Glasses Cheers Quotes

A cry went up from the witches, save for the Thirteen—­who stayed cool and quiet. They did not need to cheer, for they ­were immortal and infinite and gloriously, wonderfully deadly.

And when Aelin lifted her head to survey the cheering crowd, when she smiled, Queen of Terrasen and the Faerie Queen of the West, she burned bright as a star.

Windows ­were shuttered as they passed, probably because of Rowan, who looked like nothing short of death incarnate. But he was surprisingly calm with the villagers they approached. He didn’t raise his voice, didn’t snarl, didn’t threaten. He didn’t smile, but for Rowan, he was downright cheerful.

I’m not a kid!” she told Shane hotly. “I’m only, like, a year younger than Eve!” “And girls are much more mature.” Eve nodded wisely. “So you’re about ten years older than Shane, then.” “Seriously,” Claire insisted. “I’m not a kid!” “Whatever you say, kid,” Shane said blandly. “Cheer up. Just means you don’t have to put up with me telling you how much sex I didn’t get.” “I’m telling Michael,” Eve warned. “About how much sex I didn’t get? Go ahead.

Excuse me. I think you must’ve accidentally used the wrong pronoun.” The growl that rumbled up out of his chest was loud enough to rattle the water glass on the bedside table. “Fine, you can stand in the corner and cheer while I kill him.

Eli drew his fingers through a ring of water on the table. “I don’t want to be forgotten.” He said it so softly he worried Victor wouldn’t hear, not over the chatter of the bar, but he clamped his hand down on Eli’s shoulder. For a moment he looked so serious, but then he let go and slumped back in his seat. “Tell you what,” said Victor. “You remember me, and I’ll remember you, and that way we won’t be forgotten.” “That’s shit logic, Vic.” “It’s perfect.” “And what happens when we’re dead?” “We won’t die, then.” “You make cheating death sound so simple.” “We do seem awfully good at it,” said Victor cheerfully. He lifted his glass. “To never dying.” Eli lifted his. “To being remembered.” Their glasses clinked as Eli added, “Forever.

Just out of curiosity, what were the boy names?” Grace hedges, clearly fighting a smile. He cheers up again. “Well, the top contender was Garrett.” I snicker loud enough to rattle Sabrina’s water glass. “Uh-huh,” I say, playing along. “And what was the runner-up?” “Graham.

And then finally, Aelin sat upon her throne. It weighed on her, nestled against her bones, that new burden. No longer an assassin. No longer a rogue princess. And when Aelin lifted her head to survey the cheering crowd, when she smiled, Queen of Terrasen and the Faerie Queen of the West she burned bright as a star.

You make cheating death sound so simple.” “We do seem awfully good at it,” said Victor cheerfully. He lifted his glass. “To never dying.” Eli lifted his. “To being remembered.” Their glasses clinked as Eli added, “Forever.

The old man slowly raised himself from the piano stool, fixed those cheerful blue eyes piercingly and at the same time with unimaginable friendliness upon him, and said: "Making music together is the best way for two people to become friends. There is none easier. That is a fine thing. I hope you and I shall remain friends. Perhaps you too will learn how to make fugues, Joseph.

Seriously, why do you read that crap?" asked the girl. Book Boy snapped his volume shut and removed his glasses from his nose. "I speak the truth! In all of these books the girls are throwing themselves at the romantic heroes- romantic heroes who are dead, ho drink human blood. Be of good cheer, my brothers, for I tell you there is hope!" One of the other guys, a large black chap, rolled his lone eye. "Okay, you're cut off. Someone get him a cookbook or something." "Or, you know, some fair damsel to seduce," the girl said, looking up from her reflection.

To live with tremendous and proud composure; always beyond —. To have and not to have one's affects, one's pro and con, at will; to condescend to them, for a few hours; to seat oneself on them as on a horse, often as on an ass — for one must know how to make use of their stupidity as much as of their fire. To reserve one's three hundred foregrounds; also the dark glasses; for there are cases when nobody may look into our eyes, still less into our "grounds." And to choose for company that impish and cheerful vice, courtesy. And to remain master of one's four virtues: of courage, insight, sympathy, and solitude.

Footsteps approach the kitchen. Garrett wanders in, wiping sweat off his brow. When he notices Sabrina, he brightens. “Oh good. You’re here. Hold on—gotta grab something.” She turns to me as if to say, Is he talking to me? He’s already gone, though, his footsteps thumping up the stairs. At the table, Hannah runs a hand through her hair and gives me a pleading look. “Just remember he’s your best friend, okay?” That doesn’t sound ominous. When Garrett returns, he’s holding a notepad and a ballpoint pen, which he sets on the table as he sits across from Sabrina. “Tuck,” he says. “Sit. This is important.” I’m so baffled right now. Hannah’s resigned expression doesn’t help in lessening the confusion. Once I’m seated next to Sabrina, Garrett flips open the notepad, all business. “Okay. So let’s go over the names.” Sabrina raises an eyebrow at me. I shrug, because I legitimately don’t know what the fuck he’s talking about. “I’ve put together a solid list. I really think you’re going to like these.” But when he glances down at the page, his face falls. “Ah crap. We can’t use any of the boy names.” “Wait.” Sabrina holds up a hand, her brow furrowed. “You’re picking names for our baby?” He nods, busy flipping the page. My baby mama gapes at me. I shrug again. “Just out of curiosity, what were the boy names?” Grace hedges, clearly fighting a smile. He cheers up again. “Well, the top contender was Garrett.” I snicker loud enough to rattle Sabrina’s water glass. “Uh-huh,” I say, playing along. “And what was the runner-up?” “Graham.” Hannah sighs. “But it’s okay. I have some kickass girl names too.” He taps his pen on the pad, meets our eyes, and utters two syllables. “Gigi.” My jaw drops. “Are you kidding me? I’m not naming my daughter Gigi.” Sabrina is mystified. “Why Gigi?” she asks slowly. Hannah sighs again. The name suddenly clicks in my head. Oh for fuck’s sake. “G.G.,” I mutter to Sabrina. “As in Garrett Graham.” She’s silent for a beat. Then she bursts out laughing, triggering giggles from Grace and eventually Hannah, who keeps shaking her head at her boyfriend. “What?” Garrett says defensively. “The godfather should have a say in the name. It’s in the rule book.” “What rule book?” Hannah bursts out. “You make up the rules as you go along!” “So?

The queen is head. Long live the queen...me." The platoon of renegade soldiers cheered. Redd kicked The Cat where he lay on the floor, tongue lolling in his mouth, the picture of death. "Get up! You still have seven more lives." The Cat's eyes fluttered open. Find Alyss and kill her." With a wave of her hand, the looking glass was once again whole. The Cate jumped through, in prosuit of the only living Heart besides Redd.

The human attitude of which classical music is the expression is always the same; it is always based on the same kind of insight into life and strives for the same kind of victory over blind chance. Classical music as gesture signifies knowledge of the tragedy of the human condition, affirmation of human destiny, courage, cheerful serenity.

And here you see me working out, as cheerfully and thankfully as I may, my doom of sharing in the glass a constant change of customers, and of lying down and rising up with the skeleton allotted to me for my mortal companion.

I picked up a book called Anagrams and started to read. I felt someone's eyes on me and looked up. Stuart. I held up the book like someone would hold up a glass. Cheers. Parties, right? Ha-ha. It's that I don't know what to do or say it's just that I've been to so many parties that I'm tired of them and would rather read this book ha-ha so don't worry about me I'll just be here.

Sorry I overheard that, but I'm glad he's staying," Luke's sister said. "Not just because he'll be near me but because it gives him a chance to get over you." Jocelyn sounded defensive. "Amatis-" "It's been a long time, Jocelyn," Amatis said. "If you don't love him, you ought to let him go." Jocelyn was silent. Clary wished she could see her mother's expression- did she looked sad? Angry? Resigned? Amatis gave a little gasp. "Unless- you do love him?" "Amatis, I can't-" "You do! you do!" There was a sharp sound, as if Amatis had clapped her hands together. "I knew you did! I always knew it!" "It doesn't matter." Jocelyn sounded tired. "It wouldn't be fair to Luke." "I don't want to hear it." There was a rustling noise, and Jocelyn made a sound of protest. Clary wondered if Amatis had actually grabbed hold of her mother. "If you love him, you go right now and tell him. Right now, before he goes to the Council." "But they want him to be their Council member! And he wants to-" "All Lucian wants," said Amatis firmly, "is you. You and Clary. That's all he ever wanted. Now go." Before Clary had a chance to move, Jocelyn dashed out into the hallway. She headed toward the door- and saw Clary, flattened against the wall. Halting, she opened her mouth in surprise. "Clary!" She sounded as if she were trying to make her voice bright and cheerful, and failed miserably. "I didn't realize you were here." Clary stepped away from the wall, grabbed hold of the doorknob, and threw the door wide open. Bright sunlight poured into the hall. Jocelyn stood blinking in the harsh illumination, her eyes on her daughter. "If you don't go after Luke," Clary said, enunciating very clearly, "I, personally, will kill you." For a moment Jocelyn looked astonished. Then she smiled. "Well," she said, "if you put it like that." A moment later she was out of the house, hurrying down the canal path toward the Accords Hall. Clary shut the door behind her and leaned against it. Amatis, emerging from the living room, darted past her to lean on the window sill, glancing aniously out through the pane. "Do you think she'll catch him before he gets to the Hall?" "My mom's spent her whole life chasing me around," Clary said. "She moves fast.

Obviously, I have no idea what it’s like to carry a baby, and I never will—cheers to owning a dick. And while our metaphorical glasses are still raised in a toast to my gender, I think a ‘cheers’ to my ability in evading the evil curse known as Couvade Syndrome is also warranted. Clink!

