She was unprepared for how much the way into Coldtown looked like a shoddily run DMV.
When it’s done, we’ll be like brothers,” said the devil. “I already have a brother,” Gavriel slurred. “He’s dead.” The devil loomed over him, his grin widening to show off sharp teeth. “As am I.” Gavriel opened his mouth to shout, but drunk as he was, he began to laugh instead.
Call went through much of the next day in a daze.
Summer was supposed to be the best part of the year, but so far Nikki’s summer sucked. It sucked hard. It sucked like a vacuum that got hold of the drapes.
The odd thing about ambition is this: You can acquire it like a fever, but it is not so easy to shed. Once, I was content to hope for knighthood and the power to force Cardan and his friends to leave me alone. All I wanted was to find some place to fit in here in Faerie. Now I wonder what it would be like to choose the next king.
We know about your brother. He called and told us himself. Said to imagine Faerieland like an exclusive boarding school in Switzerland. I told him it was more like an exclusive boarding school in hell.
Sometimes it’s easier to be mad at the people close to us,” Vivi said, “than to be mad at the people who deserve it.
Madoc described fighting as a lot of things, as a game of strategy played at speed, as a dance, but right now it feels like a argument. Like an argument where she’s keeping me too busy defending myself to score any points.
You’re the only one I can talk to, Call,” said Jasper. “You mean because I’m chained to this floor and can’t get away?
I’ve seen the hood, kept under glass in the armory. The fabric is stiff and stained a brown so deep it’s almost black, except for a few smears of green. Sometimes I go down and stare at it, trying to see my parents in the tide lines of dried blood. I want to feel something, something besides a vague queasiness. I want to feel more, but every time I look at it, I feel less.
But standing in front of Midnight, knowing what actually happened, Tana could see that Midnight wasn’t just telling a story to other people, she was telling a story to herself.
The vampire looked at her in bewilderment. Then he glanced toward the door and his expression grew sly. “If you free me, I could hold them off.
I’m not even a little bit dead.
Fire can either burn down your house or warm it.
The basement smelled damp, like mold and minerals, as she started down the creaking, wooden stairs. Her mother had stopped screaming the moment the door opened. Everything was very quiet as Tana descended, the scratch of her shoes on the wood loud in her ears. Her foot hesitated on the last step. Then something knocked her down.
I wanted so badly to believe that being in Dain’s service was an honor, that he was someone worth following. That’s what comes of hungering for something: You forget to check if it’s rotten before you gobble it down.
He took out another black cigarette from his silver case, fitted it into his cigarette holder, and lit it.
Air all around him, there was air in the water, all elements were one, fire and earth, air and water. All are but one thing, not four, not two, and not three, but one. He.
Then, once the window was open, it would have been easy to forget to close it. There was still the garlic, after all, still the holy water on the lintels. Things like this happened in Europe, in places like Belgium, where the streets teemed with vampires and the shops didn’t open until after dark. Not here. Not in Tana’s town, where there hadn’t been a single attack in more than five years.
Oh, God, Call thought. Tamara’s father. And he’d just kissed Tamara. Was that why Mr. Rajavi was here? Don’t be totally ridiculous, said Aaron. Do you think he’s psychic or something? Kimiya was grounded for making out with Evil Overlord Alex – Tamara had said so. Mr. Rajavi had a well-established policy of not liking his children making out with Evil Overlords.