If I might make a suggestion,” said Will. “About twenty paces behind us, in the Council room, is Benedict. If you’d like to go back in there and try kicking him, I recommend aiming upward and a bit to the left—

I can't believe you know someone named Freaky Pete," said Simon. "I know alot of people," said Luke. "Not that Freaky Pete is strictly people, but I'm hardly one to talk.

Do you really wish to disobey me, Marbas? Do you wish to anger my father?

Looking for an entirely reliable informant is like looking for a chaste mistress.

What you said was true. we don't live or love in a vacuum. There are people around us who care about us who would be hurt, maybe destroyed if we let ourselves feel what we might want to feel.

James, you are all the family I have. I would die for you. You know that. I would die without you. If it were not for you, I would be dead a hundred times over these past five years. I owe you everything, and if you cannot believe I have empathy, perhaps you might at least believe I know honor--honor, and debt--

The witchlight made his skin paler, his eyes more intently blue. They were the color of the water in the North Atlantic, where the ice drifted on its blue-black surface like the snow clinging to the dark glass pane of a window.