One minute you could be getting a smoke in the alley on the Lower East Side with your friends, having drinks and dancing on tables in a popular nightclub. And the next minute, you could be dead.

Kingsley smiled his Cheshire smile. And without a word, he called up the white darkness - the subvertio - a spell that unlocked what could not be unlocked, that destroyed what could not be destroyed. There was a rumbling, a shaking, like the strongest earthquake, and the iron gate crumbled, and the path began to melt. the demon shrieked, but Kingsley just looked at Mimi the entire time. "Azrael...

You made a sacrifice. And heaven rewarded you.

No one was ever good enough for anybody's precious sons. No one ever called daughters precious, and why was that? Things had not changed very much. In the end women like Emily and Ingrid and Freya and Joanna only had one another to lean on. The men were wonderful when they were around, but their fires burned too bright, they lived too close to the sun - look what happened to her boy, and to her man. Gone. Women only had one another in the end.

The rose fell into his lap, and he looked up, startled. Mimi grinned. "Hey handsom" Mimi sent. "What's up?" Jack replied, without speaking. "Just thinking of you." Jack's smile deepened, and he threw the rose back at her so that it landed in her lap. Mimi tucked it behind her ear and fluttered her eyelashes appreciatively.

Bonds are like rules, they're meant to be broken.

One minute you could be getting a smoke in the alley on the Lower East Side with your friends, having drinks and dancing on tables in a popular nightclub. And the next minute, you could be dead.