Intriguing Death Quotes

She must feel like Lucifer’s frigid breath is running down the back of her delicate neck.

Her growing possessiveness felt both good and bad.

You sound like you’re enjoying my suffering.

I knew I rode a rugged crest of turmoil that might crash on the rocky shore of irrational behavior.

What the hell, if you are going to roll the dice with Lucifer, I say go the distance.

The verdict got both the fish and me off the hook.

I watched her undress with moonlight shivering across the room from behind sheer curtains that moved with the currents from the hearth fire.

Death rides on all of our shoulders from the day we are born.

It was as if we played chess after denying me both bishops and knights.

I swallowed a sigh since, truthfully, I was glad she found the cabin.

The final sound of the rifle shot bounced around the lake.

The steps leading to the porch looked worn, cracked, and unpainted, ready for a nice hot fire.

Death is the ultimate test of faith.

A look of absolute terror locked onto her features.

Nothing looked disturbed…yet everything felt that way. The guy was on the bed, calmness itself, as though he’d decided on a moment’s lie-down and just zizzed off.

Mary was under water. She’d been under water for a long time. Rhiannon was there. No, it was just her severed head talking. The murdered girl’s hair billowed out from under the torc.

I prefer death to dishonor for me and my child.

No sleeping in the places of death.

Humans had built a world inside the world, which reflected it in pretty much the same way as a drop of water reflected the landscape. And yet ... and yet ... Inside this little world they had taken pains to put all the things you might think they would want to escape from — hatred, fear, tyranny, and so forth. Death was intrigued. They thought they wanted to be taken out of themselves, and every art humans dreamt up took them further in. He was fascinated.

That is a death I will think of often and with great fondness.

From The Other Side, Uncle Roscoe was still exercising his Second Amendment rights. Protecting me from my stalker? Or was his gun going to get me killed?

Snake Street is an area I should avoid. Yet that night I was drawn there as surely as if I had an appointment.  The Snake House is shabby on the outside to hide the wealth within. Everyone knows of the wealth, but facades, like the park’s wall, must be maintained. A lantern hung from the porch eaves. A sign, written in Utte, read ‘Kinship of the Serpent’. I stared at that sign, at that porch, at the door with its twisted handle, and wondered what the people inside would do if I entered. Would they remember me? Greet me as Kin? Or drive me out and curse me for faking my death?  Worse, would they expect me to redon the life I’ve shed? Staring at that sign, I pissed in the street like the Mearan savage I’ve become. As I started to leave, I saw a woman sitting in the gutter. Her lamp attracted me. A memsa’s lamp, three tiny flames to signify the Holy Trinity of Faith, Purity, and Knowledge.  The woman wasn’t a memsa. Her young face was bruised and a gash on her throat had bloodied her clothing. Had she not been calmly assessing me, I would have believed the wound to be mortal. I offered her a copper.  She refused, “I take naught for naught,” and began to remove trinkets from a cloth bag, displaying them for sale. Her Utte accent had been enough to earn my coin. But to assuage her pride I commented on each of her worthless treasures, fighting the urge to speak Utte. (I spoke Universal with the accent of an upper class Mearan though I wondered if she had seen me wetting the cobblestones like a shameless commoner.) After she had arranged her wares, she looked up at me. “What do you desire, O Noble Born?” I laughed, certain now that she had seen my act in front of the Snake House and, letting my accent match the coarseness of my dress, I again offered the copper.  “Nay, Noble One. You must choose.” She lifted a strand of red beads. “These to adorn your lady’s bosom?”             I shook my head. I wanted her lamp. But to steal the light from this woman ... I couldn’t ask for it. She reached into her bag once more and withdrew a book, leather-bound, the pages gilded on the edges. “Be this worthy of desire, Noble Born?”  I stood stunned a moment, then touched the crescent stamped into the leather and asked if she’d stolen the book. She denied it. I’ve had the Training; she spoke truth. Yet how could she have come by a book bearing the Royal Seal of the Haesyl Line? I opened it. The pages were blank. “Take it,” she urged. “Record your deeds for study. Lo, the steps of your life mark the journey of your soul.”   I told her I couldn’t afford the book, but she smiled as if poverty were a blessing and said, “The price be one copper. Tis a wee price for salvation, Noble One.”   So I bought this journal. I hide it under my mattress. When I lie awake at night, I feel the journal beneath my back and think of the woman who sold it to me. Damn her. She plagues my soul. I promised to return the next night, but I didn’t. I promised to record my deeds. But I can’t. The price is too high.

Every cold case is someone’s failure. And while every failure has many illegitimate parents, usually, one person gets stuck with the kid. Scholz was this ugly baby’s mother. And mommas can be very temperamental about their babies, especially the ugly ones.

But I couldn’t help thinking—Who the hell eats bats? Probably nothing.

And I looked out at the dog, and McCoy trying to cradle her in one arm and cut the rope with t’other, and I said, ‘What goes around, comes around, daddy.’ “And he just smiled. A wicked smile. And he nodded. And he kept on driving, turning left onto the road to the church.”  

Advice for New Knitters When choosing a pattern, look for ones that have words such as "simple", "basic", and "easy". If you see the words "intriguing", "challenging", or "intricate", look elsewhere. If you happen across a pattern that says "heirloom", slowly put down the pattern and back away. "Heirloom" is knitting code for "This pattern is so difficult that you would consider death a relief".

If I were a lesbian, I’d probably be one of those lipstick lesbians, which I of course had in my pocket for touch-ups later.

I sat in my brown-belted gi at the painted metal table outside of Einstein’s and Peet’s with Mr. Ho, my Kenpo Karate instructor in his black-belted gi, and my bronze, canine psychologist, wearing his/her Lacoste eyeglasses.

The gold cross around his neck lay itself upon me.

The events unfolded with such speed and efficiency that Anderson found himself in a state of shock. His anger with Bevin and McPhearson was quickly replaced with a sense of impending doom. An unbelievable stream of events had taken place since his training exercises in the Pacific.

Comfort took a distant second to fashion where footwear was concerned. Unless of course, one was fleeing!

If that was the last time we met, I was satisfied with my parting words. But if that was the case, why was I crying on the way back to the train as if I'd experienced a death?

Neville's a pleasant sort of standby when there's nothing more exciting on the go. A safe, attractive, reliable chap. He's respectful, never having tried to get her into bed which, if she was a better sort of person, she might appreciate.

This was no fantasy. This was death. We could call it, we could cast lots about it, plan for it, gamble with it, welcome it in. But we did not have the power to send it away.

Bend down, bend down. Excess is the only ease, so bend. The sun is in the tree. Put your mouth on mine. Bend down beam & slash, for Dread is dreamed-up-scenes of what comes after death. Is being fled from what bends down in pain. The elbow bends in the brain, lifts the cup. The worst is yet to dream you up, so bend down the intrigue you dreamed. Flee the hayneedle in the brain's tree. Excess allures by leaps. Stars burn clean. Oriole bitches and gleams. Dread is the fear of being less forever. So bend. Bend down and kiss what you see.

I've always been intrigued by Stockholm Syndrome. Reminds me of my childhood.

