Pocket Mirror Quotes

But I have seen the best of you and the worst of you, and I choose both. I want to share every single one of your sunshines and save them for later. I will tuck them into my pockets so I can give them back to you when the rain falls hard. Friend, I want to be the mirror that reminds you to love yourself. I want to be the air in your lungs that reminds you to breath. When the walls come down, when the thunder rumbles, when nobody else is home, hold my hand, and I promise I won’t let go.

He pulled the envelope out of his pocket and ripped it open, then took out the slip of paper. The soft lights that ringed the mirror lit up the message in a warm glow. It was two short sentences: " KILL ME. IF YOU'VE EVER BEEN MY FRIEND, KILL ME.

For her I changed pebbles into diamonds, shoes into mirrors, I changed glass into water, I gave her wings and pulled birds from her ears and in her pockets she found the feathers, I asked a pear to become a pineapple, a pineapple to become a lightbulb, a lightbulb to become the moon, and the moon to become a coin I flipped for her love...

After that day when I saw the elephant, I let myself see more and believe more. It was a game I played with myself. When I told Alma the things I saw she would laugh and tell me she loved my imagination. For her I changed pebbles into diamonds, shoes into mirrors, I changed glass into water, I gave her wings and pulled birds from her ears and in her pockets she found the feathers, I asked a pear to become a pineapple, a pineapple to become a lightbulb, a lightbulb to become the moon, and the moon to become a coin I flipped for her love, both sides were heads: I knew I couldn't lose.

Poetry looking in the mirror sees art, and art looking in a mirror sings poetry.

Nobody knew anyone else’s private world. In the end, they were all alone as inmates on death row, side by side. Sometimes you could get a look at one another with a little pocket mirror, cell to cell, but that was all.

Its a bit mad. Too bad, I mean, that getting to know each just for a fleeting second Must be replaced by unperfect knowledge of the featureless whole Like some pocket history of the world, so general As to constitute a sob or wail

I took the liberty of designing your pennant,” said Rhy, resting his elbows on the gallery’s marble banister. “I hope you don’t mind.” Kell cringed. “Do I even want to know what’s on it?” Rhy tugged the folded piece of fabric from his pocket, and handed it over. The cloth was red, and when he unfolded it, he saw the image of a rose in black and white. The rose had been mirrored, folded along the center axis and reflected, so the design was actually two flowers, surrounded by a coil of thorns. “How subtle,” said Kell tonelessly. “You could at least pretend to be grateful.” “And you couldn’t have picked something a little more … I don’t know … imposing? A serpent? A great beast? A bird of prey?” “A bloody handprint?” retorted Rhy. “Oh, what about a glowing black eye?” Kell glowered. “You’re right,” continued Rhy, “I should have just drawn a frowning face. But then everyone would know it’s you. I thought this was rather fitting.

I never dreamed of being Shakespeare or Goethe, and I never expected to hold the great mirror of truth up before the world; I dreamed only of being a little pocket mirror, the sort that a woman can carry in her purse; one that reflects small blemishes, and some great beauties, when held close enough to the heart.

In the silent aftermath, I said, "We'll give them a second chance." With my right hand, I reached to the other pocket. I had known as soon as I lifted the false bottom in the gun case and looked underneath what it meant. I had tried without ceasing to find some alternative to Attolia's ruthless advice and I had failed. Gen's gift told me that I had not failed for lack of trying. I'd lifted out the matching gun and read its archaic inscription. Realisa onum. Not 'the queen made me,' but 'I can make the king.' Looking at Akretenesh's startled face down the long barrel of the handgun, I smiled, until I felt the scar tissue tighten. That one expression, I'd never showed him. My face gave away my humiliation, my rage, my surprise, and my embarrassment, but I had never let him see what I looked like when I smiled: my uncle. His diplomatic mask dissolved, and he backed away. In Attolia, I had been in front of a mirror at last, and I had understood what made Oerus back in Hanaktos ask me if my expression was a happy one or not. The smile rumpled the scar tissue under my skin, and it dragged my face askew, giving me the leer of a man who'd never had a moment of self-doubt, who'd never regretted a life lost. I'd worried that I wouldn't have the nerve to carry this off, but in the moment, it was easy. Seeing Akretenesh recoil, I laughed out loud.

Do you happen to have a pocket mirror? "I'm afraid not. Why?" "I've made you late, which means by now Lady Berwick has sprouted serpents from her head, and I can't look at her directly.

Every man carries within him through life a mirror, as unique and impossible to get rid of as his shadow. A parlor game for a wet afternoon – imaging the mirrors of one’s friends. A has a huge pier glass, gilded and baroque, B a discreet little pocket mirror in a pigskin case with his initials stamped on the back; whenever one looks at C, he is in the act of throwing his mirror away but, if one looks in his pocket or up his sleeve, one always finds another, like an extra ace.

The genius of Cornell is that he sees and enables us to see with the eyes of childhood, before our vision got clouded by experience, when objects like a rubber ball or a pocket mirror seemed charged with meaning, and a marble rolling across a wooden floor could be as portentous as a passing comet.

The year is done. I spread the past three hundred sixty-five days before me on the living room carpet. Here is the month I decided to shed everything not deeply committed to my dreams. The day I refused to be a victim to the self-pity. Here is the week I slept in the garden. The spring I wrung the self-doubt by its neck. Hung your kindness up. Took down the calendar. The week I danced so hard my heart learned to float above water again. The summer I unscrewed all the mirrors from their walls. No longer needed to see myself to feel seen. Combed the weight out of my hair. I fold the good days up and place them in my back pocket for safekeeping. Draw the match. Cremate the unnecessary. The light of the fire warms my toes. I pour myself a glass of warm water to cleanse myself for january. Here I go. Stronger and wiser into the new.

With time to think, the full reality of what had happened hit Thomas like a falling boulder. Ever since Thomas had entered the Maze, Newt had been there for him. Thomas hadn’t realized just how much of a friend he’d become until now. His heart hurt. He tried to remind himself that Newt wasn’t dead. But in some ways this was worse. In most ways. He’d fallen down the slope of insanity, and he was surrounded by bloodthirsty Cranks. And the prospect of never seeing him again was almost unbearable. [...] He pulled the envelope out of his pocket and ripped it open, then took out the slip of paper. The soft lights that ringed the mirror lit up the message in a warm glow. It was two short sentences: Kill me. If you’ve ever been my friend, kill me. Thomas read it over and over, wishing the words would change. To think that his friend had been so scared that he’d had the foresight to write those words made him sick to his stomach. And he remembered how angry Newt had been at Thomas specifically when they’d found him in the bowling alley. He’d just wanted to avoid the inevitable fate of becoming a Crank. And Thomas had failed him. [...] “Newt suddenly twisted around and grabbed Thomas by the hand holding the gun. He yanked it toward himself, forcing it up until the end of the pistol was pressed against his own forehead. “Now make amends! Kill me before I become one of those cannibal monsters! Kill me! I trusted you with the note! No one else. Now do it!” Thomas tried to pull his hand away, but Newt was too strong. “I can’t, Newt, I can’t.” “Make amends! Repent for what you did!” The words tore out of him, his whole body trembling. Then his voice dropped to an urgent, harsh whisper. “Kill me, you shuck coward. Prove you can do the right thing. Put me out of my misery.” The words horrified Thomas. “Newt, maybe we can—” “Shut up! Just shut up! I trusted you! Now do it!” “I can’t.” “Do it!” “I can’t!” How could Newt ask him to do something like this? How could he possibly kill one of his best friends? “Kill me or I’ll kill you. Kill me! Do it!” “Newt …” “Do it before I become one of them!” “I …” “KILL ME!” And then Newt’s eyes cleared, as if he’d gained one last trembling gasp of sanity, and his voice softened. “Please, Tommy. Please.” With his heart falling into a black abyss, Thomas pulled the trigger.

It is a cold and harrowing morning in the life of a man the day he wakes up, looks at himself in the mirror, and finally realizes that he is not, never has been, nor will ever be George Clooney.

Who's got a mirror?” I ask. Spider shrugs at me. “We're all fellas. Why would any of us have mirrors?” “I've got a mirror!” Brandon declares happily, digging a compact out of his pocket. No-one is surprised.

He sighed and opened the black box and took out his rings and slipped them on. Another box held a set of knives and Klatchian steel, their blades darkened with lamp black. Various cunning and intricate devices were taken from velvet bags and dropped into pockets. A couple of long-bladed throwing tlingas were slipped into their sheaths inside his boots. A thin silk line and folding grapnel were wound around his waist, over the chain-mail shirt. A blowpipe was attached to its leather thong and dropped down the back of his cloak; Teppic picked a slim tin container with an assortment of darts, their tips corked and their stems braille-coded for ease of selection in the dark. He winced, checked the blade of his rapier and slung the baldric over his right shoulder, to balance the bag of lead slingshot ammunition. As an afterthought he opened his sock drawer and took a pistol crossbow, a flask of oil, a roll of lockpicks and, after some consideration, a punch dagger, a bag of assorted caltrops and a set of brass knuckles. Teppic picked up his hat and checked it's lining for the coil of cheesewire. He placed it on his head at a jaunty angle, took a last satisfied look at himself in the mirror, turned on his heel and, very slowly, fell over.

broken pocket mirror to try and catch a glimpse of me in the classroom.

At eighteen, she already looks like a woman of sorrows and as her breaths start becoming shorter, tired of looking over her shoulder, she only wants to get away from this city where no one can fathom her love- boundless and profane and real, like her skin and her lips and the insides of her thighs. She knows she can smile, smell like the others. Her skin would bleed too if pricked and yet this reality does not belong to the ones sleeping on the platform floor; this reality is hers and her alone. Thus when she puts the mirror back, she rummages in her handbag, searching for that thing called identity: some of it lost somewhere in the railway colony she had just left behind, some in Sudhanshu’s left jacket pocket, the rest of it scattered here around broken teacups on railings, totally aberrant and arbitrary.

I got out of the shower and stopped to look at myself in the mirror. I looked blotchy and messy and not at all like those girls in magazines. But I was still fucking beautiful. I'm a real woman who digests her meals and breaks out and has sweet little pockets of cellulite on her upper thighs that she's not apologising for. Because guess what? we all have that shit. We're all human beings.

He's not your type." Peabody's face clouded exactly as it had when Eve had rejected the perfume. "How come - I like looking at his type." "Sure, but try to have a conversation with him." Eve dipped her hands in her pockets and rocked back on her heels. "Guy's in love with himself and figures every woman who gets a load of him has to go moony eyed - just like you're doing. He'd bore you to death in ten minutes because all he'd talk about is himself - how he looks, what he does, what he likes. You'd just be his latest accessory." Peabody considered, watching as the gold-tipped Adonis posed at the check-in counter. "Okay, so we won't bother to talk. We'll just have sex." "He'd be a lousy lay - wouldn't give a damn if you got off or not." "I'm getting off just looking at him." But she sighed when he took out a small silver-backed mirror and examined his face with obvious delight. "It's times like this I hate it when you're right.

