffeta in the summer makes me a radical, then I can only embrace the label.”

Prettiness is lent to you by youth; attractiveness is purchased with experience.”