Silver Streak Quotes

His forehead bumped softly against mine, his brilliant silver gaze searing into me. “I plan to keep you, from everyone, for as long as I’m alive. That includes Puck, the false king, and anyone else who would take you away.” One corner of his mouth quirked, as I struggled to catch my breath under his powerful scrutiny. “I guess I should’ve warned you that I have a slight possessive streak.

In those seconds, I was mourning everything I'd lost. How I'd never get to see you walk down an aisle toward me, how I'd never get to see your face in our children, how I'd never get to see streaks of silver in your hair. But, at the same time, I couldn't be bothered. If me dying meant you living, how could that be anything but good?

Nesta gazed at her friends. And saw pain and sorrow in their tear-streaked faces, but also the openness of letting each other see the broken places deep inside. The understanding that they would not turn away.

Am I ever going to see you again?" Hideo asks him. In his voice is his lost self, the boy who grew up with a silver streak of grief in his hair. And that's when I realize that, at the end, we'd all wish for the same thing. Just a little more time.

The black sky was underpinned with long silver streaks that looked like scaffolding and depth on depth behind it were thousands of stars that all seemed to be moving very slowly as if they were about some vast construction work that involved the whole universe and would take all time to complete. No one was paying attention to the sky.

Having been a demon curse, however brief, should leave a mark. A streak of silver hair, or bewitching eyes. Maybe crows on one's roof or a hound from hell at your heel. Blowing out my breath I stood and squinted at my reflection. A black eye. Swell.

You saved me,'" said Seneca softly. "You took a direct hit, and you survived because of your gift." Jake was slightly startled when she spoke. Seneca’s voice had changed. It was airy and light. Her spunky, deep voice was gone, as were her golden-blonde locks. Her hair was completely white, with silver streaks highlighting it throughout. He had noticed the beginnings of the change before they teleported. The transformation was now complete. Her eyes were a brilliant, majestic blue with flecks of silver that caught the light. She had approached quietly, and her presence made them all listen intently. Seneca was the Druid of the true prophecy. 

The night is falling down around us. Meteors rain like fireworks, quick rips in the seam of the dark... Every second, another streak of silver glows: parentheses, exclamation points, commas - a whole grammar made of light, for words too hard to speak.

Every second, another streak of silver glows: parentheses, exclamation points, commas--a whole grammar made of light, for words to hard to speak.

Towards midnight the rain ceased and the clouds drifted away, so that the sky was scattered once more with the incredible lamps of stars. Then the breeze died too and there was no noise save the drip and tickle of water that ran out of clefts and spilled down, leaf by leaf, to the brown earth of the island. The air was cool, moist, and clear; and presently even the sound of the water was still. The beast lay huddled on the pale beach and the stains spread, inch by inch. The edge of the lagoon became a streak of phosphorescence which advanced minutely, as the great wave of the tide flowed. The clear water mirrored the clear sky and the angular bright constellations. The line of phosphorescence bulged about the sand grains and little pebbles; it held them each in a dimple of tension, then suddenly accepted them with an inaudible syllable and moved on. Along the shoreward edge of the shallows the advancing clearness was full of strange, moonbeam-bodied creatures with fiery eyes. Here and there a larger pebble clung to its own air and was covered with a coat of pearls. The tide swelled in over the rain-pitted sand and smoothed everything with a layer of silver. Now it touched the first of the stains that seeped from the broken body and the creatures made a moving patch of light as they gathered at the edge. The water rose further and dressed Simon's coarse hair with brightness. The line of his cheek silvered and the turn of his shoulder became sculptured marble. The strange, attendant creatures, with their fiery eyes and trailing vapours busied themselves round his head. The body lifted a fraction of an inch from the sand and a bubble of air escaped from the mouth with a wet plop. Then it turned gently in the water. Somewhere over the darkened curve of the world the sun and moon were pulling; and the film of water on the earth planet was held, bulging slightly on one side while the solid core turned. The great wave of the tide moved further along the island and the water lifted. Softly, surrounded by a fringe of inquisitive bright creatures, itself a silver shape beneath the steadfast constellations, Simon's dead body moved out towards the open sea.

His forehead bumped softly against mine, his brilliant silver gaze searing into me. "I plan to keep you, from everyone, for as long as I'm alive. That includes Puck, the false king, and anyone else who would take you away." One corner of his mouth quirked, as I struggled to catch my breath under his powerful scrutiny. "I guess I should've warned you that I have a slight possessive streak." "I didn't notice," I whispered, trying to keep my voice light and sarcastic, but it came out rather breathy. "It's all right - I'm not giving you up, either." His eyes turned very soft, and he lowered his head, brushing his lips to mine. I laced my hands behind his neck and closed my eyes, breathing in his scent, forgetting everything, if only for a moment.

Passover isn't about eating, Hannah," her mother began at last, sighing and pushing her fingers through her silver-streaked hair. "You could have fooled me," Hannah muttered.

Higher and higher receded the sky, wider and wider spread the streak of dawn, whiter grew the pallid silver of the dew, more lifeless the sickle of the moon...

The tie made the silver streak in her hair—a blaze, Astrid had learned it was called, like Susan Sontag, or Cruella de Vil—sparkle.

I wish I’d been here to see Summer go off on them. Her caretaker side is strong. But as much of a people pleaser as she might be, she has this vicious streak. This protective streak. And I fucking live for that.

and move a section of hair above my right ear to inspect a thick streak of silver hidden beneath the part. I lift it, coiling the hair around my finger, marveling at this single patch of silver. Ephraim shifts on the bed, and I hear the soft pad of feet on the floorboards. “I like it,” he says lifting the streak from my hand. He slides it through his fingers. “It is one thing to be old,” I tell him, “and another to feel old. That makes me feel old.” “Well, it makes me feel like a king.” He smiles at my curious look. “Only a fool would be upset to find a vein of silver running through his beloved territory.

You don't have to say anything if you don't want to." Anna lies down, her head pillowed against my shoulder. Every second, another streak of silver glows: parentheses, exclamation points, commas—a whole grammar made of light, for words too hard to speak.

Jem looked at ease in a white sweater and dark jeans. His black hair had a single, dramatic streak of silver in it that stood out against his brown skin.

I saw us in some lost future, myself with a long beard, and her with silver streaks entwined in her auburn hair. My son would already be proud of the strength of his own son.

The silver streaks in his hair, the deep curogations in his forehead, the estuaries at the corners of his eyes were marks of pride to one who had seen countless battles and fought many wars. The map of his features bespoke his many years of triumph and tribulation, and he was glad to wear the aspect of so accomplished a soldier, glad to earn the prize of old age.

In those seconds, I was mourning everything I’d lost. How I’d never get to see you walk down an aisle toward me, how I’d never get to see your face in our children, how I’d never get to see streaks of silver in your hair.

And in the whiteness, of the whiteness, flowering in the tattered water, their bodies arching with the streaked marble hollows of the waves, their manes and tails and the fragile beards of the males burning in the sunlight, their eyes as dark and jeweled as the deep sea--and the shining of the horns, the seashell shining of the horns! The horns came riding in like the rainbow masts of silver ships.