I was so intrigued at the thought of being your captive, Laz, I almost stayed put,” Death whispers against my ear. “But I have work to do.

You know how much I used to like Plato. Today I realize he lied. For the things of this world are not a reflection of the ideal, but a product of human sweat, blood and hard labour. It is we who built the pyramids, hewed the marble for the temples and the rocks for the imperial roads, we who pulled the oars in the galleys and dragged wooden ploughs, while they wrote dialogues and dramas, rationalized their intrigues by appeals in the name of the Fatherland, made wars over boundaries and democracies. We were filthy and died real deaths. They were 'aesthetic' and carried on subtle debates. There can be no beauty if it is paid for by human injustice, nor truth that passes over injustice in silence, nor moral virtue that condones it.

What he found impossible was to shut off his brain, to detach himself from the intriguing problems with which (he) was involved, or to leave alone the major problems of war and peace, race and poverty, man's inhumanity to man and the persistence of stupidity.

What do I see? I see a man who has higher and thicker walls than I will ever have. I see a terrifying beast enveloped and hidden by a cleverly fashioned mask. I see tears that will never fall. I see blood and death. I see a heart that devours itself. I see the promise of a pain and deceit. I see a lot of things, Baltsaros. Many of them frightening,” Jon said. Baltsaros showed no surprise over Jon’s words. Instead, he leaned towards him, intrigued. “And you’re not afraid,” he said.

The woman was sexy, lethal and very confident. The sound of her laughter was enticing. Intriguing. It played along his nerve endings and sent an electrical current running through his bloodstream. He was on the verge of death and he'd never felt more alive.

What! You mean you don't have any monks to teach and dispute and govern and intrigue and burn people to death who don't agree with them?

All that comes to pass is as familiar and well known as the rose in spring, and the grape in summer. Of like fashion are sickness, death, calumny, intrigue, and all that gladdens or saddens the foolish.

No one understands me but I am cool with that. I was different from others. I knew this from when I was young. Things that turned people off normally about violence and death did the exact opposite with me. For when I was a small boy, death always intrigued me. I loved watching things die. Watching life leave someone's eyes was an adrenaline rush.

If we can break the code on what the word ‘Hagalaz’ meant to him, maybe we’ll have a lead. Nobody with the surname, so forget that. The anagram parsing leads nowhere. In fact, there is no known seven-letter anagram of the word. Or six letters. Now, there are some meanings of the word out there. It’s a Norse rune. The ninth rune in the twenty-four letter magical Norse alphabet. Its meaning is, to me, difficult to understand. Best I can decipher is, ‘Don’t try to fix what we should break before it breaks us.’” That got Pack’s attention.

One intriguing way to enter into the battle between good and evil, life and death, sanity and madness, is in the pages of fiction.

The death of a loved one is a terrible thing. Even more terrible is the death of the only dear person; the one who shares your every breath.

This smells like death. I’m immensely intrigued.

The public craves disaster. Don't understand it myself, but the more tragic, the more intriguing. And this catastrophe has it all. Death, destruction, melodrama. What more could people want?

Later, everybody agreed the baths should have been closed sooner; they agreed health education should have been more direct and more timely. And everybody also agreed blood banks should have tested blood sooner, and that a search for the AIDS virus should have been started sooner, and that scientists should have laid aside their petty intrigues. Everybody subsequently agreed that the news media should have offered better coverage of the epidemic much earlier, and that the federal government should have done much, much more. By the time everyone agreed to all this, however, it was too late. Instead people died. Tens of thousands of them.

Modern wars as a rule have been caused by the commercial and financial rivalry and intrigues of the capitalist interests in the different countries. Whether they have been frankly waged as wars of aggression or have been hypocritically represented as wars of “defense,” they have always been made by the [ruling] classes and fought by The Masses. Wars bring wealth and power to the ruling classes, and suffering, death, and demoralization to the workers.

You are more than likely thinking by now that all of this sounds somewhat fanciful, perhaps over the top, all too complicated and even perhaps at times chaotic. It may seem so at first glance, but life here is a complex and intriguing happening, with never a dull moment to be had. And why should it not be so? “Death” as you have named it, is not the end of life. It is to us a birth back here once again to our side, to our true home. So it is a rebirth in a sense.

The histories and tragedies of Shakespeare that Lincoln loved most dealt with themes that would resonate to a president in the midst of civil war: political intrigue, the burdens of power, the nature of ambition, the relationship of leaders to those they governed. The plays illuminated with stark beauty the dire consequences of civil strife, the evils wrought by jealousy and disloyalty, the emotions evoked by the death of a child, the sundering of family ties or love of country.

This is the way it goes. In your mid-forties you have your first crisis of mortality (death will not ignore me); and ten years later you have your first crisis of age (my body whispers that death is already intrigued by me). But something very interesting happens to you in between. As the fiftieth birthday approaches, you get the sense that your life is thinning out, and will continue to thin out, until it thins out into nothing. And you sometimes say to yourself: That went a bit quick. That went a bit quick. In certain moods, you may want to put it rather more forcefully. As in: OY!! THAT went a BIT FUCKING QUICK!!! ... Then fifty comes and goes, and fifty-one, and fifty-two. And life thickens out again. Because there is now an enormous and unsuspected presence within your being, like an undiscovered continent. This is the past.

This is the way that it goes. In your mid forties you have your first crisis of mortality (death will not ignore me); and ten years later you have your first crisis of age (my body whispers that death is already intrigued by me). But something very interesting happens to you in between. As the fiftieth birthday approaches, you get that sense that your life is thinning out, and will continue to thin out, until it thins out into nothing. And you sometimes say to yourself; That went a bit quick. That went a bit quick. In certain moods you may want to put it a bit more forcefully. As in: OY!! That went a BIT FUCKING QUICK!!!.... Then fifty comes and goes, and fifty-one, and fifty-two. And life thickens out again. Because there is now an enormous and unsuspected presence within your being, like an undiscovered continent. This is the past.

The brittle pages were filled with melodramatic intrigue and passionate short-sightedness that seemed laughable now. People who believed that their slightest actions mattered and that they could find a sense of completion before death inevitably took them, along with everyone they ever knew and loved. It was entertaining reading, but hard for Munira to relate to at first...but the more she read, the more she came to understand the fears and the dreams of mortals. The trouble they all had living in the moment, in spite of the fact that the moment was all they had.

Colonel Shy—ably assisted by a few newspaper reporters and my own big mouth—had revealed both the depths of my own ignorance and the huge gap in forensic knowledge. Personally, I was embarrassed; scientifically, I was intrigued; above all, I was determined to do something about it. From

Instead of violent wars there could be violent video games. Instead of heroic feats, there could be thrilling amusement park rides. Instead of serious thought, there could be intrigues of all sorts as if in a soap opera. It is a world where people spend their lives amusing themselves to death.