Reading two pages apiece of seven books every night, eh? I was young. You bowed to yourself in the mirror, stepping forward to applause earnestly, striking face. Hurray for the Goddamned idiot! Hray! No-one saw: tell no-one. Books you were going to write with letters for titles. Have you read his F? O yes, but I prefer Q. Yes, but W is wonderful. O yes, W. Remember your epiphanies written on green oval leaves, deeply deep, copies to be sent if you died to all the great libraries of the world, including Alexandria? Someone was to read them there after a few thousand years, a mahamanvantara. Pico della Mirandola like. Ay, very like a whale. When one reads these strange pages of one long gone one feels that one is at one with one who once ... The grainy sand had gone from under his feet. His boots trod again a damp crackling mast, razorshells, squeaking pebbles, that on the unnumbered pebbles beats, wood sieved by the shipworm, lost Armada. Unwholesome sandflats waited to suck his treading soles, breathing upward sewage breath, a pocket of seaweed smouldered in seafire under a midden of man's ashes. He coasted them, walking warily. A porterbottle stood up, stogged to its waist, in the cakey sand dough. A sentinel: isle of dreadful thirst. Broken hoops on the shore; at the land a maze of dark cunning nets; farther away chalkscrawled backdoors and on the higher beach a dryingline with two crucified shirts. Ringsend: wigwams of brown steersmen and master mariners. Human shells. He halted. I have passed the way to aunt Sara's. Am I not going there? Seems not.

He pulled her mirror out of his other pocket. “You left your mirror on my table.” He extended it toward her. “You can keep it,” she said quietly. “We have lots of mirrors here.” “I’ll keep it, then.” “Good. I’m glad.” He’d never rushed headlong into a battle, but he figured this time, it might be the best approach. “I spent a lot of time studying it. The back is real pretty with all the gold carving. Took me about an hour to gather up the courage to turn it over and look at the other side.” “And what did you see?” “ Aman who loves you more than life itself.” Closing her eyes, she dropped her chin to her chest. “I wouldn’t blame you if you hated me. I haven’t held your feelings as precious as I should have.” “I don’t hate you,” she whispered hoarsely. “I tried to, but I can’t.” -Houston and Amelia

Twitter was only the gateway, the portal into the endless city of the internet. Whole days went by on clicking, my attention snared over and over by pockets and ladders of information; an absent, ardent witness to the world, the Lady of Shalott with her back to the window, watching the shadows of the real appear in the lent blue glass of her magic mirror. I used to read like that, back in the age of paper, the finished century, to bury myself in a book, and now I gazed at the screen, my cathected silver lover.

If ever I create a website, I'll call it Two-Face Book, and I'll invite everyone to it, it will be a game board, of a whitewash chalkboard. A social network, with reserved intentions, where we can fall into our cliques and circle of friends. We can dis who we want and accept who appeals to our discretion. Where the users will keep abusing, and abusers keep using, where the computer bullies will keep swinging and the J-birds that fly by will die; where the lonely will keep seeking and the needy still go desperate, where the envious will keep hating, and the lustful will keep flashing. Where those that think ignoring, will keep one down and the wannabes will foolishly think themselves greater by the number of "likes" that pours caffeine into their coffee. We can jump on the bandwagon of likes, or reserve not to show we care. Where the scorners, scammers and stalkers lay wait to take hold of the innocent and fragile, and my pockets will get fatter as more and more will join up, where being fake is accepted. As a mirror that stares at a different face. It will be my two-face epilogue, in a 3-world dimension, of a twofold war. I will build an empire of contagious hooks, and still we will live, happily-ever disastrous.

Find them in your pockets, Find them in your coat; If you aren’t careful, You’ll find them in your throat...

I watched out of the corner of my eye as he stepped into his shorts and pulled a T-shirt over his head. Slipping the razor into his pocket, he walked out the door. I almost called after him to ask if he wanted to meet me for dinner, but I didn’t. My eyes, reflected in the mirror, knew the reason why the words stuck in my throat. I was afraid he would say no. I was even more afraid he would say yes.

Men combing their hair in cars Men watching their hair in rear-view mirrors Men carrying big black combs in their back pockets Men worried about how Women see them Men turning themselves into advertisements of Men Women wearing boots that make them limp Women watching their eyes don't wander on to the eyes of Men Women worried how Men will see them Women turning themselves into advertisements of Women

Asked by a bank officer to identify himself, the Mulla reached into his pocket, took out a small mirror, and studied it for several seconds. Then he announced with confidence, “Yes, that’s me all right, I am happy to confirm it.

Carrying a burnt candle stub will extinguish feelings of love should they arise (Front left pocket.) Soak a mirror in vinegar to deflect unwanted attention (Back pocket.) To change the leanings of the heart, wear a wasp nest on the head (Not this desperate. Yet.)

I take the comb from a pocket of my new dress and then hesitate. If I begin to untangle my nimbus of snarls, he will see how badly my hair is matted and be reminded of where he found me. He stands. Good. He will leave, and then I will be able to wrangle my hair alone. But instead he steps behind me and takes the comb from my hands. 'Let me do that,' he says, taking strands of my hair in his fingers. 'It's the colour of primroses.' My shoulders tense. I am unused to people touching me. 'You don't need to-' I start. 'It's no trouble,' he says. 'I had three older sisters brushing and braiding mine, no matter how I howled. I had to learn to do theirs, in self-defence. And my mother...' His fingers are clever. He holds each lock at the base, slowly teasing out the knots at the very end and then working backward to the scalp. Under his hands, it becomes smooth ribbons. If I had done this, I would have yanked half of it out in frustration. 'Your mother...,' I echo, prompting him to continue in a voice that shakes only a little. He begins to braid, sweeping my hair up so that thick plaits become something like his circlet, wrapping around my head. 'When we were in the mortal world, away from her servants, she needed help arranging it.' His voice is soft. This, along with the slightly painful pull against my scalp, the brush of his fingertips against my neck as he separates a section, the slight frown of concentration on his face, is overwhelming. I am not accustomed to someone being this close. When I look up, his smile is all invitation. We are no longer children, playing games and hiding beneath his bed, but I feel as though this is a different kind of game, one where I do not understand the rules. With a shiver, I take up the mirror from the dresser. In this hair, and with this dress, I look pretty. The kind of pretty that allows monsters to deceive people into forests, into dances where they will find their doom.

I say is someone in there?’ The voice is the young post-New formalist from Pittsburgh who affects Continental and wears an ascot that won’t stay tight, with that hesitant knocking of when you know perfectly well someone’s in there, the bathroom door composed of thirty-six that’s three times a lengthwise twelve recessed two-bevelled squares in a warped rectangle of steam-softened wood, not quite white, the bottom outside corner right here raw wood and mangled from hitting the cabinets’ bottom drawer’s wicked metal knob, through the door and offset ‘Red’ and glowering actors and calendar and very crowded scene and pubic spirals of pale blue smoke from the elephant-colored rubble of ash and little blackened chunks in the foil funnel’s cone, the smoke’s baby-blanket blue that’s sent her sliding down along the wall past knotted washcloth, towel rack, blood-flower wallpaper and intricately grimed electrical outlet, the light sharp bitter tint of a heated sky’s blue that’s left her uprightly fetal with chin on knees in yet another North American bathroom, deveiled, too pretty for words, maybe the Prettiest Girl Of All Time (Prettiest G.O.A.T.), knees to chest, slew-footed by the radiant chill of the claw-footed tub’s porcelain, Molly’s had somebody lacquer the tub in blue, lacquer, she’s holding the bottle, recalling vividly its slogan for the past generation was The Choice of a Nude Generation, when she was of back-pocket height and prettier by far than any of the peach-colored titans they’d gazed up at, his hand in her lap her hand in the box and rooting down past candy for the Prize, more fun way too much fun inside her veil on the counter above her, the stuff in the funnel exhausted though it’s still smoking thinly, its graph reaching its highest spiked prick, peak, the arrow’s best descent, so good she can’t stand it and reaches out for the cold tub’s rim’s cold edge to pull herself up as the white- party-noise reaches, for her, the sort of stereophonic precipice of volume to teeter on just before the speaker’s blow, people barely twitching and conversations strettoing against a ghastly old pre-Carter thing saying ‘We’ve Only Just Begun,’ Joelle’s limbs have been removed to a distance where their acknowledgement of her commands seems like magic, both clogs simply gone, nowhere in sight, and socks oddly wet, pulls her face up to face the unclean medicine-cabinet mirror, twin roses of flame still hanging in the glass’s corner, hair of the flame she’s eaten now trailing like the legs of wasps through the air of the glass she uses to locate the de-faced veil and what’s inside it, loading up the cone again, the ashes from the last load make the world's best filter: this is a fact. Breathes in and out like a savvy diver… –and is knelt vomiting over the lip of the cool blue tub, gouges on the tub’s lip revealing sandy white gritty stuff below the lacquer and porcelain, vomiting muddy juice and blue smoke and dots of mercuric red into the claw-footed trough, and can hear again and seems to see, against the fire of her closed lids’ blood, bladed vessels aloft in the night to monitor flow, searchlit helicopters, fat fingers of blue light from one sky, searching.

An “alternative” to the mainstream frat boys and premed straight and narrow guys, these scholarly, charmless, intellectual brats dominated the more creative departments. As an art history major, I couldn’t escape them. “Dudes” reading Nietzsche on the subway, reading Proust, reading David Foster Wallace, jotting down their brilliant thoughts into a black Moleskine pocket notebook. Beer bellies and skinny legs, zip-up hoodies, navy blue peacoats or army green parkas, New Balance sneakers, knit hats, canvas tote bags, small hands, hairy knuckles, maybe a deer head tattooed across a flabby bicep. They rolled their own cigarettes, didn’t brush their teeth enough, spent a hundred dollars a week on coffee. They would come into Ducat, the gallery I ended up working at, with their younger—usually Asian—girlfriends. “An Asian girlfriend means the guy has a small dick,” Reva once said. I’d hear them talk shit about the art. They lamented the success of others. They thought that they wanted to be adored, to be influential, celebrated for their genius, that they deserved to be worshipped. But they could barely look at themselves in the mirror. They were all on Klonopin, was my guess. They lived mostly in Brooklyn, another reason I was glad to live on the Upper East Side.