Josey?” She heard her mother’s voice in the hall, then the thud of her cane as she came closer. “Please don’t tell her I’m here,” the woman in the closet said, with a strange sort of desperation. Despite the cold outside, she was wearing a cropped white shirt and tight dark blue jeans that sat low, revealing a tattoo of a broken heart on her hip. Her hair was bleached white-blond with about an inch of silver-sprinkled dark roots showing. Her mascara had run and there were black streaks on her cheeks. She looked drip-dried, like she’d been walking in the rain, though there hadn’t...

When I think of it as happening to somebody else, it seems that the idea of me soaked to the skin, surrounded by countless driving streaks of silver, and moving through when I completely forget my material existence, and view myself from a purely objective standpoint, can I, as a figure in a painting, blend into the beautiful harmony of my natural surroundings. The moment, however, I feel annoyed because of the rain, or miserable because my legs are weary because of the rain, or miserable because my legs are weary with walking, then I have already ceased to be a character in a poem, or a figure in a painting, and I revert to the uncomprehending, insensitive man in the street I was before. I am then even blind to the elegance of the fleeting clouds; unable even to feel any bond of sympathy with a falling petal or the cry of a bird, much less appreciate the great beauty in the image of myself, completely alone, walking through the mountains in spring.

In those seconds, I was mourning everything I’d lost. How I’d never get to see you walk down an aisle toward me, how I’d never get to see your face in our children, how I’d never get to see streaks of silver in your hair. But, at the same time, I couldn’t be bothered. If me dying meant you living, how could that be anything but good?

flash of silver as the craft streaked laterally

Every second, another streak of silver glows, parentheses, exclamation points, commas, a whole grammar made of light, for words too hard to speak.

You think I went three years without laying my hand on a single person to break my streak with one as exceptional as you and then let you just walk away?

In those seconds, I was mourning everything I’d lost. How I’d never get to see you walk down an aisle toward me, how I’d never get to see your face in our children, how I’d never get to see streaks of silver in your hair. But, at the same time, I couldn’t be bothered. If me dying meant you living”—he did his one-shoulder shrug again—“how could that be anything but good?

Everyone is so nice. I love working here! The sparkles of gold. The streaks of silver. The diamonds glitter at me as I fly. I feel so at peace. I don't mind coming into work every day.

He closed his eyes. Found the ridged face of the power stud. And in the bloodlit dark behind his eyes, silver phosphenes boiled in from the edge of space, hypnagogic images jerking past like a film compiled of random frames. Symbols, figures, faces, a blurred, fragmented mandala of visual information. Please, he prayed, now- A gray disk, the color of Chiba sky. Now- Disk beginning to rotate, faster, becoming a sphere of paler gray. Expanding- And flowed, flowered for him, fluid neon origami trick, the unfolding of distanceless home, his country, transparent 3D chessboard extending to infinity. Inner eye opening to the stepped scarlet pyramid of the Eastern Seaboard Fission Authority burning beyond the green cubes of Mitsubishi Bank of America, and high and very far away he saw the spiral arms of the military systems, forever beyond his reach. And somewhere he was laughing, in a white-painted loft, distant fingers caressing the deck, tears of release streaking his face.

A wide half-circle of foam and glinting lights and shining shoulders of green water, the great weir closed the backwater from bank to bank, troubled all the quiet surface with twirling eddies and floating foam-streaks, and deadened all other sounds with its solemn and soothing rumble. In midmost of the stream, embraced in the weir’s shimmering arm-spread, a small island lay anchored, fringed close with willow and silver birch and alder. Reserved, shy, but full of significance, it hid whatever it might hold behind a veil, keeping it till the hour should come, and, with the hour, those who were called and chosen.

Jem looked at ease in a white sweater and dark jeans. His black hair had a single, dramatic streak of silver in it that stood out against his brown skin. “How are you finding the training?” he asked, leaning forward. “I don’t bruise as much anymore,” Simon said, shrugging. “That’s excellent,” Jem said. “It means you’re finding your feet and deflecting more blows.” “Really?” Simon said. “I thought it was because I was dead inside.

Questions of Travel There are too many waterfalls here; the crowded streams hurry too rapidly down to the sea, and the pressure of so many clouds on the mountaintops makes them spill over the sides in soft slow-motion, turning to waterfalls under our very eyes. —For if those streaks, those mile-long, shiny, tearstains, aren't waterfalls yet, in a quick age or so, as ages go here, they probably will be. But if the streams and clouds keep travelling, travelling, the mountains look like the hulls of capsized ships, slime-hung and barnacled. Think of the long trip home. Should we have stayed at home and thought of here? Where should we be today? Is it right to be watching strangers in a play in this strangest of theatres? What childishness is it that while there's a breath of life in our bodies, we are determined to rush to see the sun the other way around? The tiniest green hummingbird in the world? To stare at some inexplicable old stonework, inexplicable and impenetrable, at any view, instantly seen and always, always delightful? Oh, must we dream our dreams and have them, too? And have we room for one more folded sunset, still quite warm? But surely it would have been a pity not to have seen the trees along this road, really exaggerated in their beauty, not to have seen them gesturing like noble pantomimists, robed in pink. —Not to have had to stop for gas and heard the sad, two-noted, wooden tune of disparate wooden clogs carelessly clacking over a grease-stained filling-station floor. (In another country the clogs would all be tested. Each pair there would have identical pitch.) —A pity not to have heard the other, less primitive music of the fat brown bird who sings above the broken gasoline pump in a bamboo church of Jesuit baroque: three towers, five silver crosses. —Yes, a pity not to have pondered, blurredly and inconclusively, on what connection can exist for centuries between the crudest wooden footwear and, careful and finicky, the whittled fantasies of wooden cages. —Never to have studied history in the weak calligraphy of songbirds' cages. —And never to have had to listen to rain so much like politicians' speeches: two hour of unrelenting oratory and then a sudden golden silence in which the traveller takes a notebook, writes: "Is it lack of imagination that makes us come to imagined places, not just stay at home? Or could Pascal have been entirely right about just sitting quietly in one's room? Continent, city, country, society: the choice is never wide and never free. And here, or there...No. Should we have stayed at home, wherever that may be?

Siobhan said that I should write something I would want to read myself. Mostly I read books about science and maths. I do not like proper novels. In proper novels people say things like, "I am veined with iron, with silver and with streaks of common mud. I cannot contract into the firm fist which whose clench who do not depend on stimulus." What does this mean? I do not know. Nor does Father. Nor does Siobhan or Mr. Jeavons. I have asked them.

I saw a streak of silver in the sky – a chariot pulled by reindeer, but it wasn’t Santa Claus driving. It was Artemis riding the storm, shooting shafts of moonlight into the darkness. A fiery golden comet crossed her path – maybe her brother, Apollo.

Curtis emerged in a few seconds. At forty-five years of age, he looked younger than Lance expected. Something about the word “accountant” made him think of old men and dusty ledgers. But Curtis’s light-brown hair was streaked with blond, not silver, and he moved like an athlete.

