I did have regrets these past six months,” he told me quietly. “I found it a curse as much as a blessing, all that time to think. About the things I could have said, that I should have told you . . .

He shook me, and despite it being one-handed, it made my teeth rattle. “If anything like that ever happens again. You. Leave. Me. Behind. Do you understand?” I would have argued, but I was feeling a little shocky for some reason. “I’m not good at abandoning people,” I finally said. A front-desk person scurried over, first-aid kit in hand, but Pritkin snarled at the poor guy and he quickly backed up a step. “Then get good at it!” He stomped off, limping, one shoulder hanging at an odd angle. “You’re welcome,” I murmured.

I’m driving,” Louis-Cesare said, sliding into the low seat as easily as if he’d done it a hundred times. “You’re drunk.” I wished. “I had all of two beers, mostly for the water content.” “If you needed water, why didn’t you drink water?” “I don’t like water.

This was Dante's. Crazy was what we had for breakfast when we ran out of Corn Flakes

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.

We're going jogging." "I don't run for recreation. I run when someone's after me with a weapon." "That can be arranged.

Dorina?" Louis Cesare's voice was loud in my ear. The one I had squeezed against the phone, which was squeezed against my sore shoulder, becuase I was using both hands to keep Ray's point in his pants. "The fey, damm it!" I told him. "They're for the fey!" "Which one?" Louis Cesare asked, his voice going velvety soft. "All of them- No Ray! Ray, cut it out!" "All of them?