Any critique of Islam is denounced as an expression of Western Islamophobia, Salman Rushdie is denounced for unnecessarily provoking Muslims and being (partially, at least) responsible for the fatwa condemning him to death, and so on. The result of such stances is what one should expect in such cases: the more the Western liberal Leftists probe into their guilt, the more they are accused by Muslim fundamentalists of being hypocrites who try to conceal their hatred of Islam. [T]his constellation perfectly reproduces the paradox of the superego: the more you obey what the Other demands of you, the guiltier you are. It is as if the more you tolerate Islam, the stronger its pressure on you will be. What this implies is that terrorist fundamentalists, be they Christian or Muslim, are not really fundamentalists in the authentic sense of the term--what they lack is a feature that is easy to discern in all authentic fundamentalists, from Tibetan Buddhists to the Amish in the US: the absence of resentment and envy, the deep indifference towards the non-believers' way of life. If today's so-called fundamentalists really believe they have found their way to Truth, why should they feel threatened by non-believers, why should they envy them? When a Buddhist encounters a Western hedonist, he hardly condemns. He just benevolently notes that the hedonist's search for happiness is self-defeating. In contrast to true fundamentalists, the terrorist pseudo-fundamentalists are deeply bothered, intrigued and fascinated by the sinful life of the non-believers. One can feel that, in fighting the sinful other, they are fighting their own temptation. The passionate intensity of a fundamentalist mob bears witness to the lack of true conviction; deep in themselves, terrorist fundamentalists also lack true conviction--their violent outbursts are proof of it. How fragile the belief of a Muslim would be if he felt threatened by, say, a stupid caricature in a low-circulation Danish newspaper? Fundamentalist Islamic terror is not grounded in the terrorists' conviction of their superiority and in their desire to safeguard their cultural-religious identify from the onslaught of global consumerist civilization. The problem with fundamentalists is not that we consider them inferior to us, but, rather, that they themselves secretly consider themselves inferior. This is why our condescending politically correct assurances that we feel no superiority towards them only makes them more furious and feed their resentment. The problem is not cultural difference (their effort to preserve their identity), but the opposite: the fact that the fundamentalists are already like us, that, secretly, they have already internalized our standards and measure themselves by them.

She died a few days later, and her death buried once and for all the intrigues between the Precious Wife, the Gracious Wife, and all the Imperial favorites. Rivalries and alliances, loathing and attraction had been dissolved. Their existence had been a pointless tragedy, just as the talent of one prodigious poetess had been.

The death of a loved one is a terrible thing. Even more terrible is the death of the only dear person; the one who shares your every breath. But the worst thing is when the loved one is slowly dying before your very eyes; when you see and understand everything but cannot help him; when you are prepared to give up your life for his, but they won't take it.

And yet—and yet—she enchants me, intrigues me, draws me like sin to hellfire. The infernal regions in the hollow between her breasts, wet and warm, dark and dense, offers delicious emptiness, captivating, overpowering, like the bottom of a well, the abyss beneath a hanging bridge on a dreary, gloomy day when all hope is gone and death is like the serpent in Eden.

You should want to leave, too.” His voice darkened. “Unless you want to lift your skirts and sit on my lap so I can take you right here in the box.” So she was the source of his distraction? “You are always making these suggestions as though they should be threats. Meanwhile, I’m only intrigued.” With nonchalance, she laid a hand on his thigh. Then stroked a single fingertip in lazy circles. His thigh tensed beneath her touch. “Woman, you are killing me.” She shrugged. “As you said, it is a Shakespearean tragedy. Everyone dies; the end.” “Enough.” He launched to his feet. “I am ordering the carriage, and we are going home. To bed. And you are going to die no fewer than ten ‘little deaths’ before I’m through with you.” Very well. If he insisted.

The computer hummed, sliced Roarke's face onto the screen. Such an intriguing couple. His background was no prettier than the cop's had been. But he'd chosen, at least initially, the other side of the law to make his mark. And his fortune. Now they were a set. A set that could be destroyed on a whim. But not yet. Not for some little time yet. After all, the game had just begun.

I sat down on the bench in front of the print and made some notes. “Katsushika Hokusai. 1760–1849. Japanese printmaker. Leading Japanese expert on Chinese painting. Master of the Ukiyo-e form. Nichiren Buddhist.” Later, at home, I Googled Hokusai. He died at eighty-nine, and sure enough, on his deathbed—still looking to penetrate deeper into his art—he had exclaimed, “If only heaven will give me just another ten years!… Just another five more years, then I could become a real painter.” Hokusai was a man who saw his work as a means to “penetrate to the essential nature” of things. And he appears to have succeeded. His work, a hundred and fifty years after his death, could reach right off a gallery wall and grab me in the gut. More than anything, I was intrigued by the quality of Hokusai’s passion for his work. He helped me see that a life devoted to dharma can be a deeply ardent life.

I heard a few men in a restaurant talking about a bayou legend," Savannah said suddenly.She leaned ont he side of the boat,presenting him with an intriguing view of her tight jeans. They clung lovingly to every curve. Gregori moved, a flowing of his body, gliding silently, and his large frame was blanketing Savannah's, blocking out the captain's enticing view.Gregori leaned into her,his arms coming down on either side of the railing to imprison her against him. You are doing it again. His words brushed softly in her mind even as his warm breath teased the tendrils of hair at her neck. Savannah leaned back into him, fitting her bottom into the cradle of his hips. She was happy, free of the oppressive weight of the hunt,of death and violence. THere were only the two of them. Three, he reminded her,his teeth scraping her sensitive pulse.He could feel the answering surge of her blood, the molten lava spreading in his. My mother thinks my father is a cave man.I'm beginning to think you could give him a run for his money. Disrespectful little thing. "Which legend?There are so many," Beau said. "About an old alligator that lies in wait to eat hunting dogs and little children," Savannah said. Gregori tugged at her long braid so that she tilted her head back.His mouth brushed the line of her throat. I could be a hungry alligator, he offered softly.

She told me that Melisande had borne a daughter, and that one day . . . one day she would like for us to meet. And so when your father advertised the fact that he was looking for a husband for his daughter—” “Advertised,” she interrupted. “Oh, yes. Far and wide. Princess. Beautiful. Nubile. Available to big strong man, with even bigger sword.” Mickel thumped his chest. “I was intrigued. I was mortified. I thought I would save the daughter of my mother’s best friend from a fate worse than death.” “And if I had been a loud mouthed harridan with a taste for garlic and a fear of bathing?” “I would have been the Warlord everyone thinks I am, tossed her aside like a sack of potatoes in a white wedding dress, and asked for the hand of a peculiar redheaded woman I met on the road.” Sally smiled. “And if she said no?” “Well,” Mickel said, kissing her hand. “I may not be the Warlord of the Savage Belly Ache, but I am exceptionally brave. I would fight for her.

Your ass is actually very nice. Well, at least what I can see of it. If your ass is that nice, no wonder they have an obsession with your—” “Concentrate,” I grumble, snapping my fingers in front of his face. “I’m trying,” he lies, still staring down at my ass. I start to turn to face him instead of sitting comfortably on the bed, just so my ass will be facing the wall, but the door flies open and slams into the wall. Drake curses, then he grunts a, “Fuck me.” “The fuck is going on in here?” Drex growls, letting his eyes drop to my exposed back, and apparently my exposed ass. Not my fault this hospital keeps the ridiculous slit in the back of their gowns. “We’re having a conversation,” I say with a sweet smile. “It’s full of dirty innuendo and intriguing assumptions about my pussy.” “No the hell it isn’t,” Drake refutes, looking at me like I’ve lost my damn mind. “But you were just saying that my—” “Damn it, you crazy woman! Don’t give him a reason to break my arms while I can’t fight back!” Drake barks.