My children,” Lik-Rifa growled, her voice like a mountain slide, like a summer storm fractured with lightning, rumbling into the distance. A tremor passed through her, from snout to tail, and then her shape was shimmering, twisting and coiling like mist, shifting and changing, contracting, shrinking, until a woman stood before Ilska and her kin. She was tall, taller than any man, at least as big as the bull troll Elvar had slain on Iskalt Island. Her body was lean and striated, skin pale and raw and scabbed, weeping pus. Blood oozed from wounds. She was clothed in a tunic of grey, red-woven at the neck and hem, a belt studded with gold about her waist and a dark cloak billowing about her like wings. Her hair, black as jet, streaked with silver, was pulled back tightly, braids woven into it. She had a sharply beautiful face. Red coals glowed in her eyes. “What has become of my world, my children, my warbands?” she said, her voice hard as the north wind, a tremor shivering through it. She looked around at the battle-plain, the shapes of the long-dead become part of the landscape. Her red eyes flickered to Ilska.

Serena and Jimena walked into the crowd, strides long and seductive. Jimena wore a silver bustier and capris with matching sandals. Her hair was rolled on top of her head with glitter and jewels. Curls bounced with each step. Her face gleamed; her full lips sparkled. The tattoos on her arms seemed iridescent. She whooped and squealed and gave Serena a high five. Serena had moussed her hair so it stood on end. Streaks of orange glitter shot from her temples into her hair. She wore a yellow tulle skirt over a sheer, clingy red dress and looked like a walking flame.

Poker is so volatile that it’s possible for a theoretically winning player to have a losing streak that persists for months, or even for a full year. The flip side of this is that it’s possible for a losing player to go on a long winning streak before he realizes that he isn’t much good.

... It's a tradition my great-grandfather started almost a hundred years ago, after my father was born. He gave my father fifty newly minted silver dollars and explained that each time something really amazing happened to him, he had to return one of the dollars to the universe so that someone else could wish on it." I smile, recalling how Patrick had once told me a story of his grandfather standing on the Brooklyn Bridge in 1936 and throwing a silver dollar into the water after his beloved Yankees won the World Series. They won it for the next three years too, and his grandfather always believed that it was his coins - good luck returned to the universe - that kept their streak alive... ... My father always used to tell me that if you keep the coins, you throw things out of balance... It's all about passing the luck on and thanking the world for whatever good things have happened to you.

She was a woman of a certain age. A woman who wanted a man, but for whom romance was like a foreign country she had not visited in some time. . . . In the mirror over the dresser in her bedroom, she stared at her face. Some of the silvering had worn off the mirror, and soft, dark streaks slanting across the glass gave her image the aspect of a cameo, delicate, but distinctly antique. . . . She would not speak with the waiter in French, nor would she order anything weird, such as squid. Certainly nothing that would be strong on her breath, like garlic, because what if. . . .? She hadn't been kissed in thirty years.

First of all,” I bite out, clenching my fists to keep from grabbing her, “you should be fucking proud of yourself. You are strong and you are capable, and you’ve done nothing but prove that to yourself and everyone around you for the past several weeks.” She starts, eyes widening as her hands fall limp at her sides. “Second of all, I’m buying you a phone because not knowing where you were made me fucking sick.” A flush streaks up her cheeks, and I see the apology in her eyes. “And third of all, the only foolish thing you’ve done is continue to refer to us as friends.” I spit the word. “That word makes me want to break something.

When I describe for my far-away friends the Northwest’s subtle shades of weather — from gloaming skies of ‘high-gray’ to ‘low-gray’ with violet streaks like the water’s delicate aura — they wonder if my brain and body have, indeed, become water-logged. Yet still, I find myself praising the solace and privacy of fine, silver drizzle, the comforting cloaks of salt, mold, moss, and fog, the secretive shelter of cedar and clouds. Whether it’s in the Florida Keys, along the rocky Maine coast, within the Gulf of Mexico’s warm curves, on the brave Outer Banks; or, for those who nestle near inland seas, such as the brine-steeped Great Salk Lake or the Midwest’s Great Lakes — water is alive and in relationship with those of us who are blessed with such a world-shaping, yet abiding, intimate ally. Every day I am moved by the double life of water — her power and her humility. But most of all, I am grateful for the partnership of this great body of inland sea. Living by water, I am never alone. Just as water has sculpted soil and canyon, it also molds my own living space, and every story I tell. …Living by water restores my sense of balance and natural rhythm — the ebb and flow of high tides and low tides, so like the rise and fall of everyday life. Wind, water, waves are not simply a backdrop to my life, they are steady companions. And that is the grace, the gift of inviting nature to live inside my home. Like a Chambered Nautilus I spin out my days, drifting and dreaming, nurtured by marine mists, like another bright shell on the beach, balancing on the back of a greater body.

She is a Weyward. And she carries another Weyward inside her. She gathers herself together, every cell blazing, and thinks: Now. The window breaks, a waterfall of sharp sounds. The room grows dark with feathered bodies, shooting through the broken window, the fireplace. Beaks, claws, and eyes flashing. Feathers brushing her skin. Simon yells, his hand loosening on her throat. She sucks in the air, falling to her knees, one hand cradling her stomach. Something touches her foot, and she sees a dark tide of spiders spreading across the floor. Birds continue to stream through the window. Insects, too: the azure flicker of damselflies, moths with orange eyes on their wings. Tiny, gossamer mayflies. Bees in a ferocious golden swarm. She feels something sharp on her shoulder, its claws digging into her flesh. She looks up at blue-black feathers, streaked with white. A crow. The same crow that has watched over her since she arrived. Tears fill her eyes, and she knows in that moment that she is not alone in the cottage. Altha is there, in the spiders that dance across the floor. Violet is there, in the mayflies that glisten and undulate like some great silver snake. And all the other Weyward women, from the first of the line, are there, too. They have always been with her, and always will be.

They all stood unwilling on the sandbar, holding to the net. In the eastern sky were the familiar castles and the round towers to which they were used, gray, pink, and blue, growing darker and filling with thunder. Lightning flickered in the sun along their thick walls. But in the west the sun shone with such a violence that in an illumination like a long-prolonged glare of lightning the heavens looked black and white; all color left the world, the goldenness of everything was like a memory, and only heat, a kind of glamor and oppression, lay on their heads. The thick heavy trees on the other side of the river were brushed with mile-long streaks of silver, and a wind touched each man on the forehead. At the same time there was a long roll of thunder that began behind them, came up and down mountains and valleys of air, passed over their heads, and left them listening still. With a small, near noise a mockingbird followed it, the little white bars of its body flashing over the willow trees. 'We are here for a storm now,' Virgil said. 'We will have to stay till it’s over.' ("The Wide Net")

As we walked homeward across the fields, the sun dropped and lay like a great golden globe in the low west. While it hung there, the moon rose in the east, as big as a cart-wheel, pale silver and streaked with rose color, thin as a bubble or a ghost-moon. For five, perhaps ten minutes, the two luminaries confronted each other across the level land, resting on opposite edges of the world. In that singular light every little tree and shock of wheat, every sunflower stalk and clump of snow-on-the-mountain, drew itself up high and pointed; the very clods and furrows in the fields seemed to stand up sharply. I felt the old pull of the earth, the solemn magic that comes out of those fields at nightfall. I wished I could be a little boy again, and that my way could end there.

