Chin held high, Miss Ohio beamed at an imagined crowd. "I want to be a motivational speaker." "What are you going to motivate people to do?" Smile still in place, she cut her eyes at Adina. "You know. Motivational ... stuff.

Dead bodies are such trouble,” Evie said with a little sigh, and Mabel had to turn her head away so as not to laugh.

War." Gorgon spits the word. "That is what they call it to give the illusion of honor and law. It is chaos. Madness and blood and the hunger to win. It has always been thus and shall always be so.

Her eyes take on that suspicious, wounded look girls get when they know they've fallen off the top rung of friendship and someone else has passed them, but they don't know when or how the change took place.

Peace is not happenstance. It is a living fire that must be fed constantly. It must be tended to with vigilance, else it dies out.

Prepared to fly, even if she has to loose her legs to do it

But sons are a different matter to a man. More a duty than an indulgence.