Al's voice was faint but resolute. "Stand up. Try to look sexy." "In a bedsheet?" I complained, running my hands down it. "How can I look sexy in a bedsheet?" He cleared his throat, and I grimaced. "Never mind.

I thought Trent should get over his pixy paranoia and admit he had an eerie attraction to them, like every other pure-blood elf I’d met. So he liked pixies. I liked double-crunch ice cream, but you didn’t see me avoiding it in the grocery store.

Somehow I found him. Somehow I found Al's sarcastic thoughts, bitter and old. Tired, angry, bored. Alone.

He grinned. “That’s because pixies are ever-after. We’re magic, baby. Just ask Matalina.

Death and blood didn’t turn on a vampire. Fear and the chance to take blood did. There was a difference.

You are your father's daughter,' he said, the skin around his eyes tightening. 'Trent is his father's son. Apart, you are annoying. Together...you have the potential to be a problem.

Do you have a sleeping bag?” I stared at him. “No. I lost it in the great salt-dip of ’06.