This is payback, isn't it?" Jim glared at me. "Don't be ridiculous," I told him. "As the Consort of the Pack, I'm far above petty revenge.

Im's offspring stare at stars and make clocks that calculate useless happenings like the angle of a hawk's claws as it strikes its prey. They demonstrate their contraptions and everyone marvels. My children get drunk, confuse a herd of cows with an enemy regiment, and slaughter the lot, screaming like lunatics until the entire army panics.

If you come, you better come in force because I will kill every single one of you. My hand won't shake, my aim won't falter. My face will be the last thing you'll see before you die." I jammed my knife into the table and walked out.

I could have fixed almost everything else, but death defeated me every time.

I dropped all the guards. All the leashes, all the chains, everything that ever restrained me through the discipline and fear of discovery, I let it all go. No need to hide.

How is it that I could run into a gunfight against overwhelming odds and put myself between bullets and civilians, but I couldn't scrape together enough courage to speak to the one person who mattered the most to me?

As he passed me, he leaned to Curran and handed him a paper fan folded from some sort of flyer. Curran looked at the fan. “What?” "An emergency precaution, Your Majesty. In case the lady faints.” Curran just stared at him. Raphael strode toward the Pit, turned, flexed a bit, and winked at me. "Give me that,” I told Curran. “I need to fan myself.” "No, you don’t.