Clary,” Jace said, breaking her out of her reverie. He tightened his arms around her, and she raised her head; the crowd was cheering as the first of the rockets went up.

Dear daughter, I won't try to call my feeling for Arty love. Call it focus. My focus on Art was an ailment, noncommunicable, and, even to me all these years later, incomprehensible. Now I despise myself. But even so I remember, in hot floods, the way he slept, still as death, with his face washed flat, stony as a carved tomb and exquisite. His weakness and his ravening bitter needs were terrible, and beautiful, and irresistible as an earthquake. He scalded or smothered anyone he needed, but his needing and the hurt that it caused me were the most life I ever had. Remember what a poor thing I have always been and forgive me. He saw no use for you and you interfered with his use of me. I sent you away to please him, to prove my dedication to him, and to prevent him from killing you... My job was to come back [from the convent] directly, with nothing leaking from beneath my dark glasses, to give Arty his rubdown and then paint him for the next show, nodding cheerfully all the while, never showing anything but attentive care for his muscular wonderfulness. Because he could have killed you. He could have cut off the money that schooled and fed you. He could have erased you so entirely that I never would have had those letters and report cards and photos, or your crayon pictures, or the chance to spy on you, and to love you secretly when everything else was gone.

Every night before bed, her mother had told her a story that should have been frightening: Scary Evil Queen. Huntsman ordered to cut out her heart. Lost in dark woods with grabby trees. Dwarves, dwarves, more dwarves. Old peddler lady giving her a strangling ribbon. Old peddler lady giving her a poisoned comb. Old peddler lady giving her a poisoned apple. Crunch. Gasp. Faint (beautifully). Dead sleep. Cold glass coffin. Empty dreams. Then… kiss. Wake. Prince! Cheering dwarves. Huge choreographed dance number. Happily Ever After.

Nonsense. Everyone knows Canadians are a peaceful people.” He was laughing now. “Tell that to the White House circa 1812,” I told him. “Oh? Why?” “Because that’s the year the peace-loving Canadians burned it to the ground.” Dominick grabbed an empty bottle and jumped onto his chair. The room got silent in an instant as everyone paused to look at him. “Cheers to 1812.” He lifted his empty bottle. The whole room whooped and raised their full glasses, howling in unison. I could barely hear over the sound of my own laughter.

And those of us who trust ourselves the least, Who doubt and question most, these, it may be, Will make their mark upon eternity, And youth will turn to them as to a feast. The time may come when a man who confessed His self-doubts will be ranked among the blessed Who never suffered anguish or knew fear, Whose times were times of glory and good cheer, Who lived like children, simple happy lives. For in us too is part of that Eternal Mind Which through the aeons calls to brothers of its kind: Both you and I will pass, but it survives.

Motherfucking Karma. She’d moved into my room and taken a seat at the bar, holding her glass in the air in a silent cheer. She truly was a bitch.

Twas battered and scarred, and the auctioneer Thought it scarcely worth his while To waste much time on the old violin, But held it up with a smile. “What am I bidden, good folks,” he cried, “Who’ll start the bidding for me?” “A dollar, a dollar. Then two! Only two? Two dollars, and who’ll make it three?” “Three dollars, once; three dollars, twice; Going for three…” But no, From the room, far back, a grey-haired man Came forward and picked up the bow; Then wiping the dust from the old violin, And tightening the loosened strings, He played a melody pure and sweet, As a caroling angel sings. The music ceased, and the auctioneer, With a voice that was quiet and low, Said: “What am I bid for the old violin?” And he held it up with the bow. “A thousand dollars, and who’ll make it two? Two thousand! And who’ll make it three? Three thousand, once; three thousand, twice, And going and gone,” said he. The people cheered, but some of them cried, “We do not quite understand. What changed its worth?” Swift came the reply: “The touch of the Master’s hand.” And many a man with life out of tune, And battered and scarred with sin, Is auctioned cheap to the thoughtless crowd Much like the old violin. A “mess of pottage,” a glass of wine, A game — and he travels on. He is “going” once, and “going” twice, He’s “going” and almost “gone.” But the Master comes, and the foolish crowd Never can quite understand The worth of a soul and the change that is wrought By the touch of the Master’s hand.

This torture inflicted on her by my great-aunt, the sight of my grandmother's vain entreaties, of her feeble attempts, doomed in advance, to remove the liqueur-glass from my grandfather's hands -- all these were things of the sort to which, in later years, one can grow so accustomed as to smile at them and to take the persecutor's side resolutely and cheerfully enough to persuade oneself that it is not really persecution; but in those days they filled me with such horror that I longed to strike my great-aunt. And yet, as soon as I heard her "Bathilde! Come in and stop your husband drinking brandy," in my cowardice I became at once a man, and did what all we grown men do when face to face with suffering and injustice: I preferred not to see them.

Sun, and sky, and breeze, and solitary walks, and summer holidays, and the greenness of fields, and the delicious juices of meats and fishes, and society, and the cheerful glass, and candle-light, and fire-side conversations, and innocent vanities, and irony itself-- do these things go out with life? Can a ghost laugh, or shake his gaunt sides, when you are pleasant with him?

Or you have twelve hours for us to save you, if you want to be half-glass full about it. Cheer up, Geoffrey, you have our full attention focused on your dilemma. Wait, where's my hat?" Valkyrie picked it up off the armchair and handed it to him. "Perfect," he said. "Now you have our full attention." Scrutinous smiled gratefully, suddenly reassured that everything was going to be alright. The skeleton detective and Valkyrie Cain were on the case, and they would stop at nothing to solve it. "I'm hungry," Valkyrie said. Skulduggery nodded decisively, said, "Then let's get you something to eat," and Scrutinous sagged.

If you didn't already know, we're expecting in about four and a half months." Elliott beamed. The guests raised glasses with congratulations in the air. "He slipped one past a goalie!" Ryan cheered. The beer I just sipped came out through my nose. Mia was choking on her water. Serena turned from Ryan to Elliott, smacking him on the chest. Mortification painted her red face. "Did you teach him that?" Elliott shrugged with a mischievous grin.

I think that must be a lot like how God has it--not to sound as if I think I'm anything like God, mind you. But the whole idea--sitting up there behind glass you can't be seen through. The person down below looks up and it's just a reflection of themselves, a mirror is what they see. But behind the glass, somebody who loves you more than anything is watching, and is hoping for the best for you, and cheering you on, and is loving you even when you are doing something you shouldn't be.

Therefore the music of a well-ordered age is calm and cheerful, and so is its government. The music of a restive age is excited and fierce, and its government is perverted. The music of a decaying state is sentimental and sad, and its government is imperiled.

Two cheers to the wind…” “And three to the women…” “And four to the splendid sea.” The last word trailed off, dissolving into the coarser sounds of glasses knocking against tables, ale splashing onto floor. “Is that really how it goes?” asked Vasry, tipping his head back against the booth. “I thought it was wine, not wind.” “Wouldn’t be a sea shanty without the wind,” said Tav. “Wouldn’t be a shanty without the wine,” countered Vasry, slurring his words.

They each raised their glasses from the puddles on the table, and clinked them together in celebration. They weren't sure what they were celebrating, but more than anything it felt like they were celebrating that exact moment in time and all of the incredible events that had to take place for it to have existed in time at all.

As no two persons see the same thing with the same eyes, my view of hospital life must be taken through my glass, and held for what it is worth. Certainly, nothing was set down in malice, and to the serious-minded party who objected to a tone of levity in some portions of the Sketches, I can only say that it is a part of my religion to look well after the cheerfulnesses of life, and let the dismals shift for themselves; believing, with good Sir Thomas More, that it is wise to "be merrie in God.

As you can see,” Daisy said, “one glass is filled with soap water, one with clear, and one with blue laundry water. The other, of course, is empty. The glasses will predict what kind of man you will marry.” They watched as Evie felt carefully for one of the glasses. Dipping her finger into the soap water, Evie waited for her blindfold to be drawn off, and viewed the results with chagrin, while the other girls erupted with giggles. “Choosing the soap water means she will marry a poor man,” Daisy explained. Wiping off her fingers, Evie exclaimed good-naturedly, “I s-suppose the fact that I’m going to be m-married at all is a good thing.” The next girl in line waited with an expectant smile as she was blindfolded, and the glasses were repositioned. She felt for the vessels, nearly overturning one, and dipped her fingers into the blue water. Upon viewing her choice, she seemed quite pleased. “The blue water means she’s going to marry a noted author,” Daisy told Lillian. “You try next!” Lillian gaveher a speaking glance. “You don’t really believe in this, do you?” “Oh, don’t be cynical—have some fun!” Daisy took the blindfold and rose on her toes to tie it firmly around Lillian’s head. Bereft of sight, Lillian allowed herself to be guided to the table. She grinned at the encouraging cries of the young women around her. There was the sound of the glasses being moved in front of her, and she waited with her hands half raised in the air. “What happens if I pick the empty glass?” she asked. Evie’s voice came near her ear. “You die a sp-spinster!” she said, and everyone laughed. “No lifting the glasses to test their weight,” someone warned with a giggle. “You can’t avoid the empty glass, if it’s your fate!” “At the moment I want the empty glass,” Lillian replied, causing another round of laughter. Finding the smooth surface of a glass, she slid her fingers up the side and dipped them into the cool liquid. A general round of applause and cheering, and she asked, “Am I marrying an author, too?” “No, you chose the clear water,” Daisy said. “A rich, handsome husband is coming for you, dear!” “Oh, what a relief,” Lillian said flippantly, lowering the blindfold to peek over the edge. “Is it your turn now?” Her younger sister shook her head. “I was the first to try. I knocked over a glass twice in a row, and made a dreadful mess.” “What does that mean? That you won’t marry at all?” “It means that I’m clumsy,” Daisy replied cheerfully. “Other than that, who knows? Perhaps my fate has yet to be decided. The good news is that your husband seems to be on the way.” “If so, the bastard is late,” Lillian retorted, causing Daisy and Evie to laugh.

