Prosper's Demon

by K.J. Parker

By all accounts, Hildigunn had a tin ear, didn’t like any painting that wasn’t blue, and had to sign her name through a stencil, but she knew a class act when she saw one, and always had to have the best.

I was entirely convinced, until I remembered it isn’t actually true.

And what he loved above all other things was being right. Not merely having people acknowledge that he’s right; because they may be wrong, more than likely in fact, because everyone else is so dumb.

And belief, like love and sleep, is something you can’t do anything about. You can’t make it come if you want it, and you can’t make it go if you don’t.

only two things live forever, the instruments of darkness and works of genius. Which, I now had disturbingly good reason to believe, might not be such separate categories as I’d once thought. Collaborations.