If you wish, I shall go personally to your City and knock together the heads of Perlith and Galooney.

What was she to say? "The prodigal has returned? The mutineer wishes to be reinstated? The subordinate, having gone to a great deal of trouble to prove her commander wrong, has come back and promises to be a good little subordinate hereafter, or at least until next time?

And none at all has ridden at the king's side since Aerinha, goddess of honor and flame, first taught men to forge their blades. You'd think Aerinha would have had better sense.

I said with perfect honest, "I have no intention of trying to take these suckers out by myself, no.

He didn't look insane or inhuman. He did look uncooperative.

Perhaps it is a human thing, to look upon such beauty and fail to encompass it.

Cats were often familiars to workers of magic because to anyone used to wrestling with self-willed, wayward, devious magic--which was what all magic was--it was rather soothing to have all the same qualities wrapped up in a small, furry, generally attractive bundle that...might, if it were in a good mood, sit on your knee and purr. Magic never sat on anybody's knee and purred.