Threadneedle (The Language of Magic, #1)

by Cari Thomas

The bells rang out as they had done for hundreds of years, their sombre music sweeping over London with grace and stillness, bright as the moon which was full and ripe in the sky. Despite the late hour, the city below was restless, tossing and turning in the darkness with lights and buses and cars and people – everywhere people – walking, rushing, working, drinking, dancing, sleeping; none taking any notice of the bells at all.

‘Well, true fairy tales are not always kind or pleasant but neither is life and we must live it anyway. Stories must be lived too; only then can they be understood.’

Her hair was somewhere between curly and frizzy, as manic as her general demeanour.

Now no one believes in anything and the only thing people fear is, you know, terrorism, or global warming, or a picture of their face becoming a meme.’

‘Men are always so quick to slap a label on things. I attribute most of the problems of the world to that. They think they’re being clever, carving everything up, but all true wisdom is lost that way.’

‘Hate is merely one of the depths of love.’

‘The media likes giving voices to the outspoken.’

‘Roses are a perfectly lovely flower.’ ‘They’re boring. A rose is a rose is a rose …’ ‘At least he gets a girl flowers, what do you give them, an STI?’

‘That’s the problem with a story, Anna, it doesn’t capture the complexity of it. The actions are there but the motives are hidden in the shadows or they are the hands that form the shadows on the wall.