She didn't look up, her gaze focused entirely on the paper before her as she drew what looked like a wing. He picked up one of the papers from the floor, and on it was a butterfly, the colors a blending of vibrant yellows and oranges. He held out the paper. "What's this one called?" "Golden Shimmer," she said. "She loves the sunlight." He picked up a picture of a light-purple butterfly with a string of pearls around her neck. "And this one?" "Lavender Lace. She has the power to heal all sorts of wounds." He scanned the room, all the pictures on the floor. "Do they each have a name?" Finally she looked at him, her bright-blue eyes meeting his. "Of course." And he realized with a pang of sadness that these were Libby's friends for life. "They are beautiful." A glint of a smile. "Thank you." He picked up another butterfly, this one a dark violet shade, a silver streak bleeding across the edge of its wings. "What is she called?" "Silver Shadow." "Does she have a story?" Libby's smile faded. "She's lost and can't seem to find her way home.

I imagined her taller. My mother stands in front of me. She leans more of her slight weight on her right leg. A hide pack rests against her back. The long skirt she wears touches almost to the ground; its fringe brushes the blades of green grass. A plentiful, red, calico blouse adorns the top of her body. It flounces out around her waist and makes her appear smaller, child- like. Her black, shiny braid of hair ropes around her shoulder. One small streak of silver hides in its weave. Her eyes meet mine. I don’t move, and neither does she. She has the blackest eyes I’ve ever seen. Crow black.

Gregori was as still as a statue, his face a blank mask, his silver eyes as empty as death, yet Shea gave him a wide berth. There was something dangerous in his utter stillness. Shea felt she had no way to sorting out the complexity of the Carpathian male’s nature. Gregori was watching Raven through narrowed, restless eyes, eyes that saw far too much. Suddenly he cursed, low and vicious, startling from someone of his stature and power. “She should not put herself at risk. She is with child.” His eyes met Jacques’, silver lightning and black ice. Total understanding between the two men. Shea merged her mind with Jacues’ quickly to try to understand the hidden currents. Raven’s pregnancy, if she was pregnant, changed everything as far as the men were concerned. Shea could see no evidence of a child—Raven appeared as slim as ever—but she couldn’t believe the healer would be wrong. He seemed so infallible, so completely invincible. The child was everything, all-important to the men. It surprised, even shocked her, the way they regarded the pregnancy. It was a miracle to both of them. The baby was more important than their lives. Shea was confused. Despite Jacques’ fractured memories, his protective streak was extremely strong. “He’s aware of his surroundings, but he can’t move. Even his mind is locked and still. He is paralyzed somehow.” Raven’s voice startled Shea, brought her back to the stormy weather and their rescue mission. Raven was clearly speaking of Byron. “He can’t move or call out, not ever mentally. It is dark and damp, and he knows he will suffer greatly before they are done with him.” Raven swayed, her hands protectively covering her stomach. The healer moved, a blur of speed, catching her arm and wrenching her out into the driving rain. Gregori snagged Mikhail’s shirt, too, and yanked him into the fury of the storm. “Break off now, Raven,” Gregori commanded. He shook her, shook Mikhail. “Let go of him now!

The King of Hell was everything they said he was, both less and more. He was reputed to have the ability to seduce an abbess or the pope himself, and she could see why. It wasn't his physical beauty, which was considerable. He had dark blue eyes behind a fringe of ridiculously long lashes, pale, beautiful skin, the kind of mouth that could bring despair and delight- and what the hell was she doing, thinking about such things? He looked younger than his reputed age, around forty, and while his long dark hair was streaked with silver it only made him seem more leonine, more dangerous. He was tall, and he moved with an elegant grace that put dancers to shame. He was standing far too close to her, to the gun she'd stolen from Jacobs while he was busy with the carriage, and he was looking at her with far too much interest and absolutely no fear.

Holland was sitting on the cot with his back to the wall, his head resting on his drawn-up knees. One hand was cuffed to the wall, the chain hanging like a leash. His skin had taken on a greyish pallor—the sea clearly wasn’t agreeing with him—and his black hair, Kell realized, was streaked with new bright silver, as if shedding Osaron had cost him something vital. But what surprised Kell most was the simple fact that Holland was asleep. Kell had never seen Holland lower his guard, never seen him relaxed, let alone unconscious. And yet, he wasn’t entirely still. The muscles in the other Antari’s arms twitched, his breath hitching, as though he were trapped in a bad dream. Kell held his breath as he lifted the chair out of the way and stepped into the room. Holland didn’t stir when Kell neared, nor when he knelt in front of the bed. “Holland?” said Kell quietly, but the man didn’t shift. It wasn’t until Kell’s hand touched Holland’s arm that the man woke. His head snapped up and he pulled suddenly away, or tried to, his shoulders hitting the cabin wall. For a moment his gaze was wide and empty, his body coiled, his mind somewhere else. It lasted only a second, but in that sliver of time, Kell saw fear. A deep, trained fear, the kind beaten into animals who’d once bitten their masters, Holland’s careful composure slipping to reveal the tension beneath. And then he blinked, once, twice, eyes focusing. “Kell.” He exhaled sharply, his posture shifting back into a mimicry of calm, control, as he wrestled with whatever demons haunted his sleep. “Vos och?” he demanded brusquely in his own tongue. What is it?

A streak of silver light flashed around the room. There was a bang like a gunshot, and the floor trembled. A hand grabbed the scruff of Harry’s neck and forced him down on the floor as a second silver flash went off — several of the portraits yelled, Fawkes screeched, and a cloud of dust filled the air. Coughing in the dust, Harry saw a dark figure fall to the ground with a crash in front of him. There was a shriek and a thud and somebody cried, “No!” Then the sound of breaking glass, frantically scuffling footsteps, a groan — and silence.

His thick blond hair was silver-streaked, though it was tarnished silver, like some long forgotten heirloom. It came to rest just above the top of his shoulders as though it had somehow became exhausted and simply stoppe

I started in our neighborhood, buying a pastrami burrito at Oki Dog and a deluxe gardenburger at Astro Burger and matzoh-ball soup at Greenblatt's and some greasy egg rolls at the Formosa. In part funny, and rigid, and sleepy, and angry. People. Then I made concentric circles outward, reaching first to Canter's and Pink's, then rippling farther, tofu at Yabu and mole at Alegria and sugok at Marouch; the sweet-corn salad at Casbah in Silver Lake and Rae's charbroiled burgers on Pico and the garlicky hummus at Carousel in Glendale. I ate an enormous range of food, and mood. Many favorites showed up- families who had traveled far and whose dishes were steeped with the trials of passageways. An Iranian cafe near Ohio and Westwood had such a rich grief in the lamb shank that I could eat it all without doing any of my tricks- side of the mouth, ingredient tracking, fast-chew and swallow. Being there was like having a good cry, the clearing of the air after weight has been held. I asked the waiter if I could thank the chef, and he led me to the back, where a very ordinary-looking woman with gray hair in a practical layered cut tossed translucent onions in a fry pan and shook my hand. Her face was steady, faintly sweaty from the warmth of the kitchen. Glad you liked it, she said, as she added a pinch of saffron to the pan. Old family recipe, she said. No trembling in her voice, no tears streaking down her face.