Completely confused as to who the real criminals were in this case, the jury had voted to wash their hands of everybody and they let him off. That had been the meaning of the conversation I'd had with him that afternoon, but I hadn't understood what was happening at all. There were many moments in the Vine like that one—where you might think today was yesterday, and yesterday was tomorrow, and so on. Because we all believed we were tragic, and we drank. We had that helpless, destined feeling. We would die with handcuffs on. We would be put a stop to, and it wouldn't be our fault. So we imagined. And yet we were always being found innocent for ridiculous reasons. ...We bought heroin with the money and split the heroin down the middle. Then he went looking for his girlfriend, and I went looking for mine, knowing that when there were drugs around, she surrendered. But I was in a bad condition—drunk, and having missed a night's sleep. As soon as the stuff entered my system, I passed out. Two hours went by without my noticing. I felt I'd only blinked my eyes, but when I opened them my girlfriend and a Mexican neighbor were working on me, doing everything they could to bring me back. The Mexican was saying, "There, he's coming around now." We lived in a tiny, dirty apartment. When I realized how long I'd been out and how close I'd come to leaving it forever, our little home seemed to glitter like cheap jewelry. I was overjoyed not to be dead. Generally the closest I ever came to wondering about the meaning of it all was to consider that I must be the victim of a joke. There was no touching the hem of mystery, no little occasion when any of us thought—well, speaking for myself only, I suppose— that our lungs were filled with light, or anything like that. I had a moment's glory that night, though. I was certain I was here in this world because I couldn't tolerate any other place. As for Hotel, who was in exactly the same shape I was and carrying just as much heroin, but who didn't have to share it with his girlfriend, because he couldn't find her that day: he took himself to a rooming house down at the end of Iowa Avenue, and he overdosed, too. He went into a deep sleep, and to the others there he looked quite dead. The people with him, all friends of ours, monitored his breathing by holding a pocket mirror under his nostrils from time to time, making sure that points of mist appeared on the glass. But after a while they forgot about him, and his breath failed without anybody's noticing. He simply went under. He died. I am still alive.

rumors. I’ll not say more on the subject. Cheese in your eggs?” “Yes, please.” * * * With Kendra gone, Seth got out the equipment he had bundled in his towel, including his emergency kit and the jar he had smuggled from the pantry. The jar was now empty, washed clean in the bathroom sink. Taking out his pocket knife, Seth used the awl to punch holes in the lid. Unscrewing the top, he gathered bits of grass, flower petals, a twig, and a pebble, and placed them in the jar. Then he wandered across the garden from the pool, leaving the skimmer behind. If skill failed, he would resort to cunning. He found a good spot not far from a fountain, then took the small mirror from his

I am slowly learning to disregard the insatiable desire to be special. I think it began, the soft piano ballad of epiphanic freedom that danced in my head, when you mentioned that "Van Gogh was her thing" while I stood there in my overall dress, admiring his sunflowers at the art museum. And then again on South Street, while we thumbed through old records and I picked up Morrissey and you mentioned her name like it was stuck in your teeth. Each time, I felt a paintbrush on my cheeks, covering my skin in grey and fading me into a quiet, concealed background that hummed everything you've ever loved has been loved before, and everything you are has already been on an endless loop. It echoed in your wrists that I stared at, walking (home) in the middle of the street, and I felt like a ghost moving forward in an eternal line, waiting to haunt anyone who thought I was worth it. But no one keeps my name folded in their wallet. Only girls who are able to carve their names into paintings and vinyl live in pockets and dust bunnies and bathroom mirrors. And so be it, that I am grey and humming in the background. I am forgotten Sundays and chipped fingernail polish and borrowed sheets. I'm the song you'll get stuck in your head, but it will remind you of someone else. I am 2 in the afternoon, I am the last day of winter, I am a face on the sidewalk that won't show up in your dreams. And I am everywhere, and I am nothing at all.

The Claude glass was also known as the ‘black mirror’ and was responsible for a number of minor mishaps. This is where history catches up with us. Our version of the black mirror, carried in the pocket, used by millions to ‘see’ rock concerts, fireworks displays and sunsets, is the smartphone. We look through it to make sure we are catching grainy footage of the wondrous thing we are missing.

her fingers closed around the reassuring shape of the stone with the hole in it. She pulled it out of her pocket, held it in front of her as if she were holding a gun, and walked out into the hall. There was no sound but the tap-tap of the water dripping into the metal sink. She glanced at the mirror at the end of the hall. For a moment it clouded over, and it seemed to her that faces swam in the glass, indistinct

But even when Facebook isn't deliberately exploiting its users, it is exploiting its users—its business model requires it. Even if you distance yourself from Facebook, you still live in the world that Facebook is shaping. Facebook, using our native narcissism and our desire to connect with other people, captured our attention and our behavioral data; it used this attention and data to manipulate our behavior, to the point that nearly half of America began relying on Facebook for news. Then, with the media both reliant on Facebook as a way of reaching readers and powerless against the platform's ability to suck up digital advertising revenue—it was like a paperboy who pocketed all the subscription money—Facebook bent the media's economic model to match its own practices: publications needed to capture attention quickly and consistently trigger high emotional responses to be seen at all. The result, in 2016, was an unending stream of Trump stories, both from the mainstream news and from the fringe outlets that were buoyed by Facebook's algorithm. What began as a way for Zuckerberg to harness collegiate misogyny and self-interest has become the fuel for our whole contemporary nightmare, for a world that fundamentally and systematically misrepresents human needs.

A few moments later, a group of white birds landed on the steps to watch her. "Hello there!" she said and removed some birdseed from her pocket, laying it on the steps for them to eat. When they were finished, they stayed to watch her work. She didn't mind. It helped to have company, even if they couldn't talk. She found herself talking to them sometimes. True, some might call her mad for conversing with animals, but who was paying attention?

After I kiss you goodbye, I hold your smile in my cupped hands. I keep my fingers tight, careful not to let it slip out. While I walk home, I tuck it into my shirt pocket, keeping it safe from the cold breeze. I feel its warmth there, through the fabric of my clothing thumping like a heartbeat. In the mirror, I retrieve it carefully, and raise it to my mouth. I press my lips against it softly, and in that moment, Your smile stretches across my face.

Lucky Unlucky A broken mirror means bad luck and there I was carrying one around on my back all day like a beast of burden so that my steps chimed like pocket change but I was also lucky not to slice the skin of my fingers each time I reached in to get a pencil or a brush also lucky enough to move through the world with a name like Alma which means soul meaning spirit which I have a lot of or so I am told which I prefer to believe because it's a free country I can believe anything I want

She is plunging soundlessly through the night sky, toward the mirrored darkness of the sea. When she hits, there is barely even a splash. I cannot speak. Everything seems to slow around me. I think of Sophie's cracked lips, think of her saying, Please, just tell me this isn't real. I don't think I can live with any of this being real. I think of the stones she filled her pockets with. I hadn't been listening. I hadn't wanted to hear her; I'd just wanted to save her. And now, because of me, she is dead.

Then, quietly, he said, “I could do it.” “What?” “I could braid your hair.” “You?” “Yes.” Kestrel’s pulse bit at her throat. She opened her mouth, but before she could say anything he had crossed the room and swept her hair into his hands. His fingers began to move. It was strange that the room was so silent. It seemed that there should have been some kind of sound when a fingertip grazed her neck. Or when he drew a lock taut and pinned it in place. When he let a ribbon-thin braid fall forward so that it tapped her cheek. Every gesture of his was as resonant as music, and Kestrel didn’t quite believe that she couldn’t hear any notes, high or low. She let out a slow breath. His hands stilled. “Did I hurt you?” “No.” Pins disappeared from the dressing table at a rapid rate. Kestrel watched small braids lose themselves inside larger ones, dip in and under and out of an increasingly intricate design. She felt a gentle tug. A twist. A shiver of air. Although Arin wasn’t touching her, he was touching no living part of her, it felt as if a fine net had been cast over Kestrel, one that hazed her vision and shimmered against her skin. “There,” he said. Kestrel watched her reflection lift a hand to her head. She couldn’t think of what to say. Arin had drawn back, hands in his pockets. But his eyes held hers in the mirror, and his face had softened, like when she had played the piano for him. She said, “How…?” He smiled. “How did a blacksmith pick up such an unexpected skill?” “Well, yes.” “My older sister used to make me do this when I was little.

The breath had become as much a trick as breathing. Things were not dual merely, but multiple. I had become a cage of mirrors reflecting vacuity. But vacuity once stoutly posited I was at home and what is called creation was merely a job of filling up holes. The trolley conveniently carried me about from place to place and in each little side pocket of the great vacuum I dropped a ton of poems to wipe out the idea of annihilation. I had ever before me boundless vistas. I began to live in the vista, like a microscopic speck on the lens of a giant telescope. There was no night in which to rest. It was perpetual starlight on the arid surface of dead planets. Now and then a lake black as marble in which I saw myself walking amidst brilliant orbs of lights. So low hung the stars and so dazzling was the light they shed, that it seemed as if the universe were only about to be born. What rendered the impression stronger was that I was alone; not only were there no animals, no trees, no other beings, but there was not even a blade of grass, not even a dead root. In that violet incandescent light witihout even the suggestion of a shadow motion itself seemed to be absent. It was like a blaze of pure consciousness, thought become God. And God, for the first time in my knowledge, was dean-shaven. I was also clean-shaven, flawless, deadly accurate. I saw my image in the marble black lakes and it was diapered with stars. Stars, stars... like a clout between the eyes and all remembrance fast run out. I was Samson and I was Lackawanna and I was dying as one being in the ecstasy of full consciousness.

He says to the king, in the north they have contempt for the king’s peace, they want to administer their own murders. If Norfolk cannot subdue them they will fall into their old savagery, where each eye or limb or life itself is costed out, and all flesh has a price. In our forefathers’ time a nobleman’s life was worth six times that of a man who followed the plough. The rich man can slaughter as he pleases, if his pocket can bear the fines, but the poor man cannot afford one murder across his lifetime. We repudiate this, he tells the king: we say a man of violence cannot go free because his cousin is the judge, no more than a wealthy sinner can make up for his sins by founding a monastery. Before God and the law, all men are equal. It takes a generation, he says, to reconcile heads and hearts. Englishmen of every shire are wedded to what their nurses told them. They do not like to think too hard, or disturb the plan of the world that exists inside their heads, and they will not accept change unless it puts them in better ease. But new times are coming. Gregory’s children—and, he adds quickly, your Majesty’s children yet to be born—will never have known their country in thrall to an old fraud in Rome. They will not put their faith in the teeth and bones of the dead, or in holy water, ashes and wax. When they can read the Bible for themselves, they will be closer to God than to their own skin. They will speak His language, and He theirs. They will see that a prince exists not to sit a horse in a plumed helmet, but—as your Majesty always says—to care for his subjects, body and soul. The scriptures enjoin obedience to earthly powers, and so we stick by our prince through thick and thin. We do not reject part of his polity. We take him as a whole, consider him God’s anointed, and suppose God is keeping an eye on him.

The stale air, the incessant, inane clatter of the billiard balls, the perpetual hacking cough of a half-blind journalist opposite me, the spindle-shanked infantry officer, alternately picking his nose or combing his moustache with nicotine-stained fingers in front of a small pocket-mirror, the seething clump of vile, sweaty, gabbling Italians round the card table in the corner, now rapping their knuckles and squawking as they played their trumps, now hawking up a lump of phlegm and spewing it onto the floor: all that was bad enough, but to see it reflected two, three times over in the mirrors on the walls! It slowly sucked the blood out of my veins.

Frankie had used one (reverently) to wipe his eyes.This specimen was old and soft,monogrammed with a J in the corner. "Makes it interesting," he told me once, after finding a box monogrammed with M for fifty cents at a sidewalk sale. "Was it Max or Michael? Maybe Marco..." "Here," he said now. "You have lipstick halfway down to your chin." Humiliated, I scrubbed at my face. Frankie held out his hand, palm up. "Okay,let's have it." I pulled the tube out of my pocket. "Not really my thing, madam, but since I've seen what happens when you don't use a mirror..." I'm sure it helped that he was holding my face, but he read it like a pro. "You had a mirror." "I did.I'm hopeless." "Maybe.Open." He squinted as he filled in my upper lip. "I don't like this." "The color? I knew it was too pink-" "Quiet.You'll smear it.The color is fine. Better for Sienna, I'm sure..." He surveyed his handiwork. "I don't like that you're doing this for him." "Don't start. I told you how nice he was." "In excruciating detail." Given, the post-Bainbridge family dinner e-mail to Frankie and Sadie had been long. But excrutiating stung, especially from the boy who'd used every possible synonym for hot in describing his Friday-night bookstore acquisition. No name, just detailed hotness and the play-by-play of their flirtation over the fantasy section.

