Secrets have power. And that power diminishes when they are shared, so they are best kept and kept well. Sharing secrets, real secrets, important ones, with even one other person, will change them. Writing them down is worse, because who can tell how many eyes might see them inscribed on paper, no matter how careful you might be with it. So it's really best to keep your secrets when you have them, for their own good, as well as yours.

It's too late. It was too late by the time I arrived in London to turn your notebook into a dove; there were too many people already involved. Anything either of us does has an effect on everyone here, on every patron who walks through those gates. Hundreds if not thousands of people. All flies in a spiderweb that was spun when I was six years old and now I can barely move for fear of losing someone else.

Old stories have a habit of being told and retold and changed. Each subsequent storyteller puts his or her mark upon it. Whatever truth the story once had is buried in bias and embellishment. The reasons do not matter as much as the story itself.

Love is fickle and fleeting," Tsukiko continues. "It is rarely a solid foundation for decisions to be made upon, in any game.

Widge can see the past." Poppet says suddenly. "That's why his stories are so good." "The past is easier," Widget says. "It's already there." "In the stars?" Bailey asks. "No." Widget says. "On people. The past stays on you the way powdered sugar stays on fingers. Some people can get rid of it but it's still there, the events and t hings that pushed you to where you are now.

Misdirection is one of my strengths.

Could you do such things when you were a dancer?' Tara asks her, as Tsukiko pulls a leg up impossibly far over her head. 'I would have had a much busier social calendar if I could,' Mme. Padva replies with a shake of her head.