A Treacherous Curse (Veronica Speedwell, #3)

by Deanna Raybourn

“I assure you, I am perfectly capable of identifying a phallus when I see one,”

I had long since discovered upon my travels that men are largely the same no matter where one encounters them. And if one is prepared to let them discourse on their pet topics of conversation, one can generally get on with things quite handily without any interference.

“Stop scrutinizing me as if I were one of your damned butterflies,”

What is it about the pair of you that you must be so contrary?” “What is it about the rest of the world that it cannot take us as we are?” I asked.

“What was it that Napoleon said, my lady? ‘Impossible is a word only to be found in the dictionary of fools.’”

She regarded him and counted only the damage; I saw only the places where he had stitched himself back together. What repelled her was to me the greatest part of him. Every mark that his suffering had left upon him was a mute monument to his strength, the inhuman courage that had caused him to reject death and degradation and every evil with which he had consoled himself on the long journey back from his destruction. He had walked through hellfire and back again and she saw only the scorch marks whilst I saw the phoenix.

“It can be a thankless and tiresome task, always being the person who holds the world together,” I said gently.

ALIS VOLAT PROPRIIS. She flies with her own wings. How much easier to do that! If I refused, I should carry on as I had, keeping myself as solitary as I chose. I should be comfortable, I reflected.

“Most people are incapable of understanding a woman like you,” he said simply. “You defy comprehension.”

life is not about achievement. It is about the effort. If one takes pleasure in every step, one enjoys the whole journey.”

“Because there is no power on earth that could make me abandon our friendship. There is no deed you could confess so dark that it would make me forsake you. You said of us once that we were quicksilver and the rest of the world mud. We are alike, shaped by Nature in the same mold, and whatever that signifies, it means that to spurn each other would be to spit in the face of whatever deity has seen fit to bring us together. We are the same, and to leave you would be to leave myself. Make of that what you will.”