So she brushed away her tears, and went on, as cheerfully as she could.

We're family. We raise our glasses. Cheers!

Sometimes things come out of your mouth that you regret later on. Or no, not regret. You say something so razor-sharp that the person you say it to carries it around with them for the rest of their life. I thought about her cheerful face. When I said to her what I said, it broke down the middle. Like a vase. Or like a glass that shatters at a high-pitched note. I

Stop bothering my guest,” Kami ordered. “If I do …,” Tomo began his bargain. “If I do. Can I have four glasses of lemonade?” “No.” “Why not?” “Because if you drank four glasses of lemonade, you would explode,” Kami said. “Dad would come downstairs and ask, ‘Where is my youngest born?’ and I could only point to the floor, where all that remained of you would be a pool of lemonade and a heap of sweetened entrails. You can have one glass of lemonade.” Tomo gave a cheer and leaped from the sofa, heading for the kitchen at top speed. Kami sighed. “The current theory is that he is a lemonade vampire. C’mon.

There is something strange about agony; the memory of it can be terribly short-lived when the contrast of revival and a pretty spring afternoon have dispelled the regrets. One drink of vodka in a cheerful glass, in the company of good poetry and the scent of blossoms and earth might entice the most well intended to forgo promise of atonement until a worse time. I have at times been just less than amazed how one drink merges with the second, where at some unknown point a mental transformation sets in. I have never been able to ascertain at what point that is--not precisely--and I have been conscious of trying to catch that moment, to try and understand it, to try and prevent it from happening, or at least have a fair chance to decide wheather or not to cross over into that other realm. Such an elusive thing, this is.

Five boys later, it is Frederick’s turn. Frederick, who clearly cannot see well without his glasses. Who has not been cheering when each bucketful of water finds its mark. Who is frowning at the prisoner as though he recognizes something there. And Werner knows what Frederick is going to do. Frederick has to be nudged forward by the boy behind him. The upperclassman hands him a bucket and Frederick pours it out on the ground. Bastian steps forward. His face flares scarlet in the cold. “Give him another.” Again Frederick sloshes it onto the ice at his feet. He says in a small voice, “He is already finished, sir.” The upperclassman hands over a third pail. “Throw it,” commands Bastian. The night steams, the stars burn, the prisoner sways, the boys watch, the commandant tilts his head. Frederick pours the water onto the ground. “I will not.

How doth the little crocodile Improve his shining tail, And pour the waters of the Nile On every golden scale! 'How cheerfully he seems to grin, How neatly spread his claws, And welcome little fishes in With gently smiling jaws!

How doth the little crocodile3 Improve his shining tail, And pour the waters of the Nile On every golden scale! “How cheerfully he seems to grin, How neatly spread his claws, And welcomes little fishes in, With gently smiling jaws!

You both are attracted to me,” she said boldly. “I’m attracted to the both of you. Now I thought I could run away from you both but that failed. Then I thought I’d just be a friend, but now that I’ve seen and touched you both, it wouldn’t be enough. So I’ve decided to make you my lovers. This could end horribly, horribly wrong, but until then I’m going to have the best goddamn sex of my life. Don’t hold back, and cheers.” She clinked her glass against ours. God have mercy.

she said i want you to meet him you'll like him really yeah i thought like car crash broken glass rusty razored underwear barbed wire cheer acid fear like walking down normandie naked nightly like tiger claws 'n earthquake falls i'll really relish meeting 'm.

The waiter uncorked the bottle and poured the first taste. Pierre swirled and then lifted the glass to his nose to inhale the bouquet, the aroma of France, his homeland, He savored the taste of familiar tannins and metals, the acidity a bittersweet reminder of the laughter of children in the fields, of adults cheering long summer evenings, of long-buried emotions, Claire alive in his mouth, Pierre swallowed the wine and approved with a nod the waiter´s choice of bottle, the wine, like him, a survivor in a far-flung place.

The human attitude of which classical music is the expression is always the same; it is always based on the same kind of insight into life and strives for the same kind of victory over blind chance. Classical music as gesture signifies knowledge of the tragedy of the human condition, affirmation of human destiny, courage, cheerful serenity. The grace of a minuet by Handel or Couperin, the sensuality sublimated into delicate gesture to be found in many Italian composers or in Mozart, the tranquil, composed readiness for death in Bach – always there may be heard in these works a defiance, a death-defying intrepidity, a gallantry, and a note of superhuman laughter, of immortal gay serenity. Let that same note also sound in our Glass Bead Games, and in our whole lives, acts, and sufferings.

The color of a polar bear’s skin? Is? In fact? BLACK!” she cried. Some passengers cheered, but several looked crestfallen. “I’m so sorry,” an older man implored his wife. “I really did think it was pink.” “I know you did, honey,” said his wife morosely, peering into her empty glass.

Now, I've another errand for you,' said my untiring master; "you must away to my room again. What a mercy you are shod with velvet, Jane!--a clod-hopping messenger would never do at this juncture. You must open the middle drawer of my toilet-table and take out a little phial and a little glass you will find there,--quick!" I flew thither and back, bringing the desired vessels. "That's well! Now, doctor, I shall take the liberty of administering a dose myself, on my own responsibility. I got this cordial at Rome, of an Italian charlatan--a fellow you would have kicked, Carter. It is not a thing to be used indiscriminately, but it is good upon occasion: as now, for instance. Jane, a little water." He held out the tiny glass, and I half filled it from the water-bottle on the washstand. "That will do;--now wet the lip of the phial." I did so; he measured twelve drops of a crimson liquid, and presented it to Mason. "Drink, Richard: it will give you the heart you lack, for an hour or so." "But will it hurt me?--is it inflammatory?" "Drink! drink! drink!" Mr. Mason obeyed, because it was evidently useless to resist. He was dressed now: he still looked pale, but he was no longer gory and sullied. Mr. Rochester let him sit three minutes after he had swallowed the liquid; he then took his arm-- "Now I am sure you can get on your feet," he said--"try." The patient rose. "Carter, take him under the other shoulder. Be of good cheer, Richard; step out--that's it!" "I do feel better," remarked Mr. Mason. "I am sure you do.

Where did Grizel go?” Sandor asked as they turned to leave. “She’s supposed to stay by your side.” “I’m right here,” a husky female voice said as a lithe gray goblin in a fitted black jumpsuit seemed to melt out of the shadows. Fitz’s bodyguard was just as tall as Sandor, but far leaner—and what she lacked in bulk she made up for in stealth and grace. “I swear,” she said, tapping Sandor on the nose. “It’s almost too easy to evade you.” “Anyone can hide in this chaos,” Sandor huffed. “And now is not the time for games!” “There’s always time for games.” Grizel tossed her long ponytail in a way that almost seemed . . . Was it flirty? Sandor must’ve noticed too, because his gray skin tinted pink. He cleared his throat and turned to Sophie. “Weren’t we heading to the cafeteria?” She nodded and followed Fitz into the mazelike halls, where the colorful crystal walls shimmered in the afternoon sunlight. The cafeteria was on the second floor of the campus’s five-story glass pyramid, which sat in the center of the courtyard framed by the U-shaped main building. Sophie spent most of the walk wondering how long it would take Dex to notice her new accessories. The answer was three seconds—and another after that to notice the matching rings on Fitz’s thumbs. His periwinkle eyes narrowed, but he kept his voice cheerful as he said, “I guess we’re all giving rings this year.” Biana held out her hand to show Sophie a ring that looked familiar—probably because Sophie had a less sparkly, slightly more crooked, definitely less pink version on her own finger. “I also made one for you,” Dex told Fitz. “It’s in your thinking cap. And I have some for Tam and Linh, whenever we see them again. That way we’ll all have panic switches—and I added stronger trackers, so I can home in on the signal even if you don’t press your stone. Just in case anything weird happens.” “Your Technopath tricks aren’t necessary,” Sandor told him, pointing to their group of bodyguards—four goblins in all. “But it’s still good to have a backup plan, right?” Biana asked, admiring her ring from another angle. The pink stone matched the glittery shadow she’d brushed around her teal eyes, as well as the gloss on her

Offer grace for the bounty of goodness. Raise the song of harvest home, the glass of good cheer, the heart overflowing with joy. We have so much for which to be thankful. So much about which to smile, so much to share. So much, that in this season of plenty, we can embrace the season of relinquishment. All we have is all we need.

I am not a naturally optimistic person. I’m too in my own head to be a constant source of cheer. I have to work at happy. Dark and twisty is where my brain likes to settle. So I can use some reminders of what is good and optimistic and glass-half-full about this world. And nothing does that for me like the faces and souls of my tiny humans.

The "friend" who consistently points out the flaws in your plan, or uses a magnifying glass to find the defect in your product, or constantly searches for the chink in your armor, is the "friend" praying for your downfall. Watch and listen for the signs. Know your circle. Real ones are cheering from the sidelines, not wishing it was them in the game.

I picked up a book called Anagrams and started to read. I felt someone's eyes on me and looked up. Stuart. I held up the book like someone would hold up a glass. Cheers. Parities, right? Ha-ha. It's that I don't know what to do or say it's just that I've been to so many parties that I'm tired of them and would rather read this book ha-ha so don't worry about me I'll just be here.