His eyeless skull took in the line of costumes, the waxy debris of the makeup table. His empty nostrils snuffed up the mixed smells of mothballs, grease, and sweat. There was something here, he thought, that nearly belonged to the gods. Humans had built a world inside the world, which reflected it in pretty much the same way as a drop of water reflects the landscape. And yet... and yet... Inside this little world they had taken pains to put all the things you might think they would want to escape from - hatred, fear, tyranny, and so forth. Death was intrigued. They thought they wanted to be taken out of themselves, and every art humans dreamt up took them further in.

What did normal people do after dark, the ones who weren’t nameless strangers with no memories, the ones who didn’t earn their livings in the death and intrigue business? He tried to work it out from first principles. The ones who worked hard all day would go home and sleep; if they weren’t tired they’d light a lamp and mend their clothes or their tools, sing, tell stories, make love, whatever. Somehow he couldn’t imagine it, any more than he could imagine what giants or elves or gods did in their spare time when they weren’t being legends. Far more plausible to assume that they didn’t exist in the dark, or if they didn’t simply disappear when nobody could see them they sat still and quiet, inanimate, waiting for daybreak and the turn of the next page.

That this exceptionally scholarly man whose judgments, always rich and sensitive, though sometimes austere, should have embarked on an intensely romantic retelling of the old Cornish legend of that famous pair of tragic lovers, Tristan and Queen Iseult, is intriguing in itself. But what makes it even more fascinating is that Daphne du Maurier, asked by “Q” ’s daughter long after her father’s death to finish this novel that he had set aside “near the end of a chapter, halfway through,” did so in such a skillful fashion that it is impossible to guess with any certainty the exact point at which she began to write. She says, in a modest foreword, that she “could not imitate ‘Q’’s style… that would have been robbing the dead,” but she had known him when she was a child, remembered him as a genial host at many a Sunday supper, and “by thinking back to conversations long forgotten” she could recapture something of the man himself and trust herself to “fall into his mood.

After “the business” (which turned out to be much more complicated than had been anticipated, evolving from a fairly simple affair of Sidonian smugglers into a glittering intrigue studded with Cilician pirates, a kidnapped Cappadocian princess, a forged letter of credit on a Syracusian financier, a bargain with a female Cyprian slave-dealer, a rendezvous that turned into an ambush, some priceless tomb-filched Egyptian jewels that no one ever saw, and a band of Idumean brigands who came galloping out of the desert to upset everyone’s calculations) and after Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser had returned to the soft embraces and sweet polyglot of the seaport ladies, pig-trickery befell Fafhrd once more, this time ending in a dagger brawl with some men who thought they were rescuing a pretty Bithynian girl from death by salty and odorous drowning at the hands of a murderous red-haired giant—Fafhrd had insisted on dipping the girl, while still metamorphosed, into a hogshead of brine remaining from pickled pork.

God’s goodness comes to us amidst the battle and dust of our own suffering, our own long defeat. God always arrives with healing. But he is humble and meek, a king who comes in through the back door of our hearts not to conquer and raze our imperfections away but to hold and heal us by the intimacy of his touch, his presence here with us in the inmost rooms of our suffering. The power of God is radically gentle, never rough with our needs or careless with our yearning. God is fixed upon the restoration of our whole selves and souls, not just the bits that everyone else can see. Yet the very tenderness of his power is something we sometimes treat as his weakness or cruelty because we crave a more visible result. The healing kind of power is not the sort we’ve been taught to respect by existence in a fallen world where power just means brute force. We want the swift and the visible: illness zapped away, money in our hands, brilliant doctors, prosperous lives, and conversion stories by the thousands. We crave visibility and approbation and health and big crowds that make us feel important enough to forget the frail selves we used to be. When we pray for God to come in power to save us, we often picture a scenario in which God invades our lives as the ultimate mighty man to banish our frailty and make us something entirely other than we are, capable of the will and force whose lack we so deeply feel. But God cradles and cherishes our frailty, and that is where the true power of his love is known. I always think it intriguing that in the Gospels Jesus seems far less interested in the faith and hope at work in broken people than merely the healing of their bodies. For I think God knows there is no real healing until our hearts are healed of their fear, our minds cleansed of doubt. Broken bodies, shattered hopes, suffering minds, terrible pasts - they leave us deathly ill with the twisted belief that love can never be great enough to encompass the whole of the story. We feel that we must subtract or conceal part of ourselves if we are ever to win the love of other people or God himself. We are diminished in our own eyes by our suffering, taught to despair of our dreams, to give up our hope that God will come with goodness in his hands. So God creeps in, gentle, and we know his touch because we are not discarded or dismissed, but healed. He comes to unravel our self-doubt, to untangle the evil we have believed, to call us back from the dark lands of our insecurity. He calls us by name and wakes us from sleep so that we rise to ask what this kind and precious King commands, and so often his command is simply to open our hands so that they may be filled with his goodness. For when God arrives as the healer, we learn anew that the anguished hopes we carry are held within God’s hand like the hazelnut of Mother Julian’s vision. The story he weaves for us may look radically different from what we thought we desired, but when it arrives, we will recognize it as the intimate gift of a love whose will for us is always so much greater than our own.

Dželat mi prilazi i kaže: "Spustite glavu na panj i raširite ruke kad budete spremni, gospo." Poslušno spuštam ruke na panj i nespretno kleknem na travu. Osećam njen miris pod kolenima. Osećam bol u leđima i čujem krik galebova i nečiji plač. A onda odjednom, baš kad se spremim da spustim čelo na hrapavu površinu panja i raširim ruke da dam znak krvniku da može da udari, odjednom me preplavljuje talas radosti i žudnje za životom, i kažem: "Ne." Prekasno je, dželat je već zamahnuo sekirom iznad glave, vež je spušta, ali ja kažem: "Ne" i ustajem, pridržavajući se za panj da se osovim na noge. Osetim strahovit udarac na potiljku, ali gotovo nikakav bol. Silina udarca obara me na zemlju i ja ponavljam "Ne", i odjednom me obuzima buntovnički zanos. Ne pristajem na volju ludaka Henrija Tjudora, ne spuštam krotko glavu na panj i nikada to neću uraditi. Boriću se za svoj život i vičem "Ne!", pokušavajući da ustanem i "Ne", kad osetim novi udarac, "Ne" dok pužem po travi, a krv mi lipti iz rane na vratu i glavi i zaslepljuje me, ali ne guši moju radost u borbi za život iako mi on izmiče, i svedočenju, do poslednje g časa, o zlu koje Henri Tjudor nanosi meni i mojima. "Ne!", vičem. "Ne! Ne! Ne

