It was Kizzy's first kiss and maybe it was her last and it was delicious.

So violent. You want to mug and tase everybody these days." "I do," Zuzana agreed. "I swear I hate more poeple every day. Everyone annoys me. If I'm like this now, what am I going to be like when I'm old?" "You'll be the mean old biddy who fires a BB gun at kids from her balcony." "Nah. BBs just rile 'em up. More like a crossbow. Or a bazooka.

It was sadness, lostness, and the worst thing about it was the way it seemed like a default—like it was there all the time, and all her other expressions were just an array of masks she used to cover it up.

...something was starting to take shape, out of magic and will. Smoke and bone.

This gown, is it cut from shadow?" the general asked. "I can barely feel it between my fingers." Not for want of trying, thought Madrigal. "Perhaps it is a reflection of the night sky," he suggested, "skimmed from a pond?" She supposed that he was being poetic. erotic, even. In return, as unerotically as possible- more like complaining of a stain that wouldn't come out-she said, "Yes, my lord. I went for a dip, and the reflection clung.

Zuzana arched an eyebrow. She was a master of the eyebrow arch, and Karou envied her for it. Her own eyebrows did not function independently of each other, which handicapped her expressions of suspicion and disdain.

Happiness. It was the place where passion, with all its dazzle and drumbeat, met something softer: homecoming and safety and pure sunbeam comfort. It was all those things, intertwined with the heat and the thrill, and it was as bright within her as a swallowed star.