Almost everything was fluttering and shuffling: the china was indeed waking from whatever slumber it enjoyed; dishes were very carefully shuddering themselves to life; teacups were bouncing and trying to get out of their glass cabinet prison. The stove, which seemed so cheerful and warm and fiery at the end of the room, now began to yawn and stretch its great black iron arms and exhaust pipe.

I experienced a terrible sense of my own mortality as it struck me that during my life I would only remove and replace my glasses a specific number of times. The thought filled me with sombreness to the extent that I began to weep, removing my glasses so that I could wipe my eyes, thus adding one more to whatever the final number would have been; the realisation of which cheered me. - A spectacular tale

Many would be surprised to find that there is a whole world of woemen and girls who dedicate a significant portion of theri energy and emotions into the concept of story found in countless genres. These woman are often left out when you limit your definition of fangirl to geek or musik culture. This book is a tribute to my fiction-loving tribe. It's for the law student who unearths strength from the strut of a TV attorney. For the mother who unwinds with a glass of wine and a little bit of zombie apocalypse. For the teenage rwho points to a novel's heroine and says, "Yes. I'll have more of that please." To the woman and girls who get that forming online friendships isn't a symptom of isolation from reality but an opportunity to from commmon bonds that will cheer us through our victories and comfort us when life gets rough.

He was known to hit low, drive upward from the hips, and flip other boys over his shoulder and onto their backs, knocking the wind out of them on the glass-littered asphalt, sometimes causing a fumble and always inciting cheers from onlookers up and down the street––especially when he punctuated the hit with the words "Patent that!"...This permissible violence was unique in that it elicited respect from the victim rather than calls for retribution.

In the mirror, Mariam had her first glimpse of Rasheed: the big, square, ruddy face; the crooked nose; the flushed cheeks that gave the impression of sly cheerfulness; the watery, bloodshot eyes; the crowded teeth, the front two pushed together like a gables roof; the impossible low hairline, barely two fingers widths above the bushy eyebrows; the wall of thick, coarse, salt-and-pepper hair. Their gazes met briefly in the glass and slid away. This is the face of my husband, Mariam thought.

Joe shuddered. "Old people are horrible." "No," Mrs Jinks corrected him. "There's nothing wrong with being old. Don't forget - you'll be old one day. Nobody can avoid it." "Well, I won't be like Granny," Joe said. "Of course you won't," Mrs Jinks agreed. "If you're kind and cheerful when you're young, you'll be kind and cheerful when you're old ... only more so. Old age is like a magnifying glass. It takes the best and the worst of you and magnifies them. Granny was selfish and cruel all her life. But you can't blame her for being old.

I looked back and forth from my glass to hers. “Why does your tea look different?” “Because my tea is whiskey.” She grinned proudly. “Whiskey?” I stared at it incredulously before checking the time on my phone. “It’s ten thirty in the morning.” “Lawrence, when you’re my age, you learn to do things when you want to do them, not when it’s socially acceptable. Hell, who knows if I’ll still be around at dinner time? While we’re on the subject, I had half a tub of mint chocolate chip ice cream for dinner last night. Cheers!” She raised her glass again and winked at me.

The girl in the Four Seasons coat check was eating handfuls of colored jelly beans and reading a thin yellow paperback. I’d read in the witness report in Ashley’s police file that the coat-check girl’s name was Nora Halliday and she was nineteen. Every time a party of diners arrived—midwestern tourists, finance dudes, a couple so elderly they moved like they were doing a form of tai chi—she whisked off her black-rimmed eyeglasses, hid the book, and with a cheerful “Good evening!” took their coats. After they moved upstairs to the restaurant, she put her glasses back on, brought out the paperback, and started reading again, hunched over the counter of the stall.

Before I knew what I was doing, I was out of my seat and rushing up toward the railing that divided the seats from the field. I had to make sure he was okay. I couldn’t just sit here and watch him lie there in pain. I heard my name called, but I ignored it as I flung my leg over the top railing and prepared to hoist myself over. One of the guys working security happened to see me and he rushed over and ordered me to stop. “I can’t. That’s my…” My voice broke. I couldn’t force the word boyfriend between my lips. It just wasn’t enough. It just didn’t describe how desperate I was to get to him. “He’s my everything,” I finished. The security guard gave me a grim look. “You can’t come on the field.” A lone tear tracked its way down my cheek, and I craned my neck. Frustrated, I glanced up at the big screen to see if it was showing a different angle. But they weren’t playing Romeo. They were focused on me. I blinked at the site of me half straddling the railing and the security guard standing there with a grim look on his face as he stared me down. My cheeks were red, behind my glasses, my eyes wild. I turned away from the screen, irritated that they weren’t focused on Romeo. I glanced at the guard. “I’m coming over.” He crossed his arms over his chest as if to say, I dare you. I flung my other leg over so I was balanced on the bottom rung. “This is your last warning,” the guard shouted. The crowd started to cheer and go wild. Romeo’s number started filling the air. I looked up. He was okay! He was on his feet, helmet in hand, and laughing at something Braeden was saying. Beside him, the coach looked relieved, and all the Wolves were clapping. The guy who’d mowed him down was being escorted off the field. Jackass. Relief made me weak and a sob caught in my throat. I sagged back against the cold metal of the rails. The guard gestured for backup, and a few others that were dressed just like him started my way. I mean, really. He was being a bit dramatic. I was only one girl. And a small one at that.

He trotted over with a big grin on his face. He wore a faded Hawaiian shirt and nothing for pants except thick brown goat fur. His massive Afro jiggled. His eyes were hidden behind little round rainbow-tinted glasses. He held a cardboard sign that read: WILL WORK SING TALK GO AWAY FOR DENARII. “Hi, Don,” Hazel said. “Sorry, we don’t have time—” “Oh, that’s cool! That’s cool!” Don trotted along with them. “Hey, this guy’s new!” He grinned at Percy. “Do you have three denarii for the bus? Because I left my wallet at home, and I’ve got to get to work, and—” “Don,” Hazel chided. “Fauns don’t have wallets. Or jobs. Or homes. And we don’t have buses.” “Right,” he said cheerfully, “but do you have denarii?

Have you ever heard a friend returning from a party describe how merry it was? Unless you're very, very old, I suspect not. The word survives in American usage almost exclusively as a vestigial reminder of certain obligatory feelings of good cheer around Christmastime. But merriment itself seems to belong to a place beyond the looking glass - something we can imagine wistfully as we step into the world of Austen or Dickens, but can't bring back into the milieu of the contemporary cocktail party. Merriment seems to evoke two conditions of community life we have largely lost: a common sense of what there is to laugh about, and a certain mental health - what Williams James would have called "healthy-mindedness" - that understands darkness, but doesn't succumb to cynicism. Merriment has fallen into near extinction by a disuse that both signals and hastens the demise of such attitudes.

To me, Chicago was the bar in the twelfth-floor lobby of the Ritz-Carlton, where I drank strawberry daiquiris—sophisticated!—with my visiting parents and with girls I was trying to impress. It was the elegant shops at the new, fancy Water Tower Place. My favorite Chicago spots were primarily restaurants. Dianna’s Opaa, in Greektown on South Halsted Street, with its lanky, serpent-like owner, Petros Kogiones, performing his host duties that were as important as the food—on the nights he wasn’t there, you felt cheated—sliding back his sheet of long black hair to greet his female customers with an overly familiar kiss and their dates with a disarming, arms-flung-wide cry of “cousin!” then conducting his odd 9 p.m. ceremonies, calling up all the engaged couples to be officially blessed by Famous Petros in the name of God, the Greek Orthodox Church, and Dianna’s Opaa! We’d all cheer and raise our juice glasses of Roditis high. Or

We greeted the guests and mingled with everyone until dinner was served. Mia stood up and addressed the crowd, something extremely out of character for her. I thought for sure she expected me to make the announcement. She took my hand in hers before she started her speech. “Thank you, everyone, for being here. Will and I feel extremely grateful for having family and friends to share this day with.” She picked up her glass, raised it, and very quickly said, “I’m drinking apple cider because I’m pregnant! So cheers to family and making it bigger!” “Cheers!” I said with the crowd and clanked my glass with Mia’s. “How was that?” she said. “Great, honey.” It may very well have been the worst wedding speech ever. Two people immediately rushed our table—Mia’s mom and Tyler. Tyler arrived first, but Liz, who only came up to Tyler’s waist, stomped on his foot and then cut in front of him. She glared at us from the other side of the table. “Mom, I was going to tell you.

How about something to drink. Coffee, tea, soda, water, scotch. Never too early for scotch. Violet, some scotch. Ice. I said ice. No ice, then. Me too. Always neat for me. Look at my view. No, not at the gardener. José! José! Got to pound on the glass to get his attention. He's half deaf. José! Move! You're blocking the view. Good. See the view. I'm talking about the Hollywood sign right there. Never get tired of it. Like the Word of God just dropped down, plunked on the hills, and the Word was Hollywood. Didn't God say let the be light first. What's a movie but light. Can't have a movie without light. And then words. Seeing that sign reminds me to write every morning. What. All right, so it doesn't say Hollywood. You got me. Good eye. Thing's falling to pieces. One O's half fallen and the other O's fallen altogether. The word's gone to shit. So what. You still get the meaning. Thanks, Violet. Cheers. How do they say it in your country. I said how do they say it. Yo, yo, yo, is it. I like that. Easy to remember. Yo, yo, yo, then.