of the cup. “Mmmfff!” “Swallow,” he said, clapping a hand tightly across my mouth and ignoring both my frenzied squirming and the muffled sounds of protest I was making. He was a lot stronger than I was, and he didn’t mean to let go. It was swallow or strangle. I swallowed. “Good as new.” Jamie finished polishing the silver ring on his shirttail and held it up, admiring it in the glow of the lantern. “That is somewhat better than can be said of me,” I replied coldly. I lay in a crumpled heap on the deck, which in spite of the placid current, seemed still to be heaving very slightly under me. “You are a grade-A, double-dyed, sadistic fucking bastard, Jamie Fraser!” He bent over me and smoothed the damp hair off my face. “I expect so. If ye feel well enough to call me names, Sassenach, you’ll do. Rest a bit, aye?” He kissed me gently on the forehead and sat back. Excitement over and order restored to the ravaged decks, the other men had gone back to the cabin to restore themselves with the aid of a bottle of applejack that Captain Freeman had contrived to save from the pirates by dropping it into the water barrel. A small cup of this beverage rested on the deck near my head; I was still too queasy to countenance swallowing anything, but the warm, fruity smell was mildly comforting. We were under sail; everyone was eager to get away, as though some danger still lingered over the place of the attack. We were moving faster, now; the usual small cloud of insects that hovered near the lanterns had dispersed, reduced to no more than a few lacewings resting on the beam above, their delicate green bodies casting tiny streaks of shadow. Inside the cabin, there was a small burst of laughter, and an answering growl

Out in the yard, Baldwin ran his hands through his hair, making it stand on end. Taylor saw a glint of silver deep in the black, a precursor to the more salt than pepper look he’d obviously have in a few years. He had a few strands starting in his temples already; this streak was new.

The priest pointed to the sky, and all eyes turned to the bright comet streaking across their vision. It burned with a stunning white blue nucleus and a shimmering tail of silver and red. It was still small, but larger than the day I first saw it, the day of Bartolomeo's funeral. The crowd murmured exclamations of fear. I did not feel afraid when I gazed at the comet. I felt only the warmth of Bartolomeo's light. I could no think of the orb as anything other than his presence shining into our world from the one above. I thought of the type of salad he might have served- it might have been bitter chicory, true, but sweetened with fennel and pea shoots, drizzled with a bit of oil and vinegar, mixed with some sugar and spices, and topped with a little pepper or cheese.

My mind emptied of thought, my lips parting. She floated just above the ground, delicate bare feet pointed to the sand. Her hair was long and black, tendrils of night floating around her as if carried by an ever-present breeze. Stars glinted in its darkness—no, not just stars, but every infinite shade of the sky. Dappled streaks of distant worlds. Purples and blues of galaxies. It was nearly to her knees, a curtain of night around her. Her skin was ice-white, her eyes midnight-black. Her naked body looked to have been dipped in melted silver, a thousand shades of platinum playing across every dip of her form. Shadows caressed her curves with dancing fragments of darkness. Her mouth was bright red. As she smiled, a drop of blood dripped down her elegant pointed chin.

The wind had risen, and was wailing over the marshes, sighing among the harsh herbage, the sea-lavender, sovereign wood, and wild asparagus. Not a cloud was visible. The sky was absolutely unblurred and thick besprint with stars. Jupiter burned in the south, and cast a streak of silver over the ebbing waters. The young people stood silent by each other for a moment, and their hearts beat fast. Other matters had broken in on and troubled the pleasant current of their love; but now the thought of these was swept aside, and their hearts rose and stretched towards each other. They had known each other for many years, and the friendship of childhood had insensibly ripened in their hearts to love.

from around the precious plants. The fresh air was exhilarating and John’s aunt chatted merrily about times gone by and what Italy had been like when she and John’s mother were children. ‘But that was before the war,’ she sighed. ‘It is far behind us.’ As Mary Anne pulled Mathilda’s blanket a little higher around the cherry-pink face, a thought occurred to her. ‘I think I have something that used to belong to your sister – perhaps to you too.’ ‘Oh?’ Maria eyed her quizzically. ‘Yes,’ said Mary Anne, and went on to tell her about the time John had come to borrow money against a silver crucifix that she’d guessed had belonged to his mother. ‘He’d wanted the money for Daw’s engagement and wedding ring. I gave him the money but never sold the cross on. I couldn’t do it somehow. I kept thinking that one day he might want it back.’ ‘You have this?’ said Maria, her eyes shining. ‘You remember it?’ Maria clapped her hands together. ‘Of course I do!’ ‘Michael found it in the ruins of the pawn shop. I still have it.’ She turned and looked with gratitude into Maria’s dark eyes. ‘You’ve been so kind to me. You must have it back.’ Maria’s eyes brimmed with tears. ‘It is a pleasure. I cannot thank you enough.’ They sat on a park bench. Mathilda was sitting up, observing everything with unusual interest. ‘She’s a lovely child,’ said Maria. Mary Anne murmured a reply. Her eyes were elsewhere, her attention caught by a man in a trench coat walking along the path at the side of the bowling green. She fancied he had been staring at them. 19 Lizzie and the wing commander had been travelling between airfields, ‘co-ordinating events’ as Hunter liked to call it, when he’d spotted a dog fight in the distance. Streaks of white vapour trail criss-crossed the sky as the Messerschmitt and the Spitfire locked horns above the English countryside. In their midst was a low-flying bomber, the bone of contention between the two. Hunter got out a pair of binoculars. Lizzie shaded her eyes with her hand. ‘They’re chasing the bomber.’ ‘Correction,’ Hunter said slowly. ‘The Spitfire is chasing the

Aren’t you bored though? I mean, I grew up here. I know what it’s like. Once you’ve had a taste of the city, it’s hard to come back.” “I mean, Calgary isn’t exactly Paris,” I quip because she’s acting like it’s some glitz-and-glam place. “But what do you do all day? I’d go crazy. That’s why I had to get out, you know?” “No, I don’t know,” is my reply, because my patience is wearing thin, and my personality only allows me to keep my mouth shut for so long. The pressure is mounting and giving into my redhead streak is hella appealing right about now.

Erik Spindle. Master of one of Blunder’s oldest houses. Tall, severe, fearsome. Most grievous of all, he had once been Captain of the very men called to hunt down those who carried magic—like myself. Destrier, down to his very bones. But he was more than a soldier to me. He was my father. Like Spindles before him, he was a man of few words. When he chose to speak, his voice was deep, sharp, like the jagged stones that lingered in shadow beneath a drawbridge. His hair was streaked with silver, fastened at his neck with a leather strip. Like Nerium, his jaw did not lend to easy smiles. But when he glanced my way, the sharp corners of his blue eyes softened.

