Kizzy wanted it all so bad her soul leaned half out of her body hungering after it, and that was what drove the goblins wild, her soul hanging out there like an untucked shirt.

I know. Life is so unfair. I'm still not going to pee on Karou's ex-boyfriend for you." "What? I wasn't even going to ask you to." In her most reasonable tone, Zuzana explained explained, "I just want you to pee in a balloon so I can drop it on him.

How much does your life have to suck to want the Apocalypse?

Where am I and doing what? You might well ask. Freaky chick, you say? You can't imagine. I am priestess of a sandcastle in a land of dust and starlight.

I was going to say the beginning is the good part, when it's all sparks and sparkles, before they are inevitably unmasked as assholes.

You could look out the window today, see the sky raining fire, and say that it has all been for nothing, everything we've ever done, because now we've lost. But folk were born and lived and knew friendship and music in this city, ugly as it is, and all across this land that we fought for. Some grew old, and others were less lucky. Many bore children and raised them, and had the pleasure of making them, too, and we gave them that for as long as we could. Who has ever done more, my friend?

Staring at her face, she began to fancy her outer layer had begun to melt away while she wasn't paying attention, and something -- some new skeleton -- was emerging from beneath the softness of her accustomed self. With a deep, visceral ache, she wished her true form might prove to be a sleek and shining one, like a stiletto blade slicing free of an ungainly sheath. Like a bird of prey losing its hatchling fluff to hunt in cold, magnificent skies. That she might become something glittering, something startling, something dangerous.