Hang on, Levon,” said Elf. “Hang on. Are you saying you want to sack Griff because his brother just died in a horrific car crash and he’s too full of grief to play? Seriously?” “I am laying out the facts. Because somebody has to. Or there is no band. Of course we give Griff time. Of course. But you heard Griff. You saw him. It is entirely possible he won’t be back.” “Drummers like Griff don’t grow on trees,” said Elf. “You think I don’t know that?” asked Levon. “I chose him! But a drummer who can’t drum isn’t a drummer. Jasper. Speak.” Jasper drew a spiral on the steamy glass. “Eight days.” “Speak English, not Cryptic Crossword. Please. I have a headache as big as East Anglia.” “My Dutch grandfather used to say, ‘If you don’t know what to do, do nothing for eight days.’ ” Dean asked, “Why eight?” “Less than eight is haste. More than eight is procrastination. Eight days is long enough for the world to shuffle the deck and deal you another hand.” Without warning, the train shuddered into motion. The passengers raised a weary ironic cheer.

It is possible to have a strong self-love without any self-satisfaction, rather with a self-discontent which is the more intense because one's own little core of egoistic sensibility is a supreme care; but Gwendolen knew nothing of such inward strife. She had a naive delight in her fortunate self, which any but the harshest saintliness will have some indulgence for in a girl who had every day seen a pleasant reflection of that self in her friends' flattery as well as in the looking-glass. And even in this beginning of troubles, while for lack of anything else to do she sat gazing at her image in the growing light, her face gathered a complacency gradual as the cheerfulness of the morning. Her beautiful lips curled into a more and more decided smile, till at last she took off her hat, leaned forward and kissed the cold glass which had looked so warm. How could she believe in sorrow? If it attacked her, she felt the force to crush it, to defy it, or run away from it, as she had done already. Anything seemed more possible than that she could go on bearing miseries, great or small.

It was on one of these walks that Kicky performed his famous rescue act for which afterwards he was unmercifully teased by his family. The whole crowd of them had been for the usual Sunday walk, Kicky, Pem, and the children, and were returning home by the White Stone Pond. It was winter, and the ice frozen upon it about an inch thick, and as they came to the pond they noticed a mob of people shouting and pointing to the centre, where a miserable dog was slowly drowning, the ice having given way beneath him. Nobody was making the slightest attempt to save the wretched animal. Kicky, short-sighted without his glasses, was only aware that a dog was in difficulties in the water—he could not even see the ice. Stripping himself dramatically of his coat, his eyes flashing, he ran a few paces back and then took an enormous header on to a thin layer of ice that barely covered two foot of water. It was a tremendous sight! Cheered and applauded by the crowd, he plunged to the centre of the pond (still only three foot deep) and rescued the yelping dog, which covered his face with licks of gratitude.

Each time I happen to recall—nostalgically—the surrealist rebellion as expressed in its original purity and intransigence, it is the personality of Antonin Artaud that stands out in its dark magnificence, it is a certain intonation in his voice that injects specks of gold into his whispering voice. … Antonin Artaud: I do not have to account in his stead for what he has experienced nor for what he has suffered. … I know that Antonin Artaud saw, the way Rimbaud, as well as Novalis and Arnim before him, had spoken of seeing. It is of little consequence, ever since the publication of Aurelia, that what was seen this way does not coincide with what is objectively visible. The real tragedy is that the society to which we are less and less honored to belong persists in making it an inexpiable crime to have gone over to the other side of the looking glass. In the name of everything that is more than ever close to my heart, I cheer the return to freedom of Antonin Artaud in a world where freedom itself must be reinvented. Beyond all the mundane denials, I place all my faith in Antonin Artaud, that man of prodigies.

What better way to lose that hangover headache than get drunk again? Oh, the joys of being Canadian with socialized health care and legal drinking age of nineteen. After a year (officially) honing that skill, I imbibed at an Olympic level. The red wine on the modular coffee table gleamed in a shaft of sunlight like its position had been ordained by the gods. I snatched up the crystal decanter, sloshing the liquid into the glass conveniently placed next to it. Once in a while, a girl could actually catch a break. I fanned myself with one hand. The myriad of lit candles seemed a bit much for Ari’s romantic encounter, but wine drinking trumped curiosity so I chugged the booze back. My entire body cheered as the cloyingly-sweet alcohol hit my system, though I hoped it wasn’t Manischewitz because hangovers on that were a bitch. I’d slugged back half the contents when I saw my mom on the far side of the room clutch her throat, eyes wide with horror. Not her usual, “you need an intervention” horror. No, her expression indicated I’d reached a whole new level of fuck-up. “Nava Liron Katz,” she gasped in full name outrage.

You don’t climb the second mountain the way you climb the first mountain. You conquer your first mountain. You identify the summit, and you claw your way toward it. You are conquered by your second mountain. You surrender to some summons, and you do everything necessary to answer the call and address the problem or injustice that is in front of you. On the first mountain you tend to be ambitious, strategic, and independent. On the second mountain you tend to be relational, intimate, and relentless. It’s gotten so I can recognize first- and second-mountain people. The first-mountain people are often cheerful, interesting, and fun to be around. They often have impressive jobs and can take you to an amazing variety of great restaurants. The second-mountain people aren’t averse to the pleasures of the world. They delight in a good glass of wine or a nice beach. (There’s nothing worse than people who are so spiritualized they don’t love the world.) But they have surpassed these pleasures in pursuit of moral joy, a feeling that they have aligned their life toward some ultimate good. If they have to choose, they choose joy.

Now that I know how birth works-now that I've been talked through labor by that quiet-voiced woman-I feel I've finally been told what my task is. It's simple-so simple I'm amazed I didn't know it before. One morning I am going to wake up, and before I sleep again, I will have to tick off a long list of contractions, one by one. And when I get to the last one, I will have my girl. Each one of these will be a job in itself-a minute-long experience that would alarm anyone suddenly struck by it, without warning-but I know the one fact that makes it easy: there is nothing awry. Everything is as it should be. Unlike some pains, these don't signal something going wrong but something going right. This is what I did not realize the first time, when I prayed wildly for these pains to stop. I didn't know then that these pains were actually the answer, and that their every alternative was much, much worse. Now I know what they are, and what they're for, I greet each one with calm cheer: 60 seconds to breathe through, as limp as a sleeping child, so that there is nowhere for this wash of sensation to snag-no tensed muscle it can get caught on. I am a clear glass of water, leaf-smoke blown sideways in the wind; empty space, for a moon to sail through.

Out of all green ends and correlated mystic blend underlying the wholesome beauty only one note could speak and flow when nothing else on the barren wet streets she laughed at my grin speaking of what I missed. How is the realm so lovely when the rain tells me how perfect the self organizing smooth system far less attracted so please the muse to the scene, swirling in utter beauty turn away from conversations of horrific overwhelming tension your sublime nature forces half naked bare legged bathing in geometrical arrangements; a future rebelled, tame and dominate your blessed frightened glass ceiling, breath or goodness spells glitter rains down on your laced chest, taking off your shades and notable note from off your written thoughts on the reality page of mirrored candy smile hair twisting, back alone chasing drinks with cheers toward all we saved in the red ashes; smiling how perfect we feel tonight, I could end any beings or spirit. A sucker for the matter found without presence in unlimited rising smoke you weep and invent forms, or nature reflection internality on how few nerves you leave me squirming producing works of utter biting beauty art works off afternoon body gasping at whatever is near or afar, look how smart you get when you cant always get what you dreamt of, on time naughty morning sun baking eyes in mine.

Ordinarily, when he thought back upon those days, let alone upon his student years and the Bamboo Grove, it had always been as if he were gazing from a cool, dull room out into broad, brightly sunlit landscapes, into the irrevocable past, the paradise of memory. Such recollections had always been, even when they were free of sadness, a vision of things remote and different, separated from the prosaic present by a mysterious festiveness. But now, on this bright and cheerful September afternoon, with the strong greens and browns all around him and the ethereal, gently misted tones of blues verging into violet in the distance, as he trudged along at an easy pace, with frequent pauses to look about him, that walking tour of so long ago did not seem a distant paradise cut off from a resigned present. rather his present journey was the same as that of the past, the present Joseph Knecht was close as a brother to the Knecht of those days. Everything was new again, mysterious, promising; all that had been could recur, and many new things as well. It was long, long since he had looked out upon the day and the world and seen them as so unburdened, so beautiful and innocent. The happiness of freedom, of commanding his own destiny, flooded through him like a strong drink. How long it was since he had last had this feeling, last entertained this lovely and rapturous illusion.

It had been years since he'd seen a woman handle a crowd of admirers so deftly- not since Lily in her gambling days. Fascinated, he wondered where the hell she had come from. He knew about all the new arrivals in London, and he'd never seen her before. She must be some diplomat's wife, or some exclusive courtesan. Her lips were red and pouting, her pale white shoulders enticingly bare above the blue velvet of her gown. She laughed frequently, tossing her head back in a way that caused her chestnut curls to dance. Like the other men present, Derek was captivated by her figure, the luscious round breasts, the tiny waist, all revealed by a well-fitted gown that was unlike the shapeless Grecian styles of the other women. "A toast to the loveliest bosom in London!" Lord Bromley, a rakish ne'er-do-well, exclaimed. Titillated and excited, the crowd raised their glasses with a cheer. Waiters rushed to bring more liquor. "Miss," one of them begged, "I entreat you to cast my dice for me." "Whatever good luck I have is yours," she assured him, and shook the dice in the box so vigorously that her breasts quivered beneath their shallow covering. The temperature in the room escalated rapidly as a host of admiring sighs greeted the display. Derek decided to intervene before the crowd's mood became too highly charged. Either the vixen didn't realize the lust she was inciting, or she was doing it deliberately. Either way, he wanted to meet her.