Physicians of the Soul and Pain. All preachers of morality, as also all theologians, have a bad habit in common: all of them try to persuade man that he is very ill, and that a severe, final, radical cure is necessary. And because mankind as a whole has for centuries listened too eagerly to those teachers, something of the superstition that the human race is in a very bad way has actually come over men: so that they are now far too ready to sigh; they find nothing more in life and make melancholy faces at each other, as if life were indeed very hard to endure. In truth, they are inordinately assured of their life and in love with it, and full of untold intrigues and subtleties for suppressing everything disagreeable, and for extracting the thorn from pain and misfortune. It seems to me that people always speak with exaggeration about pain and misfortune, as if it were a matter of good behaviour to exaggerate here: on the other hand people are intentionally silent in regard to the number of expedients for alleviating pain; as for instance, the deadening of it, feverish flurry of thought, a peaceful position, or good and bad reminiscences, intentions, and hopes, — also many kinds of pride and fellow-feeling, which have almost the effect of anaesthetics: while in the greatest degree of pain fainting takes place of itself. We understand very well how to pour sweetness on our bitterness, especially on the bitterness of our soul; we find a remedy in our bravery and sublimity, as well as in the nobler delirium of submission and resignation. A loss scarcely remains a loss for an hour: in some way or other a gift from heaven has always fallen into our lap at the same moment — a new form of strength, for example: be it but a new opportunity for the exercise of strength! What have the preachers of morality not dreamt concerning the inner 'misery' of evil men! What lies have they not told us about the misfortunes of impassioned men! Yes, lying is here the right word: they were only too well aware of the overflowing happiness of this kind of man, but they kept silent as death about it; because it was a refutation of their theory, according to which happiness only originates through the annihilation of the passions and the silencing of the will! And finally, as regards the recipe of all those physicians of the soul and their recommendation of a severe radical cure, we may be allowed to ask: Is our life really painful and burdensome enough for us to exchange it with advantage for a Stoical mode of living, and Stoical petrification? We do not feel sufficiently miserable to have to feel ill in the Stoical fashion!

She spoke so passionately that some of the Historians believed her, even the ones like Dr. Karuna who had been passed over for promotion when Crome put Valentine in charge of their Guild. As for Bevis Pod, he watched her with shining eyes, filled with a feeling that he couldn’t even name; something that they had never taught him about in the Learning Labs. It made him shiver all over. Pomeroy was the first to speak. “I hope you’re right, Miss Valentine,” he said. “Because he is the only man who can hope to challenge the Lord Mayor. We must wait for his return.” “But …” “In the meantime, we have agreed to keep Mr. Pod safe, here at the Museum. He can sleep up in the old Transport Gallery, and help Dr. Nancarrow catalogue the art collection, and if the Engineers come hunting for him we’ll find a hiding place. It isn’t much of a blow against Crome, I know. But please understand, Katherine: We are old, and frightened, and there really is nothing more that we can do.” The world was changing. That was nothing new, of course; the first thing an Apprentice Historian learned was that the world was always changing, but now it was changing so fast that you could actually see it happening. Looking down from the flight deck of the Jenny Haniver, Tom saw the wide plains of the eastern Hunting Ground speckled with speeding towns, spurred into flight by whatever it was that had bruised the northern sky, heading away from it as fast as their tracks or wheels could carry them, too preoccupied to try and catch one another. “MEDUSA,” he heard Miss Fang whisper to herself, staring toward the far-off, flame-flecked smoke. “What is a MEDUSA?” asked Hester. “You know something, don’t you? About what my mum and dad were killed for?” “I’m afraid not,” the aviatrix replied. “I wish I did. But I heard the name once. Six years ago another League agent managed to get into London, posing as a crewman on a licensed airship. He had heard something that must have intrigued him, but we never learned what it was. The League had only one message from him, just two words: Beware MEDUSA. The Engineers caught him and killed him.” “How do you know?” asked Tom. “Because they sent us back his head,” said Miss Fang. “Cash on Delivery.” That evening she set the Jenny Haniver down on one of the fleeing towns, a respectable four-decker called Peripatetiapolis that was steering south to lair in the mountains beyond the Sea of Khazak. At the air-harbor there they heard more news of what had happened to Panzerstadt-Bayreuth. “I saw it!” said an aviator. “I was a hundred miles away, but I still saw it. A tongue of fire, reaching out from London’s Top Tier and bringing death to everything

Frank heard the glass of water thump on the stand that he now imagined might be beside the bed, which meant it was. Finally something firm to grasp, in his mind and with his hand. He reached out very slowly, as he didn’t want to risk tearing the gauze that was so precariously holding his vital organs together. He felt wood. His fingers slid shakily over the corners of the table, feeling their reality, their solidity. He tried to picture it in his head, all rough hewn and unpainted, but the white kept slipping in, even though he knew Mexicans rarely painted anything with a neutral color. Still, there it was, a whitewashed bed stand in his mind. He tried to overlook it, and reached up higher to find the glass cylinder full of what his body was screaming out for, water. That was why he felt so tight, he figured. His tissues and muscles had all dried up, and he needed to rehydrate them before even attempting to move. So at last, grasping the all important container, his fingers straining against its mighty heft, he slowly slipped it to and then off of the edge of the little table. Vast oceans of bluey refuge sloshed against their constraints, spilling their powerful waves over the side, across his sleeping hand, and onto the bed sheets below that were undoubtedly as white as Santa’s fucking beard. But the spill, the great cresting of the breakers over the levee walls, tremendous in its awesome power and glory, had only served to excite him, to intrigue him, the refreshment that the backside of his hand was lapping up osmotically served only to stoke the great thirst within him, and with God steadying his hand, he tipped his gauze laden head up, muscled the glass towards his mouth with veins rippling in his arms, and tipped it. It was not a perfect pour. Water splashed against his forehead, his eyes still clenched tightly in their death struggle against the white, as he had no idea where his mouth was at that point anyway. But he really didn’t give a shit where the life giving fluid went, for he had become a very gauzey sponge, and his tissues would reach their strange and parched tendrils across the entire room if they must to soak up the precious juices that would in turn dissolve their steely grip and allow him to rise from his low perch and sallie forth across the blue fields of agave that awaited a non-suicidal tourist’s itinerary, just outside the door he could not remember but which must surely be bolted to an opening that must surely be the gateway to the very room in which he must surely be attempting to drink.

One of Tesla's most intriguing inventions was something called a teleforce weapon, or death ray.

