Rook

by William Ritter

But a part of me wondered if perhaps rainbows had always been magic that common people could see. Rainbows did look like auras. Maybe they were auras that slipped through the cracks to dazzle average folks, allowing humans a peek at the magic we were missing.

“You tell me.” He grinned. “You’re the expert now. Monet and Renoir don’t paint over each other’s canvases. You’ve got to form your own impressions.”

“You think I didn’t make messes?” he said. “My life has been one long series of messes, strung together like sausages. The trick, as far as I’ve been able to tell, is to clean up slightly more messes than you cause. Keeps the scales tipped in your favor.”

“Fun? Mr. Jackaby—the woman is dead !” “Obviously.” He lifted his head up from the bottom drawer of a cabinet. “I was, however, under the impression she was also awful. Awful first and then dead?”

“Miss Rook, if there’s one thing I’ve learned doing this work, it’s that being a leader is not the same thing as being independent. In fact, they’re quite the opposite.” He took a deep breath. “Being a good leader doesn’t mean not letting other people help you. It means being really good at letting other people help you.

Miss Lee rolled her eyes. “I saw a parade of emergency vehicles heading toward an enormous column of smoke,” she said. “I just assumed you would be at the end of it.” “Rude,” I said. “But not wrong, obviously.”