A weathered black and silver Dodge pickup towing a small motorboat pulled up behind us, and Alex circled back to greet the driver. I couldn’t see who sat behind the crusted and dirty windshield, but Alex stood at the driver’s window and pointed down the block where the boulevard disappeared into floodwater. The truck pulled ahead, maneuvered a deft U-turn, and backed toward the water. Alex motioned for me to follow. By the time I lurched my way to the truck, he and the pickup driver were sliding the boat down the trailer ramp. Sweat trickled down my neck, and if I hadn’t been afraid of being poisoned by toxic sludge, I’d have made like a pig and wallowed in the mud to cool off. I kicked at a fire hydrant, trying to jolt some of the heaviest sludge off my boots, and heard a soft laugh behind me. With a final kick that sent a spray of brown gunk flying, I turned to see what was so funny. I needed a laugh. A man leaned against the side of the pickup with his arms crossed. He was a few inches shorter than Alex, maybe just shy of six feet, with sun-streaked blond hair that reached his collar and a sleeveless blue T-shirt and khaki shorts. His tanned legs between the bottom of the shorts and the top of sturdy black shrimp boots were scored with scars, bad ones, as if whatever made them meant to do serious damage. He’d been grinning when I turned around, flashing a heart-stopping set of dimples, but when he saw my eyes linger on his legs, the grin eased into something more wary.

A century before, tons of the mountain had been sheared away by dynamite, picks, and shovels to carve the road for mining trucks, revealing hidden springs that wept like tears down the stone face, streaking it with rust and silver mineral deposits.

She said she collects pieces of sky, cuts holes out of it with silver scissors, bits of heaven she calls them. Every day a bevy of birds flies rings around her fingers, my chorus of wives, she calls them. Every day she reads poetry from dusty books she borrows from the library, sitting in the park, she smiles at passing strangers, yet can not seem to shake her own sad feelings. She said that night reminds her of a cool hand placed gently across her fevered brow, said she likes to fall asleep beneath the stars, that their streaks of light make her believe that she too is going somewhere. “Infinity”, she whispers as she closes her eyes, descending into thin air, where no arms outstretch to catch her.

Still, he pulled firmly at the door, knowing how it swelled and stuck in wet weather. He might have wished to see their faces once more. The face that met him was under a fireman’s helmet, lit by a flashlight held low and expertly angled. The light caught the silver needles of rain, in the air, off the rim of the black hat. It showed him a mouth and a chin and the broad shoulders under the wet rain gear without blinding him or turning the man himself into a grotesque. “I only wanted to warn you,” the man said. He moved the flashlight across his body, to the shrubs beside the steps and then to the grass and then to the weeping willow at the edge of the yard, beside the house. The streetlights were out. Following the moving beam of white light, John Keane saw the grass of his small lawn stir like a rising wave and the roots of the tree—thin as an arm, bent here and there like an elbow—breaking through. The fireman moved the light until it caught the base of the tree where a wider swath of dirt was opening like a mouth, an unhinged jaw filled with broken roots and dirt, and then it closed up again, as if with a breath. “We were driving by and saw it,” the fireman said. “That tree’s gonna fall. It’ll probably fall straight back, but you might want to get your family downstairs. Keep them to this side of the house.” He felt the wind and the rain on his bare ankles, against the hems of his thin pajama pants. He looked beyond the young fireman. In the street, there was no sign of the fire truck or car that had brought him. No coach, either. “Yes,” he said, thinking himself foolish, in his thin pajamas. “Thank you.” “There are trees down all over,” the man added. He raised his chin and in the darkness his eyes seemed as black and wet as his coat. He couldn’t have been more than twenty-five or thirty. “Take care of your family,” he said, and turned, using his flashlight to get himself down the three steps that led to the door. Squinting against the rain, John Keane watched him cross the path to the sidewalk, the circle of white light leading him, first to the right and then across the street where he might have disappeared altogether, leaving only the pale beam of his flashlight and a flashing reflection of two streaks of silver on his back, and then, as he apparently rounded the opposite corner, not even that.

Despite the cold outside, she was wearing a cropped white shirt and tight dark blue jeans that sat low, revealing a tattoo of a broken heart on her hip. Her hair was bleached white-blond with about an inch of silver-sprinkled dark roots showing. Her mascara had run and there were black streaks on her cheeks. She looked drip-dried, like she'd been walking in the rain, though there hadn't been rain for days. She smelled like cigarette smoke and river water.

Sometimes the rain was beautiful. The lavender and silver streaks, gleaming in the mud, seek to be honored, to receive some words of gratitude. The kindness of damp afternoons, the solace of opening the door and finding everyone there.

He is a celestial? We have seen plenty of them, Dianna,” Alistair said as he rubbed one hand across his face. Blood stained his skin and clothing from the destruction he’d wreaked downstairs. His normally perfectly combed silver hair had a few strands out of place and was streaked with crimson. “I saw Arariel. He was there. They spoke of Vincent, which means he,” I shook the chair with our bound friend slightly, “works with The Hand.” A grin, sharp and deadly, caressed his features. “You’re lying.” “I’m not,” I said, shaking my head and pushing the chair toward him. “I’ve tasted it. This is Peter McBridge, twenty-seven, second-tier celestial. His parents are retired, and he has no other connections to the mortal world. The fortress is in Arariel. His colleagues talked about us and what we’ve done so far. They spoke about The Hand of Rashearim and even mentioned Vincent.” The guy in the chair stuttered as he craned his head, looking from me to Alistair and back. “How did you see that? How can you know?

There was a thin cigar clenched in her teeth and a blue-steel .38 tucked in the waist-band of her pants. Her skin was light brown, and her hair was long and streaked with silver.

Rose Wilder Lane’s own description of her first view of the mountains surrounding the Shala Valley is hard to beat: Like thin sharp rocks stood on edge, they covered hundreds of miles with every variation of light and shadow, and we looked across their tops to a faraway wave of snow that broke high against the sky. The depths between the mountains were hazy blue; out of the blueness sharp cliffs and huge flat slopes of rock thrust upward, streaked with the rose and purple and Chinese-green of decomposing shale, and from the tops a thousand streams poured downward, threading them with silver-white. A low continuous murmur rose to us – the sound of innumerable waterfalls, softened by immeasurable distance.

Marthe said, her face streaked and silvered with tears, “I could not have done that. I fear nothing and no one. I respect nothing and no one. But I could not have done that.” “You have done it,” Jerott said. “It is easy to do it, out of hatred. But you are right. I know of no one else on earth who could have done it out of love.

Is this a joke, Famine?” demands the older of the two men, his blond hair shot through with streaks of pale silver. Unlike the Reaper, he’s not wearing any armor—nor is the man next to him.

Elena Pretoria was exactly where Lesa had imagined her, on the back veranda with her long hands spread on the arms of a rotten chair-real furniture, not provided by House-her silver-streaked hair stripped into a tail and her skin glowing dark gold against the white lounging clothes.

He takes my wounded hand in his. He's wearing black gloves, the leather warm even through the silk over my fingers, and black suit of clothes. Raven feathers cover the upper half of his doublet, and his boots have excessively pointed metal toes that make me conscious of how easy it will be to kick me savagely once we've begun dancing. At his brow, he wears a crown of woven metal branches, cocked slightly askew. Dark silver paint streaks over his cheekbones, and black lines run along his lashes. The left one is smeared, as though he forgot about it and wiped his eye.