Old Babylonian Period. Thanks substantially to the royal archives from the town of Mari, the eighteenth century BC has become thoroughly documented. As the century opened there was an uneasy balance of power among four cities: Larsa ruled by Rim-Sin, Mari ruled by Yahdun-Lim (and later, Zimri-Lim), Assur ruled by Shamshi-Adad I, and Babylon ruled by Hammurapi. Through a generation of political intrigue and diplomatic strategy, Hammurapi eventually emerged to establish the prominence of the first dynasty of Babylon. The Old Babylonian period covered the time from the fall of the Ur III dynasty (c. 2000 BC) to the fall of the first dynasty of Babylon (just after 1600 BC). This is the period during which most of the narratives in Ge 12–50 occur. The rulers of the first dynasty of Babylon were Amorites. The Amorites had been coming into Mesopotamia as early as the Ur III period, at first being fought as enemies, then gradually taking their place within the society of the Near East. With the accession of Hammurapi to the throne, they reached the height of success. Despite his impressive military accomplishments, Hammurapi is most widely known today for his collection of laws. The first dynasty of Babylon extends for more than a century beyond the time of Hammurapi, though decline began soon after his death and continued unabated, culminating in the Hittite sack of Babylon in 1595 BC. This was nothing more than an incursion on the part of the Hittites, but it dealt the final blow to the Amorite dynasty, opening the doors of power for another group, the Kassites. Eras of Mesopotamian History (Round Dates) Early Dynastic Period 2900–2350 BC Dynasty of Akkad 2350–2200 BC Ur III Empire 2100–2000 BC Old Babylonian Period 2000–1600 BC Go to Chart Index Eras of Egyptian History (Round Dates) Old Kingdom 3100–2200 BC First Intermediate Period 2200–2050 BC Middle Kingdom 2050–1720 BC Second Intermediate Period 1720–1550 BC Hyksos 1650–1550 BC Go to Chart Index Palestine: Middle Bronze Age Abraham entered the Palestine region during the Middle Bronze Age (2200–1550 BC), which was dominated by scattered city-states, much as Mesopotamia had been, though Palestine was not as densely populated or as extensively urbanized as Mesopotamia. The period began about the time of the fall of the dynasty of Akkad in Mesopotamia (c. 2200 BC) and extended until about 1500 BC (plus or minus 50 years, depending on the theories followed). In Syria there were power centers at Yamhad, Qatna, Alalakh and Mari, and the coastal centers of Ugarit and Byblos seemed to be already thriving. In Palestine only Hazor is mentioned in prominence. Contemporary records from Palestine are scarce, though the Egyptian Story of Sinuhe has Middle Bronze Age Palestine as a backdrop and therefore offers general information. Lists of cities in Palestine are also given in the Egyptian texts. Most are otherwise unknown, though Jerusalem and Shechem are mentioned. As the period progresses there is more and more contact with Egypt and extensive caravan travel between Egypt and Palestine.

August Murder creates a fast-paced thriller about terrorism, murder, politics, and one man who doesn't believe the report of events surrounding his son's death in Puerto Rico, and who assembles a posse of lawyers and investigators to uncover the truth. The focus on political investigations and a web of intrigue and conspiracy, combined with a heavy dose of Puerto Rican politics and cultural insights, lends to a creation which serves to both entertain and enlighten. It takes a talented hand to wind nonfiction facts into a fictional mystery, grapple with a myriad of characters which prove compelling and recognizable in their own rights through the story line, and maintain a flow of action and drama that easily holds reader attention. August Mystery succeeds in all these aspects, and is a compelling saga of conflicting evidence and motivations for murder, crafting an especially astute eye to capturing Puerto Rican daily lives and experiences: "Mr. Miller, policemen in Puerto Rico don’t make a lot of money. The average salary for a police officer is around $30,000, about the same as the average salary for a teacher. For that kind of money, they risk their lives in dangerous places. They have to deal with young delinquents in the projects who may make $30,000 in one week, and who are much better armed than any policeman. It’s amazing that more of them are not taking money to look the other way or do worse." T. Miranda's ability to enlighten readers about the underlying culture, social issues, and political pressures in Puerto Rico contributes to an outstanding thriller especially recommended for modern readers who would gain a sense of the island's processes and peoples. D. Donovan, Senior Editor, Midwest Book Review

Your ass is actually very nice. Well, at least what I can see of it. If your ass is that nice, no wonder they have an obsession with your—” “Concentrate,” I grumble, snapping my fingers in front of his face. “I’m trying,” he lies, still staring down at my ass. I start to turn to face him instead of sitting comfortably on the bed, just so my ass will be facing the wall, but the door flies open and slams into the wall. Drake curses, then he grunts a, “Fuck me.” “The fuck is going on in here?” Drex growls, letting his eyes drop to my exposed back, and apparently my exposed ass. Not my fault this hospital keeps the ridiculous slit in the back of their gowns. “We’re having a conversation,” I say with a sweet smile. “It’s full of dirty innuendo and intriguing assumptions about my pussy.” “No the hell it isn’t,” Drake refutes, looking at me like I’ve lost my damn mind.

I know your given name is Katherine. So why does everyone call you Kitty?” He pulled a bag of dried apple slices from his medical bag. With a few pieces in his hand, he gestured to Kitty but she shook her head to decline.  She sat straight. “Do you not know?” Holding a piece of apple up to his mouth, Nathaniel prepared for a bite. “I’m waiting.” He flicked the morsel in his mouth and began to chew. She grinned and played with the printed floral fabric of her skirt. “Father was in his study reviewing materials one evening, when Peter—” Nathaniel raised his hand, his expression tender. “You mean your older brother... the one you lost.” “Aye.” The pain of her brother’s death, though always fresh, receded as she prepared to share how her dear sibling had given her such a name. She brushed a blade of grass from her knee. “Peter must have been about two and a half years old, perhaps older. Father said Peter came rushing in babbling something about a kitty and pointing vigorously in the direction of the kitchen.”  Kitty imitated the motion, making Nathaniel’s handsome smile widen. “I’m intrigued. Continue.” “Father followed Peter toward the kitchen where, inside the barrel of flour and covered from top to toe was none other than the baby of the family. So, from that moment on Peter, Father, Mother and Liza all called me Kitty.” Nathaniel pelted the air with that buoyant laugh Kitty loved. “How did you get into the barrel without your mother’s notice?” “’Tis a mystery.” He leaned back onto the grass and rested against his elbow, nodding with mock disapproval. “So you were a wily child then?” “Am I not wily now?” “I should say so. And you’ve enjoyed getting your fingers messy in the kitchen ever since.” “Aye, I have.” He

I saw her tonight. I didn’t mean to and I wasn’t prepared for it. I came across her sweet smiling face and I had no choice but to be confronted with all the emotions and memories I associated with her. It brought me back to this past summer when she passed from this world into the next and how I watched the minutes in the day pass and felt the sorrow of the approaching sunset knowing that darkness would soon follow. There is something profound about the first night after someone you love dies. Seeing her again and mourning the loss of her anew reminded me that we keep too much to ourselves and we let people go without them ever knowing how much they touched us, intrigued us, taught us, or moved us. I’m a firm believer in actions doing the telling, but people need to hear it as well.

Inside this little world they had taken pains to put all the things you might think they would want to escape from – hatred, fear, tyranny, and so forth. Death was intrigued. They thought they wanted to be taken out of themselves, and every art humans dreamt up took them further in. He

Photos have emerged establishing that David William Ferrie had been in the same Civil Air Patrol unit as Lee Harvey Oswald and apparently Ferrie had met with Oswald during the summer of 1963. Ferrie was extremely against the Communistic philosophy. He was a member of the anti-Castro Cuban Revolutionary group, and was dubbed the master of intrigue. Once when he gave an anti-Kennedy speech to an American veterans’ group in New Orleans regarding the Bay of Pigs Invasion, his rant against the President was so belligerent that he was asked to leave the podium. On February 22, 1967, Ferrie mysteriously died of a stroke. The strange part concerning his death was that he left behind two suicide notes and then died of natural causes. In the days preceding his death, he had told friends that he was a dead man. Ferrie was only one of many who were somehow connected to Kennedy’s death and who later died in a mysterious way.