Where the hell did the Pack find you two? At a beach volleyball tournament? Great tan. Love those curls.” LeBlanc shook his head. “He’s not even as big as I am. He’s what, six foot nothing? Two hundred pounds in steel-toed boots? Christ. I’m expecting some ugly bruiser bigger than Cain and what do I find? The next Baywatch star. Looks like his IQ would be low enough. Can he chew gum and tie his shoes at the same time?” Clay stopped playing with his chair and turned to face the mirror. He got up, crossed the room, and stood in front of me. I was leaning forward, one hand pressed against the glass. Clay touched his fingertips to mine and smiled. LeBlanc jumped back. “Fuck,” he said. “I thought that was one-way glass.” “It is.” Clay turned his head toward LeBlanc and mouthed three words. Then the door to his room opened and one of the officers called him out. Clay grinned at me, then sauntered out with the officer. As he left, a surge of renewed confidence ran through me. “What did he say?” LeBlanc asked. “Wait for me.” “What?” “It’s a challenge,” Marsten murmured from across the room. He didn’t look up from his magazine. “He’s inviting you to stick around and get to know him better.” “Are you going to?” LeBlanc asked. Marsten’s lips curved in a smile. “He didn’t invite me.” LeBlanc snorted. “For a bunch of killer monsters, the whole lot of you are nothing but hot air. All your rules and challenges and false bravado.” He waved a hand at me. “Like you. Standing there so nonchalantly, pretending you aren’t the least bit concerned about having the two of us in the room.” “I’m not.” “You should be. Do you know how fast I could kill you? You’re standing two feet away from me. If I had a gun or knife in my pocket, you’d be dead before you had time to scream.” “Really? Huh.” LeBlanc’s cheek twitched. “You don’t believe me, do you? How do you know I’m not packing a gun? There’s no metal detector at the door. I could pull one out now, kill you, and escape in thirty seconds.” “Then do it. I know, you don’t like our little games, but humor me. If you have a gun or a knife, pull it out. If not, pretend to. Prove you could do it." “I don’t need to prove anything. Certainly not to a smart-mouthed—” He whipped his hand up in mid-sentence. I grabbed it and snapped his wrist. The sound cracked through the room. The receptionist glanced over, but LeBlanc had his back to her. I smiled at her and she turned away. “You—fucking—bitch,” LeBlanc gasped, cradling his arm. “You broke my wrist.” “So I win.” His face purpled. “You smug—” “Nobody likes a sore loser,” I said. “Grit your teeth and bear it. There’s no crying in werewolf games. Didn’t Daniel teach you that?

Anyway,” Beau—clearly eager to change the subject—pointed down the hall, “let’s talk about the color Jethro decided to paint the second bedroom.” “What’s wrong with green?” Jethro grinned slyly. His poker face had always sucked. “Nothing is wrong with green, but that’s a very odd shade of green. What was it called again?” “Sweet pea,” Duane supplied flatly for his twin. “It was called sweet pea and I believe it was labeled as nursery paint.” “Nursery paint, huh? You have something to tell us, Jethro?” Beau teased, mirroring Jethro’s grin. “No news to share? No big bombshell to drop?” Jethro glanced at me. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell them yet.” “Why would I? I’m good at keeping secrets.” I shoved my hands in my pockets, making sure I looked innocent. “And I’m not the one who’s pregnant.” “I knew it!” Beau attacked Jethro, pulling him into a quick man-hug. Jethro’s grin widened to as large as I’ve ever seen it. “How could you possibly know?” Duane clapped Jethro on the back as soon as Beau released him. “Because you’ve always wanted kids, and weren’t one to futz around once you made up your mind.” “You should have painted it vomit green, to disguise all the baby vomit you’re going to have to deal with,” Beau suggested. “And shit brown,” Duane added. “Don’t forget about the shit.” “Y’all are the best.” Jethro placed his hands over his chest. “You warm my heart.” “Make sure the floor is waterproof.” Beau grabbed a beer and uncapped it. “Don’t tell me, to catch the vomit and poop?” “No,” Beau wagged his eyebrows, “because of all the crying you’re going to do when you can’t sleep through the night or make love to your woman anymore.” “Ah, yes. Infant-interuptus is a real condition. No cure for it either.” Duane nodded and it was a fairly good imitation of my somber nod. In fact, how he sounded was a fairly good imitation of me. You sound like Cletus.” Drew laughed, obviously catching on. Duane slid his eyes to mine and gave me a small smile. I lifted an eyebrow at my brother to disguise the fact that I thought his impression was funny. “Y’all need to lay off. Babies are the best. Think of all the cuddling. This is great news.

In one slick move, he shoves his phone in his pocket and grabs me so we’re in front of the cabinet. His hand slides around the back of my neck, and before I can panic, he kisses me hard. Momentarily caught off guard, I just throw my arms around his neck and press my body against his. His kiss deepens until our tongues are twisting together, and I’m reminded of just how great a kisser he is. The lights flicker on, and Grayson pulls away from me with a grunt. I’m so flustered, it takes me a few seconds to collect myself enough to see a man wearing a suit and a hotel name badge eyeing us. “Excuse me, Mr. Cole, I’m afraid this office is off-limits for guests,” he says. I glance at Grayson and have to stop myself from laughing at the shade of my lipstick he’s now wearing. Grayson doesn’t miss a beat; he just grabs my hand and tugs me across the room. “I won’t mention this if you don’t,” he says as we pass by the hotel porter. I try for a sheepish smile as we walk past him. “Sorry,” I mouth. As we make it out to the hallway, a half-smothered giggle escapes before I can stop it. “You should probably go to the men’s room before you go back to the party.” A smile creases his lipstick-smeared mouth before he swipes his hand over it. “Yeah. This isn’t really my shade.” I snort a laugh and try to laugh off the kiss. But as I head back to the party, I’m well aware that kiss has only stirred a desire for another one. Not only that but as I pull my mirror out to check my own face, I realize something I didn’t in the heat of the moment. ​There was nothing fake about that kiss.

Until now. You and I are a mis-Match, Ellie, because I hacked into your servers to manipulate our results.” “Rubbish,” Ellie said, secretly balking at the notion. She folded her arms indignantly. “Our servers are more secure than almost every major international company across the world. We receive so many hacking attempts, yet no one gets in. We have the best software and team money can buy to protect us against people like you.” “You’re right about some of that. But what your system didn’t take into account was your own vanity. Do you remember receiving an email some time ago with the subject ‘Businesswoman of the Year Award’? You couldn’t help but open it.” Ellie vaguely remembered reading the email as it had been sent to her private account, which only a few people had knowledge of. “Attached to it was a link you clicked on and that opened to nothing, didn’t it?” Matthew continued. “Well, it wasn’t nothing to me, because your click released a tiny, undetectable piece of tailor-made malware that allowed me to remotely access your network and work my way around your files. Everything you had access to, I had access to. Then I simply replicated my strand of DNA to mirror image yours, sat back and waited for you to get in touch. That’s why I came for a job interview, to learn a little more about the programming and systems you use. Please thank your head of personnel for leaving me alone in the room for a few moments with her laptop while she searched for a working camera to take my head shot. That was a huge help in accessing your network. Oh, and tell her to frisk interviewees for lens deflectors next time—they’re pocket-sized gadgets that render digital cameras useless.

Then a great pall of smoke sent out by countless steam-boats was spread over the restless mirror of the Infinite. The hand of the engineer tore down the veil of the terrible beauty in order that greedy and faithless landlubbers might pocket dividends. The mystery was destroyed. Like all mysteries, it lived only in the hearts of its worshippers. The hearts changed; the men changed. The once loving and devoted servants went out armed with fire and iron, and conquering the fear of their own hearts became a calculating crowd of cold and exacting masters. The sea of the past was an incomparably beautiful mistress, with inscrutable face, with cruel and promising eyes. The sea of to-day is a used-up drudge, wrinkled and defaced by the churned-up wakes of brutal propellers, robbed of the enslaving charm of its vastness, stripped of its beauty, of its mystery and of its promise.

Although Arin wasn’t touching her, he was touching no living part of her, it felt as if a fine net had been cast over Kestrel, one that hazed her vision and shimmered against her skin. “There,” he said. Kestrel watched her reflection lift a hand to her head. She couldn’t think of what to say. Arin had drawn back, hands in his pockets. But his eyes held hers in the mirror, and his face had softened, like when she had played the piano for him. She said, “How…?” He smiled. “How did a blacksmith pick up such an unexpected skill?” “Well, yes.” “My older sister used to make me do this when I was little.” Kestrel almost asked where Arin’s sister was now, then imagined the worst. She saw Arin watch her imagine it, and saw from his expression that the worst was true. Yet his smile didn’t fade. “I hated it, of course,” he said. “The way she ordered me around. The way I let her. But now…it’s a nice memory.” She rose and faced Arin. The chair stood between them, and she wasn’t sure whether she was grateful for that barrier or not. “Kestrel, if you must go to the ball, take me with you.” “I don’t understand you,” she said, frustrated. “I don’t understand what you say, how you change, how you act one way and then come here and act another.” “I don’t always understand myself either. But I know I want to go with you tonight.” Kestrel let the words echo in her mind. There had been a supple strength to his voice. An unconscious melody. Kestrel wondered if Arin knew how he exposed himself as a singer with every simple, ordinary word. She wondered if he meant to hold her in thrall. “If you think it’s stupid for me to go to the Firstwinter ball,” she said, “you can be certain that it is far worse for me to take you along.” He lifted one shoulder. “Or it could send a bold message of what we both know to be true: that you have nothing to hide.

back you up. I don’t go anywhere without you.” Sloane nodded. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “What about our family, our friends, our team?” Dex shrugged. “Maybe it’s time Ash took on a bigger role in the team.” Sloane brought Dex’s fingers to his lips for a kiss. “I don’t know if I can take this step.” Dex’s heart sank, but he understood. He couldn’t ask this of Sloane. This was something he felt strongly about, something he wanted, and it wasn’t just him anymore. It was them. This would change everything. Their lives. They’d be sent all over the world, doing God only knew what. “Unless you take it with me as my husband.” Dex’s hand stopped in midair. Very slowly, he lowered it to the table. “I’m sorry. For a moment there, I thought you said husband.” Sloane’s amber eyes glowed as he smiled. He got up, moved his chair, and reached into his pocket. “This isn’t where I planned to do this, but I don’t think I can wait anymore.” The

Which mirror now, Ms. Lane?” He glanced around the white room, scanning the ten mirrors. “Fourth from the left. Jericho.” I was sick of him calling me Ms. Lane. I picked myself up off the white floor. Once again the Silver had spit me out with entirely too much enthusiasm, and I didn’t even have the stones on me. I didn’t have anything but the spear in my holster, a protein bar, two flashlights, and a bottle of Unseelie in my pockets. “You don’t have the right to call me Jericho.” “Why? Because we haven’t been intimate enough? I’ve had sex with you in every possible position, killed you, fed you my blood in the hopes that it would bring you back to life, crammed Unseelie into your stomach, and tried to rearrange your guts. I’d say that’s pretty personal. How much more intimate do we have to get for you to feel comfortable with me calling you Jericho? Jericho.” I expected him to pounce on the sex-in-every-possible-position comment, but he only said. “You fed me your—” I pushed into the mirror, cutting him off. Like the first one, it resisted me, then grabbed me and squirted me out on the other side. His voice preceded his arrival. “You bloody fool, do you never stop to consider the consequences of your actions?” He barreled out of the mirror behind me. “Of course I do,” I said coolly. “There’s always plenty of time to consider the consequences. After I’ve screwed up.” “Funny girl, aren’t you, Ms. Lane?” “Sure am. Jericho. It’s Mac. I’m Mac. No more fake formality between us. Get with the program or get the hell out of here.” His dark eyes flared. “Big talk. Ms. Lane. Try to enforce it.” Challenge burned in his gaze. I sauntered toward him. He watched me coldly and I was reminded of the other night, when I’d pretended to be coming on to him, because I was angry. He thought I was doing it again. I wasn’t. Being in the White Mansion with him was doing something strange to me. Unraveling all my inhibitions, as if these walls had no tolerance for lies, or within them there was no need.