Romulus approached the nearest slave and held a dagger to the man’s throat. “Rome or Hades?” he asked. The slave, a middle-aged man with a silver-streaked beard, cautiously lowered himself to the ground, setting his dagger at the king’s feet. “Rome,” he said. The other slaves followed suit.

You are the divine result of crumpled receipts and pretzel salt, of expired condoms and forgotten phone numbers, of lipstick and longing, of hands opened and spread out, of dogs running and of trucks on the highway, of cheap champagne and of diner coffee, of address books thrown out the window, of paperbacks and of pregnancies, of crow’s feet and of silver streaks in the dark night of your hair.

Angie had never needed to dye her jet-black hair during her high school goth phase, and she still didn’t dye it now, wearing her silver streaks with pride. I envied the way they’d grown in stripy, giving her a dramatic, witchy look. I envied a lot about Angie: her creativity, her colorful personality, her fearless fashion sense. Her absolute confidence in who she was and where she belonged in the world. Ever since I could remember, Angie had been who I wanted to be when I grew up. Bright, colorful, loud. Irrepressibly herself. Only I hadn’t grown up to be Angie, of course. I’d grown up to be me. Dull, predictable, humdrum Dawn, who tried a little too hard to be exactly who everyone expected her to be.

I guess we’ll see who he chooses tonight, then.” The girl who says it is trying to sound lighthearted, but I recognize the streak of venom in her voice. They all dissolve into a fit of giggles that are dulled only by the sound of me peeing and rubbing my hands over my face.

Charlotte Lucas’s restaurant is tucked away on a quiet, leafy side street in Silver Lake, the sky streaked pink and indigo through the dense, heavy branches of the mimosa trees overhead. Will is expecting some kind of echoing, gentrified macaroni factory but in fact Lodge is small and intimate and familiar in a good way, the walls painted a warm cream and votives flickering in tidy lines on the wide wooden tables. Out back is a courtyard, wisteria vining along the brick walls and tiny white lights strung up overhead. It reminds him of the kind of place you’d find hidden down at the end of a pee-smelling alley in the West Village back home, and for a moment he misses New York so much and so viscerally the inside of his head starts to roar.

When I was a child, charlottes--- French desserts made traditionally out of brioche, ladyfingers, or sponge and baked in a charlotte mold--- were everywhere. Charlotte au chocolat wasn't the only variety, though being chocolate, it had the edge on my mother's autumn-season apple charlotte braised with brioche and poached in clarified butter, and even on the magnificent charlotte Malakoff she used to serve in the summer: raspberries, slivered almonds, and Grand Marnier in valleys of vanilla custard. But it is charlotte au chocolat, being my namesake dessert, that I remember most, for we offered it on the menu all year long. I walked into the pastry station and saw them cooling in their rusted tin molds on the counter. I saw them scooped onto lace doilies and smothered in Chantilly cream, starred with candied violets and sprigs of wet mint. I saw them lit by birthday candles. I saw them arranged, by the dozens, on silver trays for private parties. I saw them on customers' plates, destroyed, the Chantilly cream like a tumbled snowbank streaked with soot from the chocolate. And charlottes smelled delightful: they smelled richer, I thought, than any dessert in the world. The smell made me think of black velvet holiday dresses and grown-up perfumes in crystal flasks. It made me want to collapse and never eat again.

but I’ve never been good at turning off the protective streak. The one that’s constantly worrying about everyone’s safety.

I don’t know how long I sit there, tears trickling quietly down my cheeks, gazing at the deep blue sky. My friend Riti says, whatever we manifest from the moon, star, water, and nature, the universe conspires to make that wish come true. Now when I’m in the core of nature, sitting under the moon, watching two trails of silver light streak through the stars, my feet hanging in the river, I close my eye and wish just this. Because right now, this is everything. He is everything. I don’t want this to be bad, and I don’t want this to be nothing. I want this to last forever. I want us to last forever. 

Slanting silver ropes slammed into loose earth, plowing it up like gunfire. The old house on the hill wore its steep, gabled roof pulled over its ears like a low hat. The walls, streaked with moss, had grown soft, and bulged a little with dampness that seeped up from the ground. The wild, overgrown garden was full of the whisper and scurry of small lives. In the undergrowth a rat snake rubbed itself against a glistening stone. Hopeful yellow bullfrogs cruised the scummy pond for mates. A drenched mongoose flashed across the leaf-strewn driveway.

Amara and Silver Streak gallop toward the jump—Amara in a two-point position, hovering just above his back. She gathers her reins and leans into his neck, the thoroughbred gracefully lifts his legs in the air, and she sinks closer to him as they float . . . majestically . . . magically . . . effortlessly . . . through the air. Everyone in the stable stares, spellbound. I hold my breath. The world seems to slow down as I, too, lean forward and shift in my own saddle—soaring vicariously with them. Except I am now moving. And it is not vicarious. “Aaaaaahhhhhh!” Clyde takes off, bounding after Silver Streak. Apparently energized by a serious case of FOMO, Clyde decides he won’t be left behind at the boring ground poles. He strides closer and closer to the oxer as I jostle in my seat, barely clinging to the reins as one of my clumsy feet slips out of its stirrup. I slide off-kilter, slithering down the saddle leather. Suddenly the arena is zipping past me sideways as Clyde’s medium-pizza hooves gallop away. Galumph-galumph-galumph! “Whoa!” I yell, tightening my abs and attempting to grip the reins from my diagonal, half-upside-down position. And just as he’s beginning to stretch his neck into a gigantic leap, snatching us both into the Air o’ Doom, Clyde—for once—listens to me. Swooosh! He slams on the brakes, stopping short and veering left. My body, still screaming along at full speed, misses the memo, flipping above the saddle and then—wheeeeeeeee!—straight over the top rail of the oxer. And into the dirt. Thud. . . . My first jump!

I’m pretty sure my tongue is lolling out onto the table, but I can’t stop myself from taking the rest of him in. The tanned skin. The salt and pepper beard. The matching grey-streaked hair that’s just long enough to be unruly. This man is an absolute Silver Fox and my libido that’s been slumbering in hibernation for the last decade just woke the fuck up.

Chikusho, I thought. This was the famous Imogen Kato, right here! She saw me and glanced down at the magazine I'd been looking at while waiting for my meeting with Chloe, open to the photo spread- of her. God, how embarrassing. I closed the magazine abruptly. It was definitely the same girl, although now her hair was platinum blond with dark roots instead of a mixture of auburn with honey and green apple-colored streaks. Beneath her plaid uniform skirt, she wore deep purple-and-blue-and-silver leggings that had prints of galloping gray unicorns, and over her blouse was a worn-out, oversize, cream-colored cardigan sweater with the belt tied to the side instead of center. Apparently, the uniform dress code was not that strict at this school.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, could have prepared Jemima for such a man as stood before her now. Nor her reaction to him that seemed to overtake her whole body. He was tall and broad shouldered, with exquisitely cut clothes moulded to his athletic form. His hair was jet black with no streak of silver, though Jemima could not discern the colour of his eyes in the candlelight. His features were impossibly handsome, chiselled as though by a Greek sculptor.

