I left it with a warmer,” he said drily. Because war mages ate their fried chicken frozen to the ground and they liked it.

I was tops at the Scarlet O'Hara school of emotional distancing. I always thought about the uncomfortable stuff tomorrow, and, as everyone knows, tomorrow never comes.

It's about time! It's supposed to be a ritual, not a marathon.

Stercus Accidit. [barren happens]

Mess with my weed again and I’ll be informing Daddy that there was an early casualty on the mission.” I saw him wince at my designation for Mircea and grinned.

I hadn't realized how much I'd relied on his scowls or his shrugs or his grudging looks of approval to help me figure something out-until they weren't there anymore. Or how I could talk to some people about a lot of things but only to him about everything. And how unbelievably valuable that was.

Think you can maybe not die for five minutes?" "I'll try,"I told him seriously. "You know, if anyone else said that, it would be funny.