The bacterial defense system was soon found to involve at least two critical components. The first piece was the "seeker"-an RNA encoded in the bacterial genome that matched and recognized the DNA of the viruses. The principle for the recognition, yet again, was binding: the RNA "seeker" was able to find and recognize the DNA of an invading virus because it was a mirror image of that DNA-the yin to its yang. It was like carrying a permanent image of your enemy in your pocket-or, in the bacteria's case, an inverted photograph, etched indelibly into its genome. The second element of the defense system was the "hitman." Once the viral DNA had been recognized and matched as foreign (by its reverse-image), a bacterial protein named Cas9 was deployed to deliver the lethal gash to the viral gene. The "seeker" and the "hitman" worked in concert: the Cas9 protein delivered its cuts to the genome only after the sequence had been matched by the recognition element. It was a classic combination of collaborators-spotter and executor, drone and rocket, Bonnie and Clyde.

whatever happened to the one whose hands could take pencil to paper and turn imagination into reality? whose feet could walk out the backyard door and into another world? the one with eyes ready to swallow the sky whole and a heart ambitious enough to do it? whatever happened to the one who raced from dawn ’til dusk, waving in the wind on wings of wax to wrap their fingertips around the sun, yet cowered from the glow of streetlights? the one who decided even the sun wasn’t enough and pocketed entire galaxies instead? whatever happened to the one whose dreams were so grand the universe itself had to expand to keep up the pace? the one who refused to be contained and became a universe themself? the one you’re thinking about right now? skull kid childhood is the time when one reaches toward the sky and grows into the person they were meant to be, but my childhood was the time when i reached toward fictional faces and buried my roots within a flawless facade. my childhood was the time when i rejected my own growth to mirror the growth of others because i wasn’t sure who i was supposed to be.

Frankie turned back and forth in front of the three-way mirror. "I have absolutely no ass whatsoever." A few feet away,a woman whose designer velour fit her like a sausage casing, gave an amused snort. "Honey," she said over a display of two-hundred-dollar T-shirts. "I have been waiting forty years to say those words." Frankie padded toward her in his socks and Alexander McQuenn pants.He thrust his hands into the pockets, pulling the fabric tighter, and presented her with his outthrust bottom. "Honestly. This is what you want?" She lasted about five seconds before grinning-and sighing at the same time. "No,I guess not." He turned around, leaned in, and informed her conspiratorially, "There is not a T-shirt on earth worth that much." She looked down at the plain blue cotton in her hands. "You are so right." She put it back. "And with that face, sweetie, you could have the ass of a rhino and no one would notice.I'm just saying." "What does she know?" he muttered when she'd gone. "What good has this face done me?" Apparently, Connor hadn't been quite as available as he'd let on. Apparently, along with dancing, juggling was one of his talents. "You couldn't have known," Sadie said gently. "Oh,yes,I could.I mean, he's a guy,isn't he?" There's not much you can say to a boy when he makes a statement like that. So we just scooted in until we were up against Frankie's thin shoulders, bookending him.

Do you have vows?” Freeman asked. Zane nodded, but he didn’t move to take out a piece of paper or any notes. He licked his lips instead and took a deep breath. “Ty,” he said, and the sound was almost lost in the night. “Some roads to love aren’t easy, and I’ve never been more thankful for being forced to fight for something. I started this journey with a partner I hated, and a man in the mirror I hated even more. The road took me from the streets of New York to the mountaintops of West Virginia, from the place I born to the place I found a home. It forced me to let go of my past and face my future. And I had to be made blind before I could see.” Zane swallowed hard and looked down, obviously fighting to finish without choking on the words or tearing up. Ty realized his own eyes were burning, and it wasn’t because of the cold wind. Zane squeezed Ty’s fingers with one hand, and he met Ty’s eyes as he reached into his lapel with his other. “I promise to love you until I die,” he said, his voice strong again. He held up a Sharpie he’d had in his suit, and pulled Ty’s hand closer to draw on his ring finger. With several sweeping motions, he created an infinity sign that looped all the way around the finger. When he was satisfied with the ring he’d drawn, he kissed Ty’s knuckles and let him go, handing him the Sharpie. Ty grasped the pen, but he couldn’t take his eyes off Zane. He ran his thumb over Zane’s palm. He had a set of vows he’d jotted down on a note card, folded up in his pocket, but he left them where they were and gazed into Zane’s eyes, their past flashing in front of him, their future opening up in his mind. He took a deep breath. “I promise to never leave you alone in the dark,” he whispered. He pulled Zane’s hand closer and pressed the tip of the Sharpie against Zane’s skin, curving the symbol for forever around it. When he was satisfied, he kissed the tip of Zane’s finger and slid the pen back into his lapel pocket. Freeman coughed and turned a page in his book. “Do you, Zane Zachary Garrett, take this man to be your lawful wedded husband?” Zane’s lips curved into a warm smile. “I do.” Freeman turned toward Ty. “Do you, Beaumont Tyler Grady, take this man to be your lawful wedded husband?” “I do,” Ty said, almost before the question was finished. “Then by the power vested in me by the state of Maryland, I pronounce you legally wed.” Freeman slapped his little book closed. “You may now share the first kiss of the rest of your lives.” Ty had fully expected to have the urge to grab Zane and plant one on him out of sheer impatience and joy, but as he stood staring at his brand-new husband, it was as if they were moving underwater. He touched the tips of his fingers to Zane’s cheek, then stepped closer and used both hands to cup his face with the utmost care. Zane was still smiling when they kissed, and it was slow and gentle, Zane’s hands at Ty’s ribs pulling them flush. “Okay, now,” Livi whispered somewhere to their side, and a moment later they were both pelted with handfuls of heart-shaped confetti. Zane laughed and finally wrapped his arms around Ty, squeezing him tight. The others continued to toss the confetti at them, even handing out bits to people passing by so they’d be sure to get covered from all sides. They laughed into the kiss, not caring. They were still locked in their happy embrace when Deuce turned the box over above them and rained little, bitty hearts down on their heads.

I could feel the full weight of Tamlin's undivided attention on me- on every breath and movement I took. I studied the candelabras atop the mantel beside the table. I had nothing to say that didn't sound absurd- yet for some reason, my mouth decided to start moving. 'You're so far away.' I gestured to the expanse of table between us. 'It's like you're in another room.' The quarters of the table vanished, leaving Tamlin not two feet away, sitting at an infinitely more intimate table. I yelped and almost tipped over in my chair. He laughed as I gaped at the small table that now stood between us. 'Better?' he asked. I ignored the metallic tang of magic as I said, 'How... how did you do that? Where did it go?' He cocked his head. 'Between. Think of it as... a broom closet tucked between pockets of the world.' He flexed his hands and rolled his neck, as if shaking off some pain. 'Does it tax you?' Sweat seemed to gleam on the strong column of his neck. He stopped flexing his hands and set them flat on the table. 'Once, it was an easy as breathing. But now... it requires concentration.' Because of the blight on Prythian and the toll it had taken on him. 'You could have just taken a closer seat,' I said. Tamlin gave me a lazy grin. 'And miss a chance to show off to a beautiful woman? Never.' I smiled down at my plate.' 'You do look beautiful,' he said quietly. 'I mean it,' he added when my mouth twisted to the side. 'Didn't you look in the mirror?' Though his bruise still marred my neck, I had looked pretty. Feminine. I wouldn't go so far to call myself a beauty, but... I hadn't cringed. A few months here had done wonders for the awkward sharpness and angles of my face. And I dared say that some kind of light had crept in to my eyes- my eyes, not my mother's eyes or Nesta's eyes. Mine.

On the second Sabbat of Twelfthmoon, in the city of Weep, a girl fell from the sky. Her skin was blue, her blood was red. She broke over an iron gate, crimping it on impact, and there she hung, impossibly arched, graceful as a temple dancer swooning on a lover’s arm. One slick finial anchored her in place. Its point, protruding from her sternum, glittered like a brooch. She fluttered briefly as her ghost shook loose, and torch ginger buds rained out of her long hair. Later, they would say these had been hummingbird hearts and not blossoms at all. They would say she hadn’t shed blood but wept it. That she was lewd, tonguing her teeth at them, upside down and dying, that she vomited a serpent that turned to smoke when it hit the ground. They would say a flock of moths came, frantic, and tried to lift her away. That was true. Only that. They hadn’t a prayer, though. The moths were no bigger than the startled mouths of children, and even dozens together could only pluck at the strands of her darkening hair until their wings sagged, sodden with her blood. They were purled away with the blossoms as a grit-choked gust came blasting down the street. The earth heaved underfoot. The sky spun on its axis. A queer brilliance lanced through billowing smoke, and the people of Weep had to squint against it. Blowing grit and hot light and the stink of saltpeter. There had been an explosion. They might have died, all and easily, but only this girl had, shaken from some pocket of the sky. Her feet were bare, her mouth stained damson. Her pockets were all full of plums. She was young and lovely and surprised and dead. She was also blue. Blue as opals, pale blue. Blue as cornflowers, or dragonfly wings, or a spring—not summer—sky. Someone screamed. The scream drew others. The others screamed, too, not because a girl was dead, but because the girl was blue, and this meant something in the city of Weep. Even after the sky stopped reeling, and the earth settled, and the last fume spluttered from the blast site and dispersed, the screams went on, feeding themselves from voice to voice, a virus of the air. The blue girl’s ghost gathered itself and perched, bereft, upon the spearpoint-tip of the projecting finial, just an inch above her own still chest. Gasping in shock, she tilted back her invisible head and gazed, mournfully, up. The screams went on and on. And across the city, atop a monolithic wedge of seamless, mirror-smooth metal, a statue stirred, as though awakened by the tumult, and slowly lifted its great horned head.

