You defy beings that should cow you into silence. You resist forces that are inevitable for no more reason than that you believe they should be resisted. You bow your head to neither demons nor angels, and you put yourself in harm’s way to defend those who cannot defend themselves.
I hurled my fear and my loneliness, my love and my respect, my rage and my pain. I made of my thoughts a hammer, infused with the fires of creation and tempered in the icy power of the darkest guardian the earth had ever known.
Paranoia – because why should the conspiracy theorists get to have all the fun?
Children run everywhere for a reason – it’s fun. Grown-ups can forget that sometimes.
I’m afraid it isn’t good news. The Council seems to have gone quite mad.
When I look into someone’s eyes, into their soul, their innermost being, they can see mine in return – the things I had done, the things I was willing to do, the things I was capable of doing.
A duel would mean a fair fight, and I hate fair fights. In the words of a murderous Faerie Queen, they’re too easy to lose. Of.
I shied away from that line of thought, lest it bring up too many old memories.
Wow,” Bob said, in a perfectly calm, matter-of-fact, conversational tone. “That is incredibly unfair.
A house doesn’t make a home. When the place has got history, family, emotions, worries, joys worked into the wood, that’s when it gets a solid threshold.
I knew what it was like to have holes in my life in the shape of people who should have been there.
Faith in what?” “That things will unfold as they are meant to,” Forthill said. “That even in the face of an immediate ugliness, the greater picture will resolve into something all the more beautiful.
I witnessed the birth of time itself. I watched the mortal coil spring forth from perfect darkness. I watched the stars form, watched this world coalesce, watched as life was breathed into it and as your kind rose to rule it.” She put both hands on the table and leaned toward me, her blue eyes cold and hard. “Thus far, I have behaved as a guest ought. But do not mistake propriety for weakness, mortal. I beg you not to oblige me to take further action.
At the end of the day, the greatest power Harry has is in lifting up the people around him.
Intentions count for far less than the consequences of the actions born from them.
Hat up, go kill her. Problem solved.” “Bob,” I said. “You can’t just go around killing people.” “I know. That’s why you should do it.” “No, no. I can’t go around killing people, either.” “Why not? You’ve done it before. And you’ve got a new gun and everything.
More than that, though, it gained a definite spiritual chill. Malevolent energy hovered around us, slow and thick like half-frozen honey. There was a gloating, miserly quality to it, bringing to my mind images of old Smaug lying in covetous slumber upon his bed of treasure.
It takes calculation to win a duel against a reptile, and you’ve always been impatient.
Come with me if you want to live.
Speak only to those who listen. Anything else is a waste of breath. The answers to your questions were there, if you listened for them.