A pause came between them, and it was so full of Akiva that Karou imagined she could smell him.

Like mold on books, grow myths on history.

Is it good or bad?" she asked Issa. The wrong question, she knew. She just couldn't help herself. "It's both, sweet girl," said Issa. "like everything.

I want.." she said, knowing what she wanted, feeling pulled toward it, arching toward it, but hardly knowing how to say it.

Around Mik, my powers desert me. I lose basic motor function, like my brain focuses all neural activity on my lips and shifts into kiss preparedness mode way too early, to the detriment of things like speech, and walking.

Did you know that mako shark fetuses eat each other in the womb?... Its true. Only cannibal fetuses survive to be born. Can you imagine if people were like that?

It was as if she had emitted a pulse of radiation that reached him even where he stood, and it bathed him and it burned him.