Jane felt limp and sated and thoroughly wicked as she snuggled against Dom. They were still joined below, though he’d begun to soften inside her. Still, how naughty it was to be here like this, how deliciously carnal to have made love while they were both half-dressed. Why, Dom still even wore his cravat! She didn’t know why that excited her, though it did. But not as much as Dom saying “please” over and over. Letting her take control of their lovemaking. Even encouraging her to do it. And not nearly as much as Dom asking her to marry him. Well, he didn’t really ask, exactly. He demanded it yet again. But he’d said “please,” and that made all the difference. Especially since he’d then asked her to love him. Silly man. As if she had any choice in the matter. “I do love you, you know,” she whispered. “I can’t help myself. I fell in love with you practically from the moment we met, and I never stopped.” “I love you, too, sweeting,” he murmured into her shoulder. “Always have, always will.” Her heart thundered in her chest. She’d waited so long to hear those words again, she could scarcely believe them. She pulled back to search his face. “Truly?” “Truly.” With infinite tenderness, he brushed her fringe of curls from her eyes. “I tried so hard to forget you after we parted. But I couldn’t. Not for one day.” That earned him a long kiss…that, and the prospect of him as hers. Her very own husband. Oh, yes. She could let herself think it now. They could marry at once, or at least as soon as this business with Nancy was over. Nancy! Oh, Lord, she’d forgotten all about her cousin. Sliding off him, she frantically sought to put her clothing to rights. “You don’t think that Meredith returned while we were…you know…” “No.” A faint amusement lightened his tone as he tucked himself back into his drawers and buttoned them. “The man I spoke to said she and her family return at seven every night.” He pulled out his pocket watch. “It’s only six now.” “Thank heaven.” She tugged her skirts and petticoats into place and patted her hair. “I do wish that hackney coaches came with mirrors.” Dom’s eyes gleamed at her. “Be glad I didn’t take your hair down completely, while I was mauling you with all the self-control of some half-grown lad.” She shot him a teasing glance. “I didn’t mind. You maul very well. And making love in a carriage, with the world passing by unsuspecting, was rather…well…thrilling.” “I can do without that kind of thrill, frankly. If anyone had discovered us…” He shuddered. “Next time we make love, it will be in a bed, and I will treat you with the tenderness you deserve.

You’re…you’re what? Where?” I stood up and glimpsed myself in the mirror. I was a vision, having changed into satin pajama pants, a torn USC sweatshirt, and polka-dotted toe socks, and to top it off, my hair was fastened in a haphazard knot on the top of my head with a no. 2 Ticonderoga pencil. Who wouldn’t want me? “I’m outside,” he repeated, throwing in a trademark chuckle just to be extra mean. “Get out here.” “But…but…,” I stalled, hurriedly sliding the pencil out of my hair and running around the room, stripping off my pathetic house clothes and searching in vain for my favorite faded jeans. “But…but…I’m in my pajamas.” Another trademark chuckle. “So?” he asked. “You’d better get out here or I’m comin’ in…” “Okay, okay…,” I replied. “I’ll be right down.” Panting, I settled for my second-favorite jeans and my favorite sweater of all time, a faded light blue turtleneck I’d worn so much, it was almost part of my anatomy. Brushing my teeth in ten seconds flat, I scurried down the stairs and out the front door. Marlboro Man was standing outside his pickup, hands inside his pockets, his back resting against the driver-side door. He grinned, and as I walked toward him, he stood up and walked toward me, too. We met in the middle--in between his vehicle and the front door--and without a moment of hesitation, greeted each other with a long, emotional kiss. There was nothing funny or lighthearted about it. That kiss meant business. Our lips separated for a short moment. “I like your sweater,” he said, looking at the light blue cotton rib as if he’d seen it before. I’d hurriedly thrown it on the night we’d met a few months earlier. “I think I wore this to the J-bar that night…,” I said. “Do you remember?” “Ummm, yeah,” he said, pulling me even closer. “I remember.” Maybe the sweater had magical powers. I’d have to be sure to hold on to it. We kissed again, and I shivered in the cold night air. Wanting to get me out of the cold, he led me to his pickup and opened the door so we could both climb in. The pickup was still warm and toasty, like a campfire was burning in the backseat. I looked at him, giggled like a schoolgirl, and asked, “What have you been doing all this time?” “Oh, I was headed home,” he said, fiddling with my fingers. “But then I just turned around; I couldn’t help it.” His hand found my upper back and pulled me closer. The windows were getting foggy. I felt like I was seventeen. “I’ve got this problem,” he continued, in between kisses. “Yeah?” I asked, playing dumb. My hand rested on his left bicep. My attraction soared to the heavens. He caressed the back of my head, messing up my hair…but I didn’t care; I had other things on my mind. “I’m crazy about you,” he said. By now I was on his lap, right in the front seat of his Diesel Ford F250, making out with him as if I’d just discovered the concept. I had no idea how I’d gotten there--the diesel pickup or his lap. But I was there. And, burying my face in his neck, I quietly repeated his sentiments. “I’m crazy about you, too.

And if it’s true that you are what you eat, then we’re a herd of overfed slobs who consume mass quantities of fatty, over-salted, high-calorie processed garbage. Then we stare in the mirror, baffled at the sight of our expanding waistlines, thinking this sudden, inexplicable obesity can be cured by a miracle diet, power cleanse, or appearance on a weight loss reality show. America: pockets of intelligence in a large pair of fat pants. And

Emma ripped the sticky note off the bathroom mirror and threw it in the trash. Sean didn’t have to worry about her rubbing the back of his neck again anytime soon. And he certainly didn’t have to worry about her wanting to get naked. Not with him. If they were a real couple, she’d throw his pillow onto the couch and let his feet dangle over the edge for a change. It was pathetic how fast he’d come up with a lame excuse to run away just because he’d kissed her. It was just a kiss. A great kiss, yes, but still just a kiss. She hadn’t asked him to marry her—to really marry her, of course—or told him she wanted to have his baby. A hot, steamy, toe-curling, bone-melting kiss between two single adults was nothing to run from. But now he’d made a big deal out of it and everything was going to be even more awkward than it had been for the past few days. She’d been curled up on the couch, fuming, for almost an hour when she heard Sean’s truck pull in to the driveway. It was another ten minutes before he crept into the bedroom and closed the door behind him. Since she was facing the back of the couch, she didn’t have to make much of an effort to ignore him. He was in the shower so long she must have fallen asleep to the drone of running water, because the next thing Emma knew, her alarm was going off and it was time to face another day in the hell she’d created. But first she had to face Sean. She got first crack at the bathroom, and when she came out, he was sitting on the side of the bed, fully clothed. Thank goodness. He scrubbed his hands over his face. “We should talk about last night.” “How’s Kevin?” “He’s good. And I meant before that.” “You should have stayed for the end of the movie. It was good.” “Dammit, Emma, you know that’s not what I’m talking about.” “Oh, you mean the practice kiss?” She clipped her cell phone onto her front pocket. “We’re getting better at it. That was almost convincing.” “Practice kiss?” He stood, probably so he could look down at her, but she was tall enough it didn’t make much of an impact. “Almost convincing?” “Yeah,” she said, though she turned her back on him, heading toward the door to avoid eye contact, because that was no practice kiss and it could have convinced even the CIA’s finest. He was muttering when she left the room, but she shut the door on him and went downstairs. She didn’t want to talk about it. And she didn’t want to think about the fact he wasn’t happy she called it a practice kiss. That meant he considered it a real kiss. And not only a real kiss, but one that had shaken him up. The only reason kissing a woman should bother a man like him was if he was trying to fight being attracted to her. Hopefully, he’d win, she thought as she headed toward the kitchen, because she was waging that battle herself and didn’t appear to be headed for a victory. Maybe he had enough willpower and self-control for both of them.

A modern story of Mullah Nasrudin, the Sufi teacher and holy fool, tells of him entering a bank and trying to cash a check. The teller asks him to please identify himself. Nasrudin reaches in his pocket and pulls out a small mirror. Looking into it, he says, “Yep, that’s me all right.” Meditation

By reason of his species and his manners, the peasant comes below the pig. He finds moral life profoundly repugnant. If by chance he achieves great wealth, he loses all sense. So you see, his pockets must be kept empty. He who fails to dominate his peasants only augments their vileness.

Madison!” Bob’s head jerks up and he steps back three paces from me, and all the warmth that was him is suddenly gone. “Dad!” I cry. My father steps between me and Bob. “What are you doing here?” “Skip called me.” Skip and I grew up together. The traitor. “Skip said some ex-convict was carrying you out of the bar over his shoulder.” He looks from Bob to me and back again. “Is that true?” “I can explain, sir,” Bob begins, but my dad shoots him a look. “Why do you look so familiar to me?” Dad asks him. “We met in the courtroom, sir.” “What’s your name?” “Bob Caster, sir.” Dad’s eyes narrow. “One of Phil’s boys?” “Yes, sir.” Bob scratches his nose like he’s suddenly uncomfortable. “Why are you with my daughter?” “We’re on a date, sir.” “One that ends with you throwing her over you shoulder?” “That’s actually how it starts, sir.” A chuckle bursts from my lips and I cover my mouth to keep it in. “Sorry,” I mutter. “Madison, get in the car.” Dad points to his fancy car, which is parked right behind the one I’m sitting on. “With all due respect, sir, I’d like to take her home.” “If you had any respect for my daughter, you wouldn’t have been all over her on the hood of a car in the middle of the street.” “It was just a kiss, Dad—” “It looked like more than that.” “It was,” Bob interjects. His eyes meet mine. “It was more than that.” “What was it?” I whisper, past the lump that’s suddenly clogging my throat. “More,” Bob says. “I don’t know how to explain it. But it was more.” “More than you deserve,” Dad snaps. “My daughter will not have a relationship with an ex-convict.” Bob takes a step back and stuffs his hands in his pockets. “I understand, sir,” he says. “Good night, Madison.” “Don’t go!” I cry. He rounds the front of his car and gets inside. He cranks it and waits for me to get my butt off it. “You deserve better than him, Madison,” Dad says. I get off the hood of the car and glare at him. “Dad!” “Get in the car, Madison!” he shouts. He points his finger in the direction he wants me to go. I stomp over to the car and get in, and my heart breaks when I see that Bob is already driving away. His eyes meet mine briefly in his mirror and I see a world of hurt inside him. “I’m not going to my apartment, Dad,” I tell him. “Yes, you are.” “No, I’m not.” Dad heaves a sigh. “What do you want, Madison?” “I want to get to know him, Dad. That’s all. I like him a lot.” “I could tell,” he grunts. “He’s not the one for you.

The sky was low and broody, but from here, near the treeline, you could see the forest rolling down into the valley, the lake tucked away like a pocket mirror.

Do you happen to have a pocket-mirror?" "I'm afraid not. Why?" "I've made you late, which means by now Lady Berwick has sprouted serpents from her head, and I can't look at her directly.

Lou sat on the dock and stared into the blue depths of Waterton Lake to where a figure floated under the surface. It was the woman who’d walked into Emerald Bay, her pockets full of stones, but in the dream, the woman’s face was a mirror of Lou’s own.

At HQ, meantime, the Dispatcher of Inspectors is cackling hatefully as he cuddles his Bradshaw's Railway Guide, for the train the inspectors will catch at Victoria has a restaurant car but it is too late for what British Rail jestingly calls "breakfast" and too early for a life-giving drink. Heh, heh! At Eastbourne, they [the bank inspectors] stamp into the bank's Market Street branch, flourishing many a dread credential and reciting an Ogden Nash-like poem which goes after this fashion: Keys, Please. Then they glance swiftly around to observe which cashier has gone green about the gills, which teller is slipping his pocket-money back into the petty-cash box and feeding the racing pages of the Daily Mirror into the shredding machine, which assistant manager is sidling out in the general direction of Gatwick Airport.

The mirror’s diagnosis was frank, expected, and brutal: He had aged a decade in a year. Scars crosshatched his wrinkles; moles stippled his sunspots. His once bright eyes were now dull as pencil leads. He looked like a regent’s visage printed on a bank note, softened by a thousand pockets, halved by as many wallets, creased and broken by repeated exchange. He looked as if he should be removed from circulation.

