Quotes from Elizabeth Bear

Is that why they're squabbling over her? They're trying to marry an heir to the throne? I'm sorry, Tristen, but that's like some medieval play.

Se companions hadn't found the captives, or any sign, on the fleeing barge that the Company humen used a village-heart. They had taken Caeti, and se would not leave Caeti in their dry, rough hands. So se had attached self to the humen leader's heliocopter as it fled the overrun barge. And se clung there, water slashing in se brood pouch, se hand and toefingers wrapped in a deathgrip on wet metal until bone ran with traced flame and digits cramped in claws.

Dust caught himself smirking again. How hard could it be, to let the smile happen?

Tis possible the Faerie Queen grew so linked with Gloriana in the minds of England's folk that Gloriana's passing could take the Mebd with it. And if the Mebd dies without loosing her bonds, all those Fae who are knotted in her hair die with her.

Kit's horse wasn't white at all, Will saw with relief, but a sorrel gelding so red he gleamed like wet blood even by the cold fey light that surrounded them.

Gavin was not prey to the irrational hormonal urges of meat-a kindess for which he thanked his makers-but he was not without feelings.

Earth could have learned a long time ago that securing initial and ongoing consent, rather than attempting to assert hierarchy is key to a nonconfrontational relationship.

I am but a petty godling, it's true, but I am the god of the dark depths of passion, the sea that draws and gives back life. Tell you don't crave the attention.

The Elf-knight stepped forward and Will went with him.

As if I took my little girl in my arms and held her tight and she's not a little girl anymore, and I still can't save her, can I? Because you can't. I can't save her from my mistakes. Any more than I could save Nell. But at least I can hold Leah's hand.

Death is my speciality, and you have my professional assurances that it's not in any way permanent.

Richard Baines turned his back at the sound of stones shifting and held up on meaty hand to help over the rocks, handing him down like a lady out of a carriage.

Tell me nothing in you chafes at the cool certainty of Faerie. That there is no human soul in you, craving touch, craving passion and emotion.

Once Alasdair killed Caithness and exiled Caitlin, the lousy lying and the brusque disregard for politics and manipulation only solidified in her character.

The world is a wheel, and we are all broken on it.

Despite his worry, Will straightened his spine and breathed the cold scent of crunching leaves, drank deep of the welcome air of Faerie and let its strength fill him up.

Will's breath smoked in raw air; he was surprised to notice that Murchaud's did not.

What can I say? We're slow.

His words had the ring of formality, and he knew she understood them for what they were. The sideways twitch of her head told him as much, and the slight smile that touched the corners of her eyes but didn't curve her lips.

Twas Morgan's protest and the Mebd silenced her with a glance.

Such a strange being. Such a strange thing, having a sister. Being a sister. And even stranger to be a sister to such a sister as this.

Faerie had no cold like England; rather it had the dream of cold, and the memory of frost.

They had barely spoken for fifteen years, and only the mortal peril engendered by the Angel Dust's interest in their daughter had brought them back into alliance again.

From here, she could observe the structure of the Jacob's Ladder. She had a confused idea of lattices and bulbous habitats, of corridors, threading asymmetrically over the surfaces of anchores and domaines. Of gray metal and patchy paint. Now she saw the world in all its incomprehensible vastness, like a grandly rotating three-dimensional spiderweb, and the complexity bewildered her.