He is, however, picturesque. The colors of the Coors Light can are an almost perfect match for the streaks of silver-white in his beard, the blue of his shirt, and the red of the baseball cap, now hanging from one rail of his rocking chair. He looks like something that Norman Rockwell might have painted if he woke up in a really pissy mood.

By some miracle, my grandmother defies his command and opens the door anyway. We stare at our own brown eyes and black curls, hers with silver streaks laced throughout, mine in tangles. I remember all the times we’ve accidentally passed each other on Main Street or in front of Tanson Theater. She always turned away. Now she looks at me, and I feel as if I am meeting myself, forty years from now, and she is facing an image of her wild-eyed past.

After shaving and showering and throwing on fresh jeans and a white T-shirt, I left my trailer around 8:30 p.m. and headed towards the lake trail. The setting sun was a soft fiery red and the sky was streaked with purple gashes. The surface of the lake was perfect, pinkish-silver calm glass, and as I walked down to the edge of the lake I thought of Johnny’s comment about “our bench.” With the street lights sparkling uphill to my right, and the smooth lake surface on my left, and the brushed concrete trail under me, I felt like I was approaching an intersection point in the setting Johnny had created for Vermilion Lake. It took about ten minutes to see the bench in the distance and a person sitting there. As I got closer, I saw Johnny, but she looked different. She had come to the bench straight from a late meeting with Will New, and she was dressed in a formal dark-blue business suit with jacket and knee-length skirt. She was wearing a stark-white buttoned blouse and her bare legs were slipped into black high heels. Her red hair was up in an extremely formal looking bun without a strand free. I’d not seen her with glasses the night before and she looked very scholarly. She stood up as I approached, and said, “Hi Tom,” and gave me a gentle hug. As I held her for a second against my chest I could feel her soft breasts through the layers of her suit, and the scent of her hair was beautiful, and then she stepped back and said, “Please sit down. We’ve got a lot to discuss.” The whole scene felt very different from the previous night. And from this meeting onwards I wouldn’t quite know what to make of Johnny. She was about to become a character composed of incongruous pieces, sometimes strong, sometimes fragile—almost patient-like. It was as if she had fallen apart and some force was in the process of reassembling her as a beautiful mess.

Foxglove grows waist high around the gazebo, and roses, which all the time hate our soil, rage here, with more thorns than blackberries and weeks of beet red blossoms. The wood siding of the hotel looks silver-plated, its peeling paint like the streaks on an unpolished tea service.

Raven stood in the comparative shelter of the porch, her face turned up toward the sky, eyes closed. Tiny beads of perspiration dotted her forehead, and her fingers twisted together compulsively over her stomach. She was not with the others, rather somewhere out of her body and concentrating on attempting to find Byron’s location. Beside her stood her dark, intimidating husband, his mind obviously locked with hers. Mikhail was so like Jacques that Shea could not tear her gaze from him. As she moved onto the porch a step behind Jacques, she could clearly see that Mikhail was furious. He was seething with anger, violence swirling very close to the surface, yet his posture was purely protective. He had placed himself between Raven and the ferocity of the storm. Gregori was as still as a statue, his face a blank mask, his silvery eyes as empty as death, yet Shea gave him a wide berth. There was something dangerous in his utter stillness. Shea felt she had no way to sorting out the complexity of the Carpathian male’s nature. Gregori was watching Raven through narrowed, restless eyes, eyes that saw far too much. Suddenly he cursed, low and vicious, startling from someone of his stature and power. “She should not put herself at risk. She is with child.” His eyes met Jacques’, silver lightning and black ice. Total understanding between the two men. Shea merged her mind with Jacques’ quickly to try to understand the hidden currents. Raven’s pregnancy, if she was pregnant, changed everything as far as the men were concerned. Shea could see no evidence of a child--Raven appeared as slim as ever--but she couldn’t believe the healer would be wrong. He seemed so infallible, so completely invincible. The child was everything, all-important to the men. It surprised, even shocked her, the way they regarded the pregnancy. It was a miracle to both of them. The baby was more important than any of their lives. Shea was confused. Despite Jacques’ fractured memories, his protective streak was extremely strong. “He’s aware of his surroundings, but he can’t move. Even his mind is locked and still. He is paralyzed somehow.” Raven’s voice startled Shea, brought her back to the stormy weather and their rescue mission. Raven was clearly speaking of Byron. “He can’t move or call out, not even mentally. It is dark and damp, and he knows he will suffer greatly before they are done with him.” Raven swayed, her hands protectively covering her stomach. The healer moved, a blur of speed, catching her arm and wrenching her out into the driving rain. Gregori snagged Mikhail’s shirt, too, and yanked him into the fury of the storm. “Break off now, Raven,” Gregori commanded. He shook her, shook Mikhail. “Let go of him now!

Of course she could have just dropped the length of hair down, but she liked getting it to sail through the air, unraveling its coils prettily as it went, a silver streak in the sky like a rain cloud spun into yarn. The end of the braid, soft and fringed like the tail of a fairy-tale donkey (the only kind Rapunzel knew), just brushed the ground before falling back against the tower with an incredibly satisfying thwack.

That sizzle of magic grows to a lethal, swirling vortex of energy, and though my feet are still firmly grounded, the power rises to a breaking point and the roof of my Archives disintegrates. Power crackles above me, swirls around me, wraps along my feet below me. I am the sky and the power of every storm that has ever been. I am infinite. A scream rips from my throat just as lightning splits the sky with a terrifying crack of thunder. The bluish streak of silver death slams into the tower, and sparks flare as it explodes in a blast of stone. Tairn banks to avoid the blast, and I pivot in the saddle. Jack falls down the mountainside in an avalanche of rock that I know he can’t survive. From the way Baide cries beneath us, she knows it, too. My hand trembles as I sheathe the clean dagger at my ribs. The only blood to be found is on the rocks below, though I look at my hands as though they should be covered in death. Tairn roars with the unmistakable sound of pride. “Lightning wielder.

and I glance at Sapphire, her white-blonde hair shimmering with streaks of silver and blue in the dim light as she gazes up at the stars. She’s like a celestial goddess, walking beside Riven as if she belongs in this magical,

A gentleman with demonic features: sharply pointed ears, and eyes an unnatural shade of liquid gold that set Leto on edge. Leto had the fleeting impression of a tiger caged and pacing. He shivered, blinked once; then the tiger shrank to a house cat. Andras was not an intimidating figure. He was a hair shorter than Leto, and he wore an old-fashioned evergreen doublet studded with glittering brooches and topped with a black satin sash. His hands were folded politely, burdened with silver rings. His hair was a short ruff of charcoal streaked with lines of gold. He glimmered and gleamed attentively in all the ways his wing glowered and gloomed.

You're like a meteor ripping trough the sky. Your run is a cold silver stream rushing across the dark. Ah, it glitters. The trail you leave is pure streak of light.

Take it easy, killer. Stay loose.