I'd like to thank readers. Every time you open a book, it is a strike against ignorance. Unless you're reading Sarah Palin.

They have money and position and Ann has none.It's amazing how often you can be right as long as you have those two things working in your favor.

But...you could have whatever you wished." "Exactly," he says, nuzzling my neck. "But," I say, "you could turn stones to rubies or ride in a fine gentleman's carriage." Kartik puts his hands on either side of my face. "To each his own magic," he says and kisses me again.

He took comfort in the neon signs, the wild strands of jazz creeping out of clubs whenever happy swells of people pushed through the doors in their finery.

I'm like everyone else in this stupid, bloody, amazing world. I'm flawed. Impossibly so. But hopeful. I'm still me.

People will believe anything if it means they can go on with their lives and not have to think too hard about it.

Beneath the skin, there is fear. Pain. Remorse. Yearning. Desire. A fierce longing for power. All of this. We are joined. It is as if we live in the center of a great storm. Around us the world of the realms revolves like a giant kaleidoscope, images refracted again and again. So many worlds! So much to know.