Time, the greatest thief of all.

Mariano the Second had been the son of a fisherman, but he'd suffered from an unfortunate tendency toward seasickness and was forced to find a respectable career that could be safely conducted on dry land. So he built boats. Mariano the Third built bigger boats. And by the time a girl from a very different type of family business arrived at their shopfront on the Mediterranean coast, Mariano the Fourth had built and patented at least half a dozen of the most advanced (and justifiably expensive) watercrafts in the world.

The older generation sat looking at the younger, and Kat wondered exactly when and how the baton had been passed. She wanted to know if it was too late to give it back.

What about a Princess Bride?" "Where are we gonna find a six-fingered man on such short notice?

Ambassador Winters, allow me to introduce my aunt Abby and her....boyfriend.' Townsed tensed. Abby glared. And Rebecca Baxter looked like she was going to choke on her chewing gum.

There's a power that comes with silence. I had grown to fear the unsaid thing. So it felt like a release to say it-to admit that the risk wasn't just inside our walls-it was inside my skin. I was willing to claw, scratch, and bleed until I'd found it.

I could have lied. I could have fought. But desperate times call for desperate measures, so I took a chance and called upon a Gallagher Girl's weapon of last resort. I flirted