What do human beings contribute, Suwelo was thinking morosely, as he waited one afternoon for Miss Lissie to appear. Her story about the animal cousins had moved him and each day he found himself more conscious of his own nonhuman “relatives” in the world. The bees contributed honey, but not really—it was taken from them. What, he now wondered, did the bees eat themselves; surely they didn’t make honey for human beings. It was the flowers that contributed honey to both bees and people, the flowers that were always giving something: beauty, cheerfulness, pollen, and seeds. They did not care who saw them, who, they gave to. And on his feet, Suwelo also realized, with disgust, he was wearing moccasins made of leather. What a euphemism, “leather.” A real nonword. Nowhere in it was concealed the truth of what leather was. Something’s skin. And his tortoiseshell glasses. He took them off and peered shortsightedly at them, holding them at arm’s length. But they were imitation tortoiseshell. Plastic, probably. But this made him even gloomier, for he knew the only reason for imitation anything was that the source of the real thing had dried up. There were probably no more tortoises left to kill. And what, anyway, of plastic? It was plentiful, cheap. But even it came from somewhere. Of what was plastic made? What died? He knew it was a product of petroleum, of oil, and so he assumed plastic was made out of the very lifeblood of the planet. When all the oil was drained, he imagined the planet quaking and shrinking in on itself, like an orange that has been sucked to death.

While the indecisive customer hovered over an array of perfumes that Nettle had brought out for her, the American girls browsed among the shelves of perfumes, colognes, pomades, waxes, creams, soaps, and other items intended for beauty care. There were bath oils in stoppered crystal bottles, , and tins of herbal unguents, and tiny boxes of violet pastilles to freshen the breath. Lower shelves held treasure troves of scented candles and inks, sachets filled with clove-saturated smelling salts, potpourri bowls, and jars of pastes and balms. Nettle noticed, however, that while the younger girl, Daisy, viewed the assortment with only mild interest, the older one, Lillian, had stopped before a row of oils and extracts that contained pure scent. Rose, frangipani, jasmine, bergamot, and so forth. Lifting the amber glass bottles, she opened them carefully and inhaled with visible appreciation. Eventually the blond woman made her choice, purchased a flacon of perfume, and left the shop, a small bell ringing cheerfully as the door closed. Lillian, who had turned to glance at the departing woman, murmured thoughtfully, "I wonder why it is that so many light-haired women smell of amber..." "You mean amber perfume?" Daisy asked. "No- their skin itself. Amber, and sometimes honey..." "What on earth do you mean?" the younger girl asked with a bemused laugh. "People don't smell like anything, except when they need to wash." The pair regarded each other with what appeared to be mutual surprise. "Yes, they do," Lillian said. "Everyone has a smell... don't say you've never noticed? The way some people's skin is like bitter almond, or violet, while others..." "Others have a scent like plum, or palm sap, or fresh hay," Nettle commented. Lillian glanced at him with a satisfied smile. "Yes, exactly!" Nettle removed his spectacles and polished them with care, while his mind swarmed with questions. Could it be? Was it possible that this girl could actually detect a person's intrinsic scent? He himself could- but it was a rare gift, and not one that he had ever known a woman to have.

Isn’t he a lovely sight?” said Tweedledum. Alice couldn’t say honestly that he was. He had a tall red night-cap on, with a tassel, and he was lying crumpled up into a sort of untidy heap, and snoring loud—“fit to snore his head off!” as Tweedledum remarked. “I’m afraid he’ll catch cold with lying on the damp grass,” said Alice, who was a very thoughtful little girl. “He’s dreaming now,” said Tweedledee: “and what do you think he’s dreaming about?” Alice said “Nobody can guess that.” “Why, about you!” Tweedledee exclaimed, clapping his hands triumphantly. “And if he left off dreaming about you, where do you suppose you’d be?” “Where I am now, of course,” said Alice. “Not you!” Tweedledee retorted contemptuously. “You’d be nowhere. Why, you’re only a sort of thing in his dream!” “If that there King was to wake,” added Tweedledum, “you’d go out—bang!—just like a candle!” “I shouldn’t!” Alice exclaimed indignantly. “Besides, if I’m only a sort of thing in his dream, what are you, I should like to know?” “Ditto,” said Tweedledum. “Ditto, ditto!” cried Tweedledee. He shouted this so loud that Alice couldn’t help saying, “Hush! You’ll be waking him, I’m afraid, if you make so much noise.” “Well, it’s no use your talking about waking him,” said Tweedledum, “when you’re only one of the things in his dream. You know very well you’re not real.” “I am real!” said Alice, and began to cry. “You won’t make yourself a bit realler by crying,” Tweedledee remarked: “there’s nothing to cry about.” “If I wasn’t real,” Alice said—half-laughing through her tears, it all seemed so ridiculous—“I shouldn’t be able to cry.” “I hope you don’t suppose those are real tears?” Tweedledum interrupted in a tone of great contempt. “I know they’re talking nonsense,” Alice thought to herself: “and it’s foolish to cry about it.” So she brushed away her tears, and went on as cheerfully as she could, “At any rate I’d better be getting out of the wood, for really it’s coming on very dark. Do you think it’s going to rain?” Tweedledum spread a large umbrella over himself and his brother, and looked up into it. “No, I don’t think it is,” he said: “at least—not under here. Nohow.” “But it may rain outside?” “It may—if it chooses,” said Tweedledee: “we’ve no objection. Contrariwise.

Farewell, ye gilded follies, pleasing troubles; Farewell, ye honour'd rags, ye glorious bubbles; Fame's but a hollow echo, Gold, pure clay; Honour the darling but of one short day; Beauty, th' eye's idol, but a damask'd skin; State, but a golden prison, to live in And torture free-born minds; embroider'd Trains, Merely but pageants for proud swelling veins; And Blood allied to greatness is alone Inherited, not purchas'd, nor our own. Fame, Honour, Beauty, State, Train, Blood and Birth, Are but the fading blossoms of the earth. I would be great, but that the sun doth still Level his rays against the rising hill: I would be high, but see the proudest oak Most subject to the rending thunder-stroke: I would be rich, but see men, too unkind Dig in the bowels of the richest mind: I would be wise, but that I often see The fox suspected, whilst the ass goes free: I would be fair, but see the fair and proud, Like the bright sun, oft setting in a cloud: I would be poor, but know the humble grass Still trampled on by each unworthy ass: Rich, hated wise, suspected, scorn'd if poor; Great, fear'd, fair, tempted, high, still envy'd more. I have wish'd all, but now I wish for neither. Great, high, rich, wise, nor fair: poor I'll be rather. Would the World now adopt me for her heir; Would beauty's Queen entitle me the fair; Fame speak me fortune's minion, could I " vie Angels " with India with a speaking eye Command bare heads, bow'd knees, strike justice dumb, As well as blind and lame, or give a tongue To stones by epitaphs, be call'd " great master " In the loose rhymes of every poetaster ? Could I be more than any man that lives, Great, fair, rich wise, all in superlatives; Yet I more freely would these gifts resign Than ever fortune would have made them mine. And hold one minute of this holy leisure Beyond the riches of this empty pleasure. Welcome, pure thoughts; welcome, ye silent groves; These guests, these courts, my soul most dearly loves. Now the wing'd people of the sky shall sing My cheerful anthems to the gladsome spring: A pray'r-book, now, shall be my looking-glass, In which I will adore sweet virtue's face. Here dwell no hateful looks, no palace cares, No broken vows dwell here, nor pale-fac'd fears; Then here I'll sit, and sigh my hot love's folly, And learn t' affect an holy melancholy: And if contentment be a stranger then, I'll ne'er look for it, but in heaven, again.

Two men were advancing towards the car along the cross track. One man carried a short wooden bench on his back, the other a big wooden object about the size of an upright piano. Richard hailed them, they greeted him with every sign of pleasure. Richard produced cigarettes and a cheerful party spirit seemed to be developing. Then Richard turned to her. “Fond of the cinema? Then you shall see a performance.” He spoke to the two men and they smiled with pleasure. They set up the bench and motioned to Victoria and Richard to sit on it. Then they set up the round contrivance on a stand of some kind. It had two eye-holes in it and as she looked at it, Victoria cried: “It’s like things on piers. What the butler saw.” “That’s it,” said Richard. “It’s a primitive form of same.” Victoria applied her eyes to the glass-fronted peephole, one man began slowly to turn a crank or handle, and the other began a monotonous kind of chant. “What is he saying?” Victoria asked. Richard translated as the singsong chant continued: “Draw near and prepare yourself for much wonder and delight. Prepare to behold the wonders of antiquity.” A crudely coloured picture of Negroes reaping wheat swam into Victoria’s gaze. “Fellahin in America,” announced Richard, translating. Then came: “The wife of the great Shah of the Western world,” and the Empress Eugénie simpered and fingered a long ringlet. A picture of the King’s Palace in Montenegro, another of the Great Exhibition. An odd and varied collection of pictures followed each other, all completely unrelated and sometimes announced in the strangest terms. The Prince Consort, Disraeli, Norwegian Fjords and Skaters in Switzerland completed this strange glimpse of olden far-off days. The showman ended his exposition with the following words: “And so we bring to you the wonders and marvels of antiquity in other lands and far-off places. Let your donation be generous to match the marvels you have seen, for all these things are true.” It was over. Victoria beamed with delight. “That really was marvellous!” she said. “I wouldn’t have believed it.” The proprietors of the travelling cinema were smiling proudly. Victoria got up from the bench and Richard who was sitting on the other end of it was thrown to the ground in a somewhat undignified posture. Victoria apologized but was not ill pleased. Richard rewarded the cinema men and with courteous farewells and expressions of concern for each other’s welfare, and invoking the blessing of God on each other, they parted company. Richard and Victoria got into the car again and the men trudged away into the desert. “Where are they going?” asked Victoria. “They travel all over the country. I met them first in Transjordan coming up the road from the Dead Sea to Amman. Actually they’re bound now for Kerbela, going of course by unfrequented routes so as to give shows in remote villages.” “Perhaps someone will give them a lift?

