An Unexpected Peril (Veronica Speedwell, #6)

by Deanna Raybourn

“Gravity comes for us all in the end,” I remarked.

I have always believed that while one may be familiar immediately upon making a dog’s acquaintance, a cat will stand for no such informality.

“We have a saying in the Alpenwald, Fraulein. Plans are jokes written by men for God’s amusement.”

“I know very little, but I am curious about a good deal,” I corrected.

“You are not among the good that has happened to me. You are the best of all that I have known. You are what I searched for when I left that house and wandered this earth, boy and man. You are the part of myself I never thought to find because I did not even dare to dream you existed. You are all that I want and more than I deserve, and I will go to my grave thanking a god in whom I do not believe for bringing me to you.”

You are all that I want and more than I deserve, and I will go to my grave thanking a god in whom I do not believe for bringing me to you.

For some, grief was a devil, to be shut out upon the doorstep and ignored. But the notion of accepting that it would be a constant visitor in one guise or another seemed to me the beginning of wisdom.

Death is part of life, child. It is not the end. It is not even the middle. It is merely a doorway. Alice is no further away from me than if she had stepped into the next room.”