If only Sam could have stayed just like the Dog, she thought. A comforting friend without the complication of romantic interest.There had to be something she could do to completely discourage him, short of throwing up, or making herself totally unattractive. "I'm thirty-five," she said at last.

Ow do you knock out a Denizen?" asked Suzy. "I tried it myself once or twice, but just hitting them never works." "It is not the force of the blow, but the authority with which it is delivered," quoth the raven.

I have never known what to tell anybody. Except that it is better to do something than nothing, even if the cost is great.

A year ago, I turned the final page of The Book of the Dead. I don't feel young any more.

I suppose you could call me...Soot," said the thing. "Yes...Soot. I have breathed it, lived in it, and eaten it for so long that it is a fitting name." "Eaten it?" asked Suzy. "Why eat soot?" "Boredom," said Soot.

Yet when ancient forces stir, many things are woken.

He was obviously a very arrogant ragamuffin, and younger than she was, to boot. And he was wearing a necromancer's bells! Apart from that, he was quite handsome, which was another black mark as far as she was concerned.