Ellen could have killed me," Jack said quietly, "but she didn't. She saved my life." "How come?" Fitch demanded. "After all this?" Ellen turned scarlet and stared at the ground. "Maybe none of my opponents ever gave me flowers before," she mumbled.

They were like two pieces of a failed star, drawn together by a shared history and a memory of illicit kisses.

One more thing: Linda, can you get to Canterbury and take over my Chaucerian Society? They're at Dovecote Hostelry in the old city. We're visiting all the scenes of the great murders. Tomorrow they want to see where Becket was killed. They're a bloodthirsty lot, it seems.

The human mind had a remarkable ability both to discount what it sees and make reality conform to expectation.

Admit nothing - that was his first rule. Appeal to logic - second rule. Delay the inevitable - third rule.

Jason settled back on the bench. 'I hate to break this to you, but as a rule, wizards are nasty people. They're powerful, capricious, ruthless, egotistical, used to getting their own way. That's being kind.

A vocation is not something you slap on, like a coat of paint, and change whenever you want. A vocation is built into you. You have no choice. If you try to do something else, you fail.