And the wraith on the heart monitor looks pensively down at Gately from upside-down and asks does Gately remember the myriad thespian extras on for example his beloved ‘Cheers!,’ not the center-stage Sam and Carla and Nom, but the nameless patrons always at tables, filling out the bar’s crowd, concessions to realism, always relegated to back- and foreground; and always having utterly silent conversations: their faces would animate and mouths would move realistically, but without sound; only the name-stars at the bar itself could audibilize. The wraith says these fractional actors, human scenery, could be seen (but not heard) in most pieces of filmed entertainment. And Gately remembers them, the extras in all public scenes, especially like bar and restaurant scenes, or rather remembers how he doesn’t quite remember them, how it never struck his addled mind as in fact surreal that their mouths moved but nothing emerged, and what a miserable fucking bottom-rung job that must be for an actor, to be sort of human furniture, figurants the wraith says they’re called, these surreally mute background presences whose presence really revealed that the camera, like any eye, has a perceptual corner, a triage of who’s important enough to be seen and heard v. just seen. A term from ballet, originally, figurant, the wraith explains. The wraith pushes his glasses up in the vaguely sniveling way of a kid that’s just got slapped around on the playground and says he personally spent the vast bulk of his own former animate life as pretty much a figurant, furniture at the periphery of the very eyes closest to him, it turned out, and that it’s one heck of a crummy way to try to live. Gately, whose increasing self-pity leaves little room or patience for anybody else’s self-pity, tries to lift his left hand and wiggle his pinkie to indicate the world’s smallest viola playing the theme from The Sorrow and the Pity, but even moving his left arm makes him almost faint. And either the wraith is saying or Gately is realizing that you can’t appreciate the dramatic pathos of a figurant until you realize how completely trapped and encaged he is in his mute peripheral status, because like say for example if one of ‘Cheers!’’s bar’s figurants suddenly decided he couldn’t take it any more and stood up and started shouting and gesturing around wildly in a bid for attention and nonperipheral status on the show, Gately realizes, all that would happen is that one of the audibilizing ‘name’ stars of the show would bolt over from stage-center and apply restraints or the Heineken Maneuver or CPR, figuring the silent gesturing figurant was choking on a beer-nut or something, and that then the whole rest of that episode of ‘Cheers!’ would be about jokes about the name star’s life-saving heroics, or else his fuck-up in applying the Heineken Maneuver to somebody who wasn’t choking on a nut. No way for a figurant to win. No possible voice or focus for the encaged figurant.

You’re going to do great,” Lizzy said as they reached the mini Tiki bar. The air was cool in the high fifties and the scent of various meats on the grill filled the air. Even though they’d had the party catered, apparently Grant had insisted on grilling some things himself. “I wouldn’t have recommended you apply for it otherwise.” Athena ducked behind the bar and grinned at the array of bottles and other garnishes. She’d been friends with Lizzy the past couple months and knew her friend’s tastes by now. As she started mixing up their drinks she said, “If I fail, hopefully they won’t blame you.” Lizzy just snorted but eyed the drink mix curiously. “Purple?” “Just wait. You’ll like it.” She rolled the rims of the martini glasses in sugar as she spoke. “Where’d you learn to do this?” “I bartended a little in college and there were a few occasions on the job where I had to assist because staff called out sick for an event.” There’d been a huge festival in Madrid she’d helped out with a year ago where three of the staff had gotten food poisoning, so in addition to everything else she’d been in charge of, she’d had to help with drinks on and off. That had been such a chaotic, ridiculous job. “At least you’ll have something to fall back on if you do fail,” Lizzy teased. “I seriously hope not.” She set the two glasses on the bar and strained the purple concoction into them. With the twinkle lights strung up around the lanai and the ones glittering in the pool, the sugar seemed to sparkle around the rim. “This is called a wildcat.” “You have to make me one of those too!” The unfamiliar female voice made Athena look up. Her eyes widened as her gaze locked with Quinn freaking Brody, the too-sexy-man with an aversion to virgins. He was with the tall woman who’d just asked Athena to make a drink. But she had eyes only for Quinn. Her heart about jumped out of her chest. What was he doing here of all places? At least he looked just as surprised to see her. She ignored him because she knew if she stared into those dark eyes she’d lose the ability to speak and then she’d inevitably embarrass herself. The tall, built-like-a-goddess woman with pale blonde hair he was with smiled widely at Athena. “Only if you don’t mind,” she continued, nodding at the drinks. “They look so good.” “Ah, you can have this one. I made an extra for the lush here.” She tilted her head at Lizzy with a half-smile. Athena had planned to drink the second one herself but didn’t trust her hands not to shake if she made another. She couldn’t believe Quinn was standing right in front of her, looking all casual and annoyingly sexy in dark jeans and a long-sleeved sweater shoved up to his elbows. Why did his forearms have to look so good? “Ha, ha.” Lizzy snagged her drink as Athena stepped out from behind the bar. “Athena, this is Quinn Brody and Dominique Castle. They both work for Red Stone but Dominique is almost as new as you.” Forcing a smile on her face, Athena nodded politely at both of them—and tried to ignore the way Quinn was staring at her. She’d had no freaking idea he worked for Red Stone. He looked a bit like a hungry wolf. Just like on their last date—two months ago. When he’d decided she was too much trouble, being a virgin and all. Jackass. “It’s so nice to meet you both.” She did a mental fist pump when her voice sounded normal. “I promised Belle I’d help out inside but I hope to see you both around tonight.” Liar, liar. “Me too. Thanks again for the drink,” Dominique said cheerfully while Lizzy just gave Athena a strange look. Athena wasn’t sure what Quinn’s expression was because she’d decided to do the mature thing—and studiously ignore him.

How about something to drink. Coffee, tea, soda, water, scotch. Never too early for scotch. Violet, some scotch. Ice. I said ice. No ice, then. Me too. Always neat for me. Look at my view. No, not at the gardener. José! José! Got to pound on the glass to get his attention. He's half deaf. José! Move! You're blocking the view. Good. See the view. I'm talking about the Hollywood sign right there. Never get tired of it. Like the Word of God just dropped down, plunked on the hills, and the Word was Hollywood. Didn't God say let there be light first. What's a movie but light. Can't have a movie without light. And then words. Seeing that sign reminds me to write every morning. What. All right, so it doesn't say Hollywood. You got me. Good eye. Thing's falling to pieces. One O's half fallen and the other O's fallen altogether. The word's gone to shit. So what. You still get the meaning. Thanks, Violet. Cheers. How do they say it in your country. I said how do they say it. Yo, yo, yo, is it. I like that. Easy to remember. Yo, yo, yo, then.

In 1888 when the English artist Edward Clifford visited the island, he wrote: “I had gone to Molokai expecting to find it scarcely less dreadful than hell itself, and the cheerful people, the lovely landscapes, and comparatively painless life were all surprises. These poor people seemed singularly happy.” When Clifford asked the lepers how they could be so happy, they replied that they were doing fine, thanks, and “We like our pastor. He builds our houses himself, he gives us tea, biscuits, sugar and clothes. He takes good care of us and doesn’t let us want for anything.”47 This was only a year before Damien died. Damien remained active until the end, trying to build houses and care for his friends, and carving dolls for the children. He wrote to the bishop, who had asked him to come to Honolulu: “I cannot come for leprosy has attacked me. There are signs of it on my left cheek and ear, and my eyebrows are beginning to fall. I shall soon be quite disfigured. I have no doubt whatever about the nature of my illness, but I am calm and resigned and very happy in the midst of my people. I daily repeat from my heart, ‘Thy will be done.’”48 The bishop eventually persuaded him to be treated at the hospital in Honolulu. He was met by nuns, who were horrified to see that his face was now truly distorted and misshapen. Within two weeks, he was on a ship back to Molokai. On that voyage, the captain approached and asked if he could have a glass of wine with Damien. (He clearly hadn’t heard about the walking stick.) Damien explained that would be unwise, because he was a leper, and common wisdom dictated you shouldn’t drink with lepers. The ship captain replied that he understood, and he still wanted to, because he thought Damien was the bravest man he’d ever met.49

Colin rubbed his neck with his hand, regarding me like a hopeful puppy dog. "Are you sure you wouldn't prefer just to fling something at me and get it over with?" I leaned back against the cushioned back of the banquette, folded my arms across my chest, and waited. "Dempster?" I prompted. Colin considered for a moment, contemplated the olive plate, considered some more, and came out with, "We don't get on." "That much I figured out on my own." Colin shifted restlessly in his seat. "It's a long story." I patted the side of the glass carafe. "We have a large carafe of wine." Colin let himself relax into a rueful grin. "I really am sorry. I didn't mean to drag you into it." "Since I've already been dragged," I suggested, grasping the carafe with two hands and tipping it forwards over his glass, "it would be nice to know what's going on." "Thanks." Colin took the glass I held out to him. He raised it an ironic salute. "Cheers.

His voice cracked. Fluorescent lighting tubes rushed toward his face until he braced himself for a faceful of glass, and then he was spinning as cheers erupted around him. He gave in to panic at last, as the candy shell of anger split open, and let out a hoarse scream as he was cast, headfirst, into space.

