"You can fly. I can fly. Anyone who can afford a ten-crown airship ticket and is fool enough to board one of the ungainly things can fly. That's my point, Mistress -- why bother with these flapping coils of yours, when the skies are filled with amusingly-named airships ready and waiting to bear y...
I wished I had gulped down that last cup of Mama’s tea but I settled for whistling instead. Rannit bustled all around me, stinking, cursing, working and drinking all at once all around me. Ogres passed, and each and every one dipped their gaze at me, as they had since that night. Darla said I’d...
The artists, bless them, still slept. I set Scatter and his fellows to moving them out of the way while Evis and the halfdead darted to and fro, arranging the paintings in a rough circle about the room. I took the canvas I’d painted. Mama was grasping every bird she owned. Gertriss was muttering ...
I probably would have drowned, had Mr. Waters not grabbed me by the hair and yanked me out. The bathhouse was filling up. The Arwheat brothers were there, shouting and shoving and laughing. Old Mr. Bull was in for his monthly bath. He looked wizened and almost Elvish peeping up through the suds. ...
She’d not been a lovely woman. She’d had bug eyes and a weak chin and the kind of nose that evokes words such as “beak” or “proboscis” as descriptors. Her frown lines were deep and marked and spoke of a face set perpetually in a fierce, disapproving scowl. Death had eased her scowl, at least. Now...
Sunlight shone and set the birds to singing, and it felt good on my face and arms. I leaned with my back on a tall, sad marble angel and kept my eyes on the widow’s urn atop the Sarge’s stone. Orthodox tradition demanded that the Sarge’s widow pass each day for thirty days after the funeral. The ...
“Well. Vonat spies, trained in sorcery. This day gets better and better by the moment, doesn’t it?”Meralda nodded. In her hand was a pencil. She resisted a sudden urge to chew on it.“Why doesn’t Yvin just arrest every last Vonat and toss them in the dungeon until after the Accords?” sputtered Mug...
Rannit lost another block of stores in the wake of the death god’s demise. Stitches believes it is well and truly dead too, not just lurking in some congruent but uninvolved space while stalking a new body to inhabit. She claims that my heroic sacrifice created a paradox, and the death god paid t...
"Dark as Hell and twiced as hot," muttered Swain from the shadows behind the clerk's map-table. A ragged chorus of ayes answered. The Captain checked his pocket watch; ten o'clock sharp. Old Swain and his hourly announcements hadn't lost a minute in twenty years. The Captain sn...
This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smash...
She had left instructions to be awakened promptly at three in the afternoon. By half-past two, Darla and I were halfway across the Brown River Bridge, laughing at the bridge clowns as they capered and dodged. Darla had asked once if Evis was any better. I’d told her I coul...
he said, hovering so close to the brass-trimmed salon porthole that the bars of his flying birdcage touched the thick glass. “We’re done for now.”Meralda pretended not to hear. The ground fell away. The lights and crowds gathered for the early evening launch in the Park shrank, slowly disappearin...