Then there is the “intelligent” signal from outer space that has defied explanation for thirty years; the enigma of our sense of free will despite all scientific evidence to the contrary; the spacecraft that are being pushed off course by an unknown force; the trouble we have explaining the origin of both sex and death using our best biological theories … the list goes on.

rolled their eyes, panted and gasped, and tried by every means possible to show us that they were at death’s door from starvation. Unusually, Roger did not join in. Instead he was sitting out in the sunshine in front of a patch of brambles watching something with great intentness. I went over to see what was intriguing him to such an extent that he was ignoring my sandwich crusts. At

GABY: Are you scared of dying? FATHER: I live in absolute dread of dying not so much because I fear death. I'm ready, I'm accommodated, even eager sometimes. (After all, what self-respecting anthropologist isn't intrigued by the prospect of the ultimate terra igcognita?) I dread dying because I can't bear the thought of it causing you any sadness or pain, of hurting you in some irreparable way. But that really is a supreme, preening form of narcissism, isn't it? To think that your death will constitute the most tragic event in your daughter's life, one from which she'll never, couldn't -possibly-, recover... As if all daughters don't actually recover, as if that recovery isn't just the very -way- of things. Gaby: How do you know I'm not the exception to the rule, though? And what if they don't -all- recover? What if it -is- something daughters can never recover from?

The only inevitable thing in this world is death. I won't go through my own death; I'll go through my own dying, but not my own “being dead.” Thus, death as I experience it is the death of other people. Death affects me as loss and grief. It reminds me of a page in an intriguing book that abruptly vanishes. And now that it's gone, my experience is all about nostalgia, a lack of it, loss, and sorrow. They say that learning to die is learning to philosophize; that is, you gain wisdom by realizing that there is nothing to fear from death and, therefore, nothing to fear from anything. As a result, you should focus on all the activities of living rather than on death because, to us, death is meaningless.

I’m not a bad man, Roy. I suspect you’re not, either. I think we just met under the wrong circumstances,” Harlan said. “I’m sure you can understand. When you have a child, you’ll do anything for them. Even if maybe it’s not... not the most advisable course of action.

He proposed that, apart from and even surpassing the rule that we are governed in our actions by pleasure, there is a parallel urge to dispel life energy and thus tension—and that this drive can be found at the root of war neuroses and the neurotic’s compulsion to repeat unpleasant situations. Specifically, he called this a “death drive,” or thanatos. Thus, beyond pleasure lay the even more extreme reward of oblivion.13 Although intriguing, Freud’s idea of an instinctive urge toward negation or annihilation seemed paradoxical, and never really caught on … except as it was reformulated by the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan in the late 1950s. Lacan’s French had an advantage that Freud’s German lacked, specifically the word jouissance, meaning painful pleasure or pleasurable pain—literally something “beyond pleasure” that takes over and drives a neurotic or someone who has been traumatized. The simplistic examples commonly given of jouissance include an orgasm so extreme that it causes agony, or the erotic pleasures of sadomasochistic acts. But a better analogy would be addiction, the compulsion to repeat an act (taking a drug, for instance) that cannot be resisted yet no longer gives much pleasure because it is more about the temporary dissipation or release of unpleasure.14 There is no equivalent word in English either. In reference to Lacan, jouissance is usually translated as “enjoyment,” but it needs to be understood that there may be something deeply ambivalent or even repellent about this particular kind of enjoyment. It is an enjoyment we do not want, a weird mix of excitement and pain, reward and regret. The concept of jouissance, as the underlying energy driving human compulsions, including pathological compulsions and obsessions treated in psychotherapy, became so central for Lacan that late in his career he made the provocative statement that jouissance is the “only substance” psychoanalysis deals with.15 Lacan might better have said “force” and not substance. Later Lacanian thinkers have likened jouissance to the warping of space in a gravitational field. The contradiction between conscious aversion and unconscious reward bends our symbolic-imaginary spacetime, causing the strange tail-chasing, repetitive “orbiting” behavior of all neuroses and obsessional behavior, and on some level all behavior.

Mary was certainly sympathetic to Jane's situation, and though she soon removed from the Tower to Richmond Palace without seeing her cousin, Jane was not forgotten. By 13 August it seems clear that Mary had received Jane's letter, and that she had accepted her version of events. During their audience with her that day, the Imperial ambassadors reported that thought the Queen made it clear that 'she had not pardoned anybody yet', and there were many who whispered in the Queen's ear that 'Jane of Suffolk deserved death according to English law', Mary, conscious of their familial bonds and Jane's tender age, could not bring herself to execute her cousin. It was evident that Mary believed in Jane's innocence, for in words that almost echoed those in Jane's letter, the ambassadors informed their master that Jane knew nothing of the plans in which she had become helplessly entangled, 'nor was she ever a party nor did she ever give her consent to the [Duke of Northumberland]'s intrigues and plots'. This seems to indicate that Mary had indeed received Jane's account, and she was firm in her decision to be merciful. The Queen's conscience, the ambassadors continued, 'would not permit her to have her put to death', despite the fact that she had been warned by the use of an example from Roman history that it would be better to put Jane to death, 'because of the scandal and danger that might have followed'. Jane's life, it seemed, was safe.

When the inhabitants of the house adopt them, or vice versa, the genii loci become guardians of the hearth, but it would be inaccurate to claim this is always the case because the tutelary spirit could also be the house’s former owner, who, after his death, was buried beneath the hearth or the threshold. However, I believe we need to pay close attention to where the spirit resides within the demarcated space. The household spirit lives inside the house, often near the fireplace or hearth; the land spirit lives outside. Whichever case it may be, I can also suggest as a hypothesis that the adoption of a spirit and its introduction into the house is a countermeasure intended to foil the intrigues of the genii loci.

The Swedish art of death cleansing intrigued him – clearing out all your clutter before you die so that your family don’t have to deal with it after you’re gone.

