She was the epic crush of my childhood. She was the tragedy that made me look inside myself and see my corrupt heart. She was my sin and my salvation, come back from the grave to change me forever. Again. Back then, when she sat on my bed and told me she loved me, I wanted her as much as I have ever wanted anything.

Let her alone,' said the enkanto, 'or I will curse you blind, lame, and worse.' The old man laughed. 'I'm a curse breaker, fool.' The elf grabbed one of the Jim Beam bottles from the table and slammed it down, so that he was holding a jagged glass neck. The elf smiled a very thin smile. 'Then I won't bother with magic.

You in trouble?” Sam asks. The way he says it, I wonder if he’s thinking about how to get out of here if I am.

I got bored," he says. "Besides, you know what's creepier than walking around your dead brothers' apartment? Sitting alone in a hearse in front of his apartment.

People said that video games were bad because they made you numb to death, made you register entrails splattering across a screen as a sign of success. In that moment, Val thought that the real problem with games was that the player was suppossed to try everything. If there was a cave, you went in it. If there was a mysterious stranger, you talked to him. If there was a map, you followed it. But in games, you had a hundred million billion lives and Val only had this one.

I thought weirdness was a good thing. I don't mean that defensively, either. I thought it was something to be cultivated.

We’re all dying, Cassel. It’s just that some of us are dying faster than others.