[It] strikes me that my morning walks are like Post-it Notes to myself, the kind my mom put on my bathroom mirror when I was a kid. Unlike hers, they convey no information—no went to Star Market, no clean up your room. They just say: look around, go slowly, feel yourself a part of something bigger than yourself. Such a Post-it on my bathroom mirror would make me cringe. But to write and read it by walking just feels practical. Without the walk, I feel as though I’ve forgotten to do something important, something without which the rest of my day will go sideways. At bottom, maybe that’s what prayer is. A kind of note to yourself, with your God looking on, written in your religion’s handwriting, to remind you of whatever you think you need to be reminded of—to remind you how to live a better life. Maybe all the major religions knew that how you started your day would effectively be a prayer anyway, that whatever you do every morning, whatever frame you give to your day, effectively becomes what you worship.

The Miss Marple Reading List We recommend reading the Miss Marple novels and short stories in the following order: ❑ The Murder at the Vicarage [1930] ❑ The Thirteen Problems (Short Story Collection) [1932] ❑ Miss Marple’s Final Cases (Short Story Collection) [1979] ❑ The Body in the Library [1942] ❑ The Moving Finger [1942] ❑ Sleeping Murder [1976] ❑ A Murder Is Announced [1950] ❑ They Do It with Mirrors [1952] ❑ A Pocket Full of Rye [1953] ❑ “Greenshaw’s Folly” [1956] ❑ 4.50 from Paddington [1957] ❑ The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side [1962] ❑ A Caribbean Mystery [1964] ❑ At Bertram’s Hotel [1965] ❑ Nemesis [1971]

I bought a narrow blue one with white spots and square ends, took off my long-striped tie and rolled it up in my top jacket pocket, leaving a bit sticking out. After a few attempts at the speckled mirror, I manage to get the bow tie almost right, if a little lopsided. In the world of bow ties, it is important that it should be ever so slightly imperfect; this is to show that: a) you tied it yourself; and b) that you are slightly 'devil may care' and not at all prissy. Perfection is the sign of an amateur, perhaps someone who works with great skill but without connection to his animal nature, to passion and lust. Perfection is not for living things, certainly not for human beings; if you are not capable of loving flaws and faults, then you are not capable of love. I have lived most of my life in poverty, but I can tie a bow tie and to some this will be a mystery, but somebody who knows me would say, 'Of course he can tie a bow tie.' Such imperfections - wrinkles in the world - are where all of life's best stories are.

MY LOVE, The day Prometheus breathed life into the new me, was the day you arrived in a little box. A shiny, futuristic black box, Pandora's box, despite my doubts I couldn't help but open it to finally meet you. Doubts, because I was happy with who I was, with who I saw looking at me through the eyes of others I presented myself to in everyday life. But I was seduced by the worlds that were promised to me if I let you into my life, who I would be with you in my pocket. As soon as the lid came off and I swiped my fingers over your radiant surface for the first time, the world and I were bursting at the seams. What a creation we were together, to what sized we grew! My brain an encyclopedia, my body an unerring compass, my eyes and ears reaching infinitely with you as an extension of myself. Through you, I, the cyborg, could enter bewilderingly virtual spaces in which I was presently absent, meanwhile absently present in the material world of boring train rides, waiting lines, and mindless chit chats with others. I felt invincible, transformed into a citizen of the world because of you, an intellectual of unimaginable proportions for the vast sea of knowledge you allowed me to surf on, a public speaker and influencer of significance because my words and visual snippets of my days could be launched into the world with the flick of a finger, likes enticing and confirming me. How intoxicating! How wonderfully, pleasantly, intoxicating! But I can't help but sometimes lie awake at night, my internal clock slowing down with your seductive blue light illuminating my face with 2, 457, 600 (1920×1080) LED suns. In those moments, as my eyes are captivated by your glow, I can't help thinking about the time before you arrived, and how I sometimes miss my low definition self. You were always there, sometimes it feels like we are in fact one — finally reunited with my other Plato's half, fused into not a circle but a perfect black rectangle. Through your eyes I see the world and myself in Ultra-HD, my pixel density has never been so high. But you are sometimes vicious, my dear — a viper, a temptress, when then again with sweet codes you reflect my most beautiful self, and I cannot help but love me through your gaze, then again with suffocating algorithms you fragment my self and blow it up to grotesque self-distortions, hurling me into an endless me-loop, that eventually disgusts and alienates me. In those moments you are a distorting mirror, a frightening black box, a black hole that swallows my attention in ways I can't see through. I see my old self disappearing in the vague, dark reflection of myself, with double chin and dull eyes, which I sometimes catch in your black glass when your suns stop dazzling me for a split second. And I can't help but wonder if my 'self' in times of its digital recombination, in which the 'I' is a fragmented multitude of pixels that never fully touch at their sides, a simulacrum, maybe has lost some of its aura. But in the morning all is forgotten, my love, all is well. As soon as we merge back into one, as soon as I, panicked, reach for my pocket on the train, only to discover with a glow of relief that you were there after all, I can't imagine an "I" without you. Artificial by nature my self resides within your screen, I would be lost without you.

I stared at the Mirror Card in his hand. “Are you going to use that?” “It’s for you.” Air whooshed out my open mouth, and I shoved my hands deep into my pockets. “I can’t,” I said too quickly. Ravyn cocked a brow. “Trust me, you want to avoid Orithe.” Now’s your chance, the Nightmare said, his voice thick with mischief. Tell him your real magic. Go on. Tell him why you refuse to touch Providence Cards. This isn’t a game, I said. If I tell him I absorb any Card I touch, he’ll want to know the rest. He’ll find out about YOU. Would that really be so horrible? I ignored him, steeling myself. “I’ve no desire to use Providence Cards,” I said to Ravyn. The Captain’s gray eyes tightened on my face. “Why is that, Miss Spindle?” “Nothing comes for free,” I said, forcing firmness into my voice. “I don’t take risks. Not even with Cards. Please, Captain. I cannot.

What Ravyn had suspected before the inquest hit him now like a blow. Elm. Ione. Spirit and trees. The Nightmare’s laugh drifted like smoke up the stone walls. You don’t approve, Captain? It’ll wreck him if the King decides to kill her. I imagine he thinks the same thing about you and this body I currently occupy. Ravyn tore the Mirror from his pocket and released himself. He wanted the Nightmare to see the hate in his eyes. She has a name, parasite. Say it. Or don’t speak of her at all.

The Nightmare met him at the water’s edge. “Well?” Ravyn towered over him, shoulders broad. “Is Jespyr—” “Alive. The Twin Alders Card?” Ravyn held out his hand. A brilliant green light appeared, emanating between his calloused fingers. I let out a gasp. He’s done it. The Nightmare’s voice went low. “Your barter?” “All it cost me was my name.” “Your name?” “You know it already.” Ravyn looked deep into the Nightmare’s eyes. “It’s yours, after all.” The dark chamber I occupied went utterly soundless. Ravyn cleared his throat, his voice quieter, as if he was taking pains to soften it. “You might have told me the Mirror and Nightmare Cards I keep in my pocket belonged to your son, Taxus.” It seemed there were some secrets that had not bled out of him after all. Nightmare, I said, a vicious whisper. What does he mean? His voice thinned, like smoke up a flue. Gaze narrow, he peered up at Ravyn. “Seems you’re less stupid than I thought.” “And you’re just as horrible as ever.” The Nightmare let out a humming laugh. “Yes, well, it took me longer than it should have to recognize you. I imagine it was Bennett who revised our family name. But magic, and degeneration, runs in bloodlines. Your inability to use the Cards—that, I did recognize.” Warmth stole over his mind. “Along with your nose.

His eyes slid over Ravyn’s hands—his pockets. Ravyn knew what he was hoping to glimpse. The Nightmare Card. Only two burgundy Nightmare Cards had been forged. Both had been missing for decades. Tyrn Hawthorn had brought one forward—traded it to King Rowan at Equinox for a marriage contract between Ione and Hauth. It was no doubt still being used at Stone by the Physicians attempting to revive Hauth. Gorse wasn’t the smartest Destrier. But the distrust coloring his face meant he had come to one of two conclusions. Either Ravyn had taken the King’s Nightmare Card— Or he, Captain of the Destriers, possessed the second one. Along with a Mirror Card he’d conveniently failed to mention.

Alone, I took out a pocket mirror from my

I hated what this country had become and wanted nothing more than to hold up a mirror so its citizens could see it for what it truly was, not the Land of Opportunity for which our forefathers fought and died, but as the fascist regime that served to funnel the money upward from those most in need into the pockets of those who would see them all starve in the streets, the same men who took away their livelihoods and stranded them in a city rotting beneath their very feet.

You might have all night, but some of us don’t,” Barrons growled over his shoulder. I stuffed the paper in my pocket and hurried to catch up. We’d parked the Viper a block away. The queen wore a hooded cloak and was wrapped in blankets. “You have all night tonight and tomorrow night and all eternity for that matter. So how long were you dead this time?” I asked, needling him. The rattle moved in his throat. I took a perverse pleasure in irritating him. “A day? Three? Five? What does it depend on? How badly you’re injured?” “If I were you, Ms. Lane, I’d never bring that up again. You think you’re suddenly a major player because you went through that Silver—” “I left Christian at the mirror. I found him in the prison,” I cut him off. His mouth snapped shut, then, “Why the fuck does it always take you so long to tell me the important things?” “Because there are always so many important things,” I said defensively. “Her hair’s dragging again.” “Pick it up. My hands are full.” “I’m not touching her.” He shot me a look. “Issues much, Ms. Concubine?” “She’s not even the real queen,” I said irritably. “Not the one that ruined the concubine’s life. I just don’t like Fae. I’m a sidhe-seer, remember?” “Are you?” “Why are you so pissed at me? It’s not my fault who I am. The only thing that’s my fault is what I choose to do with it.” He gave me a sidelong glance that said, That might be the only intelligent thing you’ve said tonight.

She froze when she thought she heard movement in a nearby copse of trees, then scanned the area. Probably just an animal. They tended to be in jungles. She turned back to the stream— “Put your hands on your head.” Not an animal. As she slowly stood and turned, she recognized that these weren’t locals. These were bad guys, three of them with machine guns aimed at her face. In her present mood that equaled: Why, I believe I’ll turn them into frogs! Just as she reached for the mirror in her pocket, they cocked their weapons. The oldest man was clearly the leader, and his tone was deadly as he said, “Your hands on your head—or I’ll put a bullet into it.” He didn’t have a thick accent. These must be the international narco-terrorists, the ones who made the cartel look mild. So much for the mirror’s judgment. Unless this was still better than Bowen.