This was a sacred homily for Borzov, and Alice respected that. Borzov lowered his glass and stared at her. “What’s vodka, Mrs. Liddell, if not all things to all men? It can be a folk medicine, a hallucinogen revealing the mysteries of the soul, a lubricant more commonly applied to sophisticated machinery than any conventional liquid—and of course it can simply be vodka too. Every aspect of the human condition finds its reflection in vodka, and its exaggeration too. Russians drink from grief and from joy, because we’re tired and to get tired, out of habit and by chance. It warms us in the cold, cools us in the heat, protects us from the damp, consoles us in grief and cheers us when times are good. Without vodka, there’d be no hospitality, no weddings, no baptisms, no burials, no farewells. Without vodka, friendship would no longer be friendship, happiness would no longer be happiness. It’s the elixir sipped sociably, spreading gregariousness and love; it’s also the anesthetic without which life would be unendurable. Vodka’s the only drug that enables the dispossessed to endure the monstrously cruel tricks life’s played on them. It’s the only solace for desperate men and women for whom there’s no other release. So where better to begin the second revolution than at the spiritual home of Russia’s vodka production, the drinker’s Mecca?

Would the bastard ever call? Smoke drifted from the ashtray where a fine Cohiba lay unattended. Several burned-out butts crowded the glass, competing for space. The man looked at his watch. Had it been done? He smashed the lit cigar into the thick-cut crystal. It smoldered with the rest as he moved through his office. He went to the window, grimy panes lightly frosted with a thin layer of freezing condensation. It was cold early this year. With one gloved finger, he traced an X in the frost. He stared out into the night. Though nearly midnight, the skyline was bright and raucous. Some festival on the grounds of Cheekwood, good cheer, grand times. If he squinted, he could make out headlights flashing by as overpaid valets squired the vehicles around the curves of the Boulevard. He

Alerted by the door’s subtle chime, Dr. Ricard emerged from an interior room. She had shoulder-length silver hair that didn’t match her youthful face. Square black glasses, minimal makeup, black knit pants with a deep-cut black-and-white silk top—Ricard was an odd mixture of hippie and hip. She couldn’t be more than forty, but Taylor wasn’t very good with ages. Ricard crossed the room and held out her hand. Taylor shook it, then followed when the doctor gestured, leading the way into her inner sanctum. The room was filled with sunlight—facing east, the early morning sun spilled through the windows, lending an air of good cheer to the surroundings. Two heavy couches faced one another across a second art deco glass coffee table; a large wing chair covered in black velvet bore the markings of frequent use. Sure enough, Ricard crossed the room, curled like a cat with her feet tucked under her, laid the notepad and pen on the coffee table and indicated Taylor should sit with a nod of her head. Taylor did, amazed at the control the woman exuded without even speaking. After a moment, the doctor spoke, her accented voice making Taylor feel like she was on a museum tour in Great Britain.

The words looped in my head. Download it for free. Cheerful, triumphant. Download it for free! What a freaking bargain. “I’m sorry,” I said. “She found what?” "That website. Meems, what was the name again? Bongo or something?” Mimi looked up from her iPad. “What are you talking about?” “That website where you found Sarah’s book.” "Oh,” she said. “Bingo. Haven’t you heard of it? It’s like an online library. You can download almost anything for free. It’s amazing.” My hands were shaking. I set down Jen’s phone, and then I set down the wineglass next to it. Without a coaster. "You mean a pirate site,” I said. “Oh God, no! I would never. It’s an online library.” "That’s what they call it. But they’re just stealing. They’re fencing stolen goods. Easy to do with electronic copies.” "No. That’s not true.” Mimi’s voice rose a little. Sharpened a little. “Libraries lend out e-books.” “Real libraries do. They buy them from the publisher. Sites like Bingo just upload unauthorized copies to sell advertising or put cookies on your phone or whatever else. They’re pirates.” There was a small, shrill silence. I lifted my wineglass and took a long drink, even though my fingers were trembling so badly, I knew everyone could see the vibration. "Well,” said Mimi. “It’s not like it matters. I mean, the book’s been out for years and everything, it’s like public domain.” I put down the wineglass and picked up my tote bag. “So I don’t have time to lecture you about copyright law or anything. Basically, if publishers don’t get paid, authors don’t get paid. That’s kind of how it works.” "Oh, come on,” said Mimi. “You got paid for this book.” "Not as much as you think. Definitely not as much as your husband gets paid to short derivatives or whatever he does that buys all this stuff.” I waved my hand at the walls. “And you know, fine, maybe it’s not the big sellers who suffer. It’s the midlist authors, the great names you never hear of, where every sale counts … What am I saying? You don’t care. None of you actually cares. Sitting here in your palaces in the sky. You never had to earn a penny of your own. Why the hell should you care about royalties?” I climbed out of my silver chair and hoisted my tote bag over my shoulder. “It’s about a dollar a book, by the way. Paid out every six months. So I walked all the way over here, gave up an evening of my life, and even if every single one of you had actually bought a legitimate copy, I would have earned about a dozen bucks for my trouble. Twelve dollars and a glass of cheap wine. I’ll see myself out.

A young troll stepped through the entrance. “Your Highness.” He held out a tray with two crystal glasses filled with a glowing blue liquid. Tristan examined them. “Do you suppose it would be inappropriate,” he asked the servant, “for me to top them up a bit with some whiskey?” The servant stared at him, expression horrified, tray trembling in his hand. “I suppose you’re right,” Tristan said glumly, although the man hadn’t spoken a word. He took the two glasses and handed me one of them. “Cheers!” I took it and eyed the contents with suspicion. “What is it? Not some sort of poison, I hope?” “I call it Liquid Shackles. It has another name, but I prefer to use my own inventions. As to its nature, well…” He shrugged. “I wouldn’t say it isn’t harmful, but it certainly won’t kill you. At least it shouldn’t – we’ve never had a human drink any before.” “Why do you call it Liquid Shackles?” I asked, pursing my lips. I did not like the sound of that one bit. “Because it is a clever metaphor,” he replied, holding the glass up to examine it more closely. I waited for him to explain further, but it was clear he had no intention of elaborating. “And if I refuse?” I asked. He cocked one eyebrow and gave me a dour look. “I suppose you’ll just force it down my throat,” I muttered. “Certainly not,” he said, lowering the glass. “It is always better to delegate nefarious tasks. You know, to keep one’s reputation intact.” I scowled, but all my dark look garnered was a grin from him. “Keep in mind that I have to drink it too.” “What does it taste like?” I asked. “Having never been bonded before, I haven’t the foggiest idea. But I expect quite vile.” He clinked his glass against mine. “Bottoms up!” He drowned the liquid in one mouthful.

We laughed, cheered, clinked glasses, and something passed between us, the same thing that passes between me and most of the athletes I work with. A transference, a camaraderie, a sort of connection. It's brief, but it nearly always happens, and I know it's part of what I was searching for when I went around the world in 1962. To study the self is to forget the self... Oneness -- in some way, shape or form, it's what every person I've ever met has been seeking.

The doctors save the handsome man’s life, but he loses one eye. Before a nice glass one can be fitted, they give him a temporary wooden eye. The man becomes very depressed and sits at home, moping around. Eventually his friends come over and drag him out to a disco to try and cheer him up. One of his friends suggests he talk to a cute girl who’s all alone. ‘No, she’ll never go for a man with a wooden eye,’ he says. ‘Okay,’ says his friend, ‘how about that girl over there? She has a really big nose. Maybe she’ll dance with you.’ The man summons up all his courage, walks over to the girl, and says, ‘Would you like to dance?’ The girl gets all excited. ‘Would I?! Would I?!’ she says. To which the man responds ‘Big nose! Big nose!

The "friend" who consistently points out the flaws in your plan, or uses a magnifying glass to find the defect in your product, or constantly searches for the chink in your armor, is the "friend" praying for your downfall. Watch and listen for the signs. Know your circle. Real ones are cheering from the sidelines, not wishing it was them in the game.

A curved bar partially divided the large front room. Behind it, a young woman with curly blond hair tied back with a red bandanna drew pints with cheerful efficiency. “What can I get for you?” she asked, smiling, as they reached the bar. “Just some information,” said Gemma, returning the smile and holding up her warrant card. The girl’s eyes widened. She glanced to either side, checking that

I glanced at Darius as we were left alone together. Apparently my attempts to avoid this particular Heir were doomed to fail tonight. Darius looked over my shoulder and his face dipped into a scowl. I followed his gaze and spotted his fiancé Mildred barrelling through the crowd towards us with a frown on her face which melded her eyebrows into one bushy line. “Come on then,” Darius said hastily, leading the way to the door Xavier had taken out of the room. “Where to?” I asked in confusion. The party was in full swing and I was fairly sure we weren’t supposed to be leaving it. Not that I’d ever cared much for rules but it seemed odd that he’d gone to so much trouble to get me here just to sneak me away again. Plus it was probably a good idea for me to get the hell away from him before his toothy bride arrived and tried to snap me in half with her brawny arms. “Xavier said you want some real food,” Darius said suggestively, heading on out without bothering to make sure I was following. I hesitated. I didn’t really want to go anywhere with him but I couldn’t deny the draw I felt to him either. The champagne probably isn’t helping with that. My stomach growled impatiently and I sighed as I gave in to its demands. I snatched another glass of champagne on my way out, quickly drinking it in one gulp before hurrying after him. If alcohol was going to make this decision for me then the least I could do was make sure I consumed plenty of it. I glanced back at Darcy as I left but she was laughing at something Hamish had said and didn’t notice me. Mildred on the other hand looked like she was primed for murder and I hurried out of the room as she began to battle her way across the dance floor with me locked in her sights. Darius led me down corridors with gilded decorations at every turn. Dragons really liked their gold and it was obvious they had plenty of it to spare. “Thank you for cheering Xavier up,” Darius said as he opened the door onto a narrow corridor and led me inside. Thankfully there was no sign of Mildred catching up and I had to hope we’d lost her. A few serving staff squeezed past us carrying trays as we walked, bowing their heads as they spotted the infamous Acrux Heir. “Why did he need cheering up?” I asked curiously. “No reason.” I rolled my eyes at his back. (Tory)