The funeral is a quiet one, despite the number of mourners present. There are no sobs or flailing handkerchiefs. There is a smattering of color amongst the sea of traditional black. Even the light rain cannot push it down into the realms of despair. It rests instead in a space of thoughtful melancholy.

Only the ship is made of books, its sails thousands of overlapping pages, and the sea it floats upon is dark black ink.

And now, I'm a best selling author, a different sort of fairy tale that I still sometimes wonder when I'll wake up from.

I keep waiting for things to get back down to whelming, but they stay at overwhelming.

Have you tried the cinnamon things?" Poppet asks. "They're rather new. What are they called, Widge?" "Fantastically delicious cinnamon things?

It is a matter of perspective, the difference between opponent and partner," Tsukiko says. "You step to the side and the same person can be either or both or something else entirely. It is difficult to know which face is true.

I have never lied, “ Mr. Barris counters, standing as well. “I do not share what I am not at liberty to say. I gave my word and I intend to keep it but I have never lied to you. You never even asked me, you assumed I knew nothing.