After they left, Emma returned to her Jasper-burger consumption with gusto. She’d asked Lisa once to find out the recipe for their seasoning mix, but Kevin wouldn’t give it up. Plus, as Lisa had pointed out, it wouldn’t do Emma any good to have it since she couldn’t cook worth a damn, anyway. “So about what I said before,” Sean said after he’d wolfed down his food, “about not wanting them to know we’ve had sex. It’s not that I’m trying to hide it, I just…” “Don’t want them to know.” “Yeah.” “That makes sense.” His face brightened. “Really?” “No.” “Damn.” He’d finished his beer, so he took a swig off the glass of water she’d requested with her meal. “Under normal circumstances, I’d want everybody to know we’re sleeping together. Trust me. I’d put a sign on my front lawn.” “But these aren’t normal circumstances.” “Not even in the ballpark. I have this bet with my brothers I’d last the whole month and I don’t want to listen to them gloat.” Of course he’d have a bet with his brothers. Such a guy thing to do. “But it’s more about the women.” “The women?” “In my family, I mean. Aunt Mary, especially. They might start thinking it’s more than it is. Getting ideas about us, if you know what I mean.” Emma ate her last French fry and pushed her plate away. “So we have to pretend we’re madly in love and engaged…while pretending we’re not having sex.” “Told you it complicates things.” “I’m going to need a color-coded chart to keep track of who thinks what.” He grinned and pulled his Sharpie out of his pocket. “I could make Sticky notes.” The man loved sticky notes. He stuck them on everything. A note on the front of the microwave complaining about the disappearance of the last bag of salt-and-vinegar chips. (Emma had discovered during a particularly rough self-pity party that any chips will do, even if they burn your tongue.) A note on the back of the toilet lid telling her she used girlie toilet paper, whatever that meant. He liked leaving them on the bathroom mirror, too. Stop cleaning my sneakers. I’m trying to break them in. Her personal favorite was If you buy that cheap beer because it’s on sale again, I’ll piss in your mulch pile. But sometimes they were sweet. Thank you for doing my laundry. And…You make really good grilled cheese sandwiches. That one had almost made her cry.

Can we pause the bickering for more important matters, please? Look. There’s a time-out on the court.” Which meant more Coach Romano camera time. The three women focused on the TV. “OMG,” Sarah said, the slang usage obviously for Nic’s benefit. On the screen, the man in question had slipped off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, and he was holding a basketball in a one-handed grip. “Look at the size of those hands.” Sage fanned her face. “Think of what he could do with them.” “At the risk of sounding crude, this is the first time in my life my boobs ever wished they were a basketball,” Nic observed. Out in the hallway, something heavy thumped to the floor. Nic recognized the voice that muttered the epithet that immediately followed. Gabe Callahan. She glanced in the wall mirror and smoothed her flyaway hair, catching Sarah’s knowing smirk as she did so. She stuck out her tongue at her best friend and sent up a little prayer that his hearing wasn’t all that sharp. “Gabe?” Sarah called out. “Everything all right?” Footsteps approached and he came into sight, pausing in the doorway. He wore a blue-and-gray plaid flannel shirt tucked into a snug pair of faded Levi’s. He had a stained and scruffy pair of lined leather work gloves tucked into a back pocket of his jeans, and his steel-toed boots showed plenty of wear. He might be stopping for dinner at the Bristlecone most nights these days, but he still hadn’t managed to find his way to the barbershop. His hair brushed his shoulders now, curling slightly on the ends. And dang it, her fingers itched to play with those thick silken strands. Until he turned a wickedly amused gaze her way and dashed her hopes about his hearing. “Sorry about the noise. That piece of lumber slipped right out of my hands. You know …” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I have to tell you that, while men are often accused of thinking with body parts other than their brains, this is the first time I’ve ever heard women admit they have parts that think for themselves, too.” He heard, all right. Nic closed her eyes and flushed with embarrassment. They not only think for themselves, they blush. Sage saved her by laughing. “You like basketball, Gabe?” “Not the same way you ladies do, apparently.

Weren’t you fucking somebody else last week, Friday?” I blurt out. I want to take it back immediately because it hangs there in the air between us like a bomb about to explode. “What?” she asks, and her voice goes soft. “Last week it was a different guy who took you to lunch.” I grumble to myself and get up, pretending to clean the counter. She thinks it over. “You mean Cody?” “How many are there?” She blinks hard. What the fuck? Friday never cries. Ever. I take a step toward her, and she steps back, putting her hand up like she’s going to push the air around me back. “How dare you?” she breathes. A tear falls over her lashes, and she swipes it away and then looks down at the back of her wet hand like she doesn’t know what the fuck a tear is. “Friday,” I say. I step toward her again. I soften my voice because I have no idea what to do. I have never seen this Friday before. I have only seen the one who can eat my balls for lunch. Hell, she’ll feed my balls to me if I piss her off enough. And make me like it. Four years and I have never seen her shed a tear. She turns around and runs into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. I lean my ear against the door and listen, but I can’t hear anything over the sound of the fan. I knock. She doesn’t answer. “Dammit,” I swear. I lean my forehead against the door. “Leave her alone,” I hear from behind me. I turn around because Logan is talking. “I can’t,” I say to him. I knock again, but she doesn’t answer. “Just leave her the fuck alone,” he says again. He’s pissed, I can tell. “You have a client.” He waves toward my customer like he’s Vanna Fucking White. “Work to do. So, you might want to get to it.” I heave a sigh and look at my client. “Just a moment,” I say. “Take your time,” he says with a grin. He’s loving the show, apparently. I pull my keys from my pocket and fit the key in the lock. I hesitate long enough for Logan to notice. “You shouldn’t,” he warns. I know I shouldn’t, but I am. I turn the key and let myself into the room. I find Friday washing her face. “What the fuck, Paul!” she cries. She turns back to the mirror and dabs beneath her eyes. She looks at me in the mirror. “Get out.” I close the door behind me and lean against it. “Why are you crying?” “I don’t know,” she bites out. But another tear slides down her cheek. “Fucking hormones,” she says as she swipes it away. All this because she has her period? I know better than to say that out loud. “Oh,” I say instead. She turns to face me, hitching her hip against the sink. She crosses her arms beneath her breasts, which pushes them up and makes little pillows over the top of that low-cut dress she’s wearing. My God. I look up at her face. She smirks at me. I like a smirking Friday a lot better than one who’s crying because I don’t know what do with tears. Not from her. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” I blurt out when she just glares at me. “Yes, you did.” “No, I didn’t.” “Yes, you did.

I’ve got to get home. Where’s my cell?” I ask, patting my back pocket. “Alex has it, I think.” So sneaking out without talking to him isn’t an option. I struggle to keep the Oompa Loompas at bay as I stagger out of the bedroom, searching for Alex. It’s not hard to find him, the house is smaller than Sierra’s pool house. Alex is lying on an old sofa, wearing jeans. Nothing else. His eyes are open, but they’re bloodshot and glazed with sleep. “Hey,” he says warmly while stretching. Oh, God. I’m in big trouble. Because I’m staring. I can’t keep my eyes from ogling his chiseled triceps and biceps and every other “eps” he has. The butterflies in my stomach have just multiplied tenfold as my wandering gaze meets his. “Hey.” I swallow, hard. “I, um, guess I should thank you for taking me here instead of leaving me passed out on the beach.” His gaze doesn’t falter. “Last night I realized somethin’. You and I, we’re not so different. You play the game just like I do. You use your looks, your bod, and your brains to make sure you’re always in control.” “I’m hungover, Alex. I can’t even think straight and you’re getting all philosophical on me.” “See, you’re playin’ a game right now. Be real with me, mamacita. I dare you.” Is he kidding? Be real? I can’t. Because then I’ll start crying, and maybe freak out enough to blurt the truth--that I create a perfect image so I can hide behind it. “I better get home.” “Before you do that, you should probably go to the bathroom,” he says. Before I ask why, I catch a glimpse of my reflection in a mirror hanging on the wall. “Oh, shit!” I shriek. Black mascara is caked under my eyes and streaky lines of it are running down my cheeks. I resemble a corpse. Hurrying past him, I find the hall bathroom and stare at myself in the mirror. My hair is a stringy bird’s nest. If the mascara marrying my cheeks wasn’t bad enough, the rest of me is as pale as my aunt Dolores without her makeup. I have puffy bags under my eyes as if I’m storing water for the winter months. All in all, not a pretty sight. By anyone’s standards.

We don’t have to wait until something is lost or ending to enjoy it now. We can find reminders to help us pause and savor. I like to use pictures or quotes in my office or on my bathroom mirror, file cabinet, or refrigerator. It could be a ring you wear or a special coin you keep in your pocket. Maybe it’s a book, card, or poster that helps you pause and reflect.

Likewise, Peony knew that neither Miss Alice nor Mr. Franklin would notice at all—because to them both, Peony was an invisible presence in the house—a nonperson who did the cooking and the serving and the cleaning up, but who was not supposed to cause any unfortunate ripples in the mirror-calm surface of the family home. So Peony went back to slicing the tomatoes and wiping her eyes, and all because of what she had in her apron pocket—a letter from her big sister, Pansy. From her sister in prison.

Supposed to be commissioned by the Church, the pardoners would sell absolution for any sin from gluttony to homicide, cancel any vow of chastity or fasting, remit any penance for money, most of which they pocketed.

Anecdotal Spores: The Crazy Uncle Late one cold and drizzly winter night while I was traveling through the mountains, I stopped in a roadside bar for a beer and a sandwich and decided to sit at the counter, which was empty except for a very fat man at the far end. The waitress was young and thin, with a bad complexion. She had glasses and wore her hair in pigtails. She was also a nervous blinker, blinking with every word she spoke as she asked what I wanted. I decided that a beer might make me too sleepy to drive, so I ordered a coffee, along with a bacon cheeseburger. When I’d ordered, I glanced down at the fat man and saw that he was staring at me. I nodded, then turned back and looked at the mirror behind the whiskey bottles. But with that first brief glance there seemed to be something oddly familiar about him. So after a moment I glanced back, and he was still sitting there staring at me. He was dressed in an old-fashioned shirt and tie and had a thick cluster of pens in his shirt pocket. Finally he said, “Don’t you recognize me?” “No, can’t say I do,” I told him. He nodded sadly. “How can that be? I’m your uncle.” I frowned at him a moment, then turned back and looked at the mirror. A moment later he said, speaking to nobody, “His own uncle, and he doesn’t know me.” Finally, sighing, he got up and ambled to the men’s room. The waitress came back to pour my coffee. Blinking, she said, “Don’t mind him; he’s crazy. He thinks he’s everybody’s uncle.” I shook my head. “Yes, but he does look familiar, somehow.” “People always say that, too,” the waitress said, blinking the words at me before going back to the serving slot in the wall to see if my bacon cheeseburger was ready.

You can't know a father. They're all magicians. Got two million years of strings and mirrors in their pockets.

Do you happen to have a pocket-mirror?" "I'm afraid not. Why?" "I've made you late, which means by now Lady Berwick has sprouted serpents from her head, and I can't look at her directly.

I’m sure loads of other people already checked on you, but I wanted to see for myself.” “Did you?” “And, uh.” Anna reaches into the pocket of her denim jacket as Victoria returns her keys to her purse. “Give you back your scarf.” “You remembered.” Their eyes meet as fingertips brush over the exchange of silk. Truthfully, Victoria would have been sorry to see this one go. It’s a classic for a reason. With practiced hands, she unfolds it with a flick, whipping it quickly into a long braid of sorts. The spark from earlier reignites, and there isn’t water enough in New York to put out the blaze now.

As fucking annoying as she is—” I glared in the rearview mirror at her and pulled a pack of cigarettes out of my pocket, needing one now—“Landon would torch my fucking car if I touched her.” “Will you be—” “I’ll be fine.” Imani turned away from me. “If he tries to kill me, I’ll kick him in the balls.

He bent at the waist, retrieving the White Eagles from the ground and slipping them into his pocket. “Cards lose their magic the moment they touch my skin. The Mirror and the Nightmare—and perhaps the Twin Alders—are the only Cards I can still use.” I still did not understand. “Why only those?