..."I ran out of stock around midnight and dropped by a place, got some Chinese." I hoped he meant takeout.

A gentleman would have announced himself!” I told him, pressing against the side of the tub. “And a scoundrel would have joined you.” -- Kit Marlowe to the witch Gillian (shortly before joining her in the tub!)

Poireaux vinaigrette aux grains de caviar.” I did a quick translation. “Leeks and fish eggs in vinegar?” He grinned. “It sounds better in French.” Yeah, but did it taste better?

I’m beginning to sense a theme,” Mircea said, tossing his suit coat over a buckskin-covered chair. A moose head with huge, outspread antlers loomed over it, its bright glass eyes looking oddly lifelike in the low light. Mircea took in the room, his expression slightly repulsed yet fascinated. “I believe there is only one thing to say at this point.” What’s that?” Yee haw,” he said gravely, and took me down like a rodeo calf.

I barely heard him, I was too busy watching Pritkin, who had slumped over with his head on the sofa arm, shoulders shaking helplessly, and what looked suspiciously like tears leaking out from under his closed eyes. "Not that bad," he muttered, and then he was off again.

They always assumed that I did not speak. That I could not. So many had plotted my death, discussed it, laughed about it, even while I was in the same room, because they assumed I was mindless. Like one of the failures of their kind, born mad. But I was not a failure. I was what I was supposed to be. I was dhampir. And they never lived to tell anyone they were wrong.

But you were Mine. My child. And I would not give you up.