And you would have lost. We were surrounded. He threatened your life, and he would have made good on that threat. He had you, and that meant he had me, too.

Chauncey seethed at the outrageous insult. "And your father?" he demanded, extending the sword. He didn't yet know all his vassals, but he was learning. He would brand the family name of this boy to memory.

You’re impinging on my private space,” I said, inching backward. Patch gave a barely-there smile. "Impinging? This isn’t the SAT, Nora.

And anyway, the first three letters in the word diet should tell you what I want it to do.

I'm not good," he said, piercing me with eyes that absorbed all light but reflected none, "but I was worse.

Patch was in my life for a reason. I needed him. We were two halves of the same whole.

Call me Patch. I mean it. Call me.