The lord of the house is not at home, Your Majesty,” she informed me. “Is there anything I can do for you?” “I actually came to see Lord Steldor, if you would escort me to his room.” Now she seemed intrigued, for the reasons behind the annulment of my marriage to the former King had been kept quiet. I could read on her face her desire to eavesdrop. “Certainly, although I don’t know if His Majesty has risen.” “He has,” I said without thought. Not once during our marriage had I woken before him, and I doubted his sleep patterns had changed. With a puzzled glance, she led me up the stairs and into a hallway, stopping before the second door. She knocked on my behalf, and gave another small curtsey when Steldor’s voice invited entry. I opened the door, waiting for her to return to the first floor before entering, catching her regretful glance that she could not dally. Steldor was sitting up on the bed across the room, his legs swung over the side, pulling a shirt carefully over his head. “Should you be doing that so soon?” I asked, for it had only been a week since the lashing. The garment fell over his muscular chest, and he ran a hand through his dark hair. He came to his feet with the hint of a wince. “Making sure I’m cared for is no longer your worry. I’m not certain it ever was.” His mood was a bit dark, and I wondered if I should have given him more time to recover before paying him this visit. “Perhaps what you need is someone to keep you from coming to harm in the first place.” He smirked, turning his back to me to idly straighten his bed coverings. “What is it--did you come here to coddle me or lecture me?” “Both, I suppose.” I was frowning, amazed at how swiftly we had fallen into our old patterns. “I’ve come to talk--and to give you this.” He swiveled to face me as I removed his silver wolf’s head talisman from the pocket of my cloak. “I never expected to see that again,” he said, sounding awed. “Did you face the bitch yourself or get it from Narian?” I smiled at his word choice. “I approached Rava myself--I’ve been known to face down a bitch or two.” He stepped forward to take the pendant from my hand and immediately slipped the chain over his head. “Thank you. I feel better already.” “If you don’t mind my asking, what is the significance of the talisman? When I reclaimed it from Rava, she remarked that it might provide power and protection, and that started me thinking about its purpose.” He chuckled ruefully. “I hate to admit it, but Rava’s right. The wolf brings strength and protection. Depending on the mix of herbs and flowers put inside the talisman, other properties can be added, such as health and healing. The captain gave the pendant to me when I was four, following the death of Terek, at the time I was sent to live with Baelic and Lania. He didn’t want me to think he’d abandoned me or that I was in danger. It was originally his, and his father’s before him. I’ve worn it ever since.” “Then I’m very glad I was able to secure its return.” His eyes met mine, and the color rose in my cheeks, for I was still affected to some degree by his handsome features and soldier’s build. “I suppose that concludes the coddling,” he finally said, crossing his arms and watching me expectantly. “Yes, I suppose it does.

HISTORY is one of the most "fantastic" yet underrated of the scholarly pursuits. It is a tale of sword and sorcery, conquest and subjugation, and the rise and fall of empires. It is the drama to which the modern world looks back, full of political intrigue and profound philosophical insights. It is a timeline of valleys that peak from tremendous invention and expansion and quickly plummets to disease and death. It is the explanation of the present world, revealing why we speak what we speak and act the way we act... and why our nations have borders. It reveals the secrets to success and also tells us why we should never do something ever again.

We’re going another way this time,” Denny explained. “There’s a cottage tucked deep in the forest there.” Shading his eyes with one hand, he indicated the direction with the other. “My gamekeeper uses it from time to time, and he found something suspicious there this morning.” “Not suspicious,” Portia objected, as the other group joined them at the trailhead. “Gothic and intriguing.” “Please,” said Brooke. “A discarded stocking is neither gothic nor intriguing. It’s laundry.” Luke’s eyes shot to Cecily. “He found the stocking?” He swallowed. “Your stocking?” “So it would seem.” She clasped her hands together. “It was . . . soiled.” “Crusted with blood, you mean.” Portia’s dark eyes widened as she touched Luke’s arm. “Werestag blood. It’s positively chilling. He truly must be the most fearsome, violent sort of creature. I tell you, Lord Merritt, if you could have seen the mincemeat he made of that boar . . .” She shuddered. “No one who witnessed that scene could doubt Cecily’s rescuer was half wild beast.” All eyes turned to Cecily. Denny laid a hand on her pale blue sleeve, and Luke felt a possessive fury surge through his veins. Let it go, he told himself. Let her go. “Portia, he saved my life.” Cecily’s voice was indignant, and she shrugged off Denny’s touch. “Unarmed and unaided, he killed a ferocious boar that would have gored and devoured me. Yes, it was messy. Battles to the death often are. Stop speaking as though he took pleasure in it.” “Your defense is most stirring, Miss Hale.” Luke deliberately adopted a formal, detached tone that he knew would only inflame her anger. “You seem to have developed a rather personal attachment to this man-beast.” Tears glittered in her eyes as she glared at him. Tears, and accusations. “He fought for me.

I always wondered about men who spent their time trying to anticipate and know a fish in a world where man’s knowledge of each other could only be called scarce. It just seemed to be gratuitously ignorant for any man to think that he could think like a fish. Then there was the high deceit of the artificial fly; subtlety, guile, and sly deception created and instilled only to lure a cautious and tentative fish to its death. They were as bad as drug fiends, living in their shadowy world of aquatic intrigue. I

I love you,” Val began, wondering where in the nine circles of hell that had come from. He sat forward, elbows on his knees, and scrubbed a hand over his face. “I’m sorry; that came out… wrong. Still…” He glanced at her over his shoulder. “It’s the truth.” Ellen’s fingers settled on his nape, massaging in the small, soothing circles Val had come to expect when her hands were on him. “If you love me,” she said after a long, fraught silence, “you’ll tell me the truth.” Val tried to see that response as positive—she hadn’t stomped off, railed at him, or tossed his words back in his face. Yet. But neither had she reciprocated. “My name is Valentine Windham,” he said slowly, “but you’ve asked about my family, and in that regard—and that regard only—I have not been entirely forthcoming.” “Come forth now,” she commanded softly, her hand going still. “My father is the Duke of Moreland. That’s all. I’m a commoner, my title only a courtesy, and I’m not even technically the spare anymore, a situation that should improve further, because my brother Gayle is deeply enamored of his wife.” “Improve?” Ellen’s voice was soft, preoccupied. “I don’t want the title, Ellen.” Val sat up, needing to see her eyes. “I don’t ever want it, not for me, not for my son or grandson. I make pianos, and it’s a good income. I can provide well for you, if you’ll let me.” “As your mistress?” “Bloody, blazing… no!” Val rose and paced across the porch, turning to face her when he could go no farther. “As my wife, as my beloved, dearest wife.” A few heartbeats of silence went by, and with each one, Val felt the ringing of a death knell over his hopes. “I would be your mistress. I care for you, too, but I cannot be your wife.” Val frowned at that. It wasn’t what he’d been expecting. A conditional rejection, that’s what it was. She’d give him time, he supposed, to get over his feelings and move along with his life. “Why not marry me?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest. She crossed her arms too. “What else haven’t you told me?” “Fair enough.” Val came back to sit beside her and searched his mind. “I play the piano. I don’t just mess about with it for polite entertainment. Playing the piano used to be who I was.” “You were a musician?” Val snorted. “I was a coward, but yes, I was a musician, a virtuoso of the keyboard. Then my hand”—he held up his perfectly unremarkable left hand—“rebelled against all the wear and tear, or came a cropper somehow. I could not play anymore, not without either damaging it beyond all repair or risking a laudanum addiction, maybe both.” “So you came out here?” Ellen guessed. “You took on the monumental task of setting to rights what I had put wrong on this estate and thought that would be… what?” “A way to feel useful or maybe just a way to get tired enough each day that I didn’t miss the music so much, and then…” “Then?” She took his hand in hers, but Val wasn’t reassured. His mistress, indeed. “Then I became enamored of my neighbor. She beguiled me—she’s lovely and dear and patient. She’s a virtuoso of the flower garden. She cared about my hand and about me without once hearing me play the piano, and this intrigued me.” “You intrigued me,” Ellen admitted, pressing the back of his hand to her cheek. “You still do.” “My Ellen loves to make beauty, as do I.” Val turned and used his free hand to trace the line of Ellen’s jaw. “She is as independent as I am and values her privacy, as I do.” “You are merely lonely, Val.

I came to understand the most intriguing irony of life, that the most intimate partner of life is death. (Page 94)