Quotes from Elizabeth Bear

I've had indications that there are colonies at work in the world that I cannot even locate, let alone control. And some of them are doing damage.

Kit bit his cheek on tired laughter, all his irritation draining away. Perhaps I've just been used too much to care any more, he thought.

His gratification was a chill stone on her breast.

Quick, ruthless, but not prone to long-term strategy-that was the Charter Trade Company.

The Fae should know better than to love mortal men.

Fever-bright, Perceval listened. And then she folded her bony forearms one over the other and rested them on her knees, the chains a long silici-blue sweep framing her on either side, her chin pillowed on a bony wrist.

The flesh of her palms broke open on the steel. But that steel yielded and, by inches, the door-thicker than her waist-cracked open. She dropped one arm around Rien and pulled her through and in.

He held himself right, collected, confident, but without the swaggering she was used to seeing on successful males. As if he didn't feel the need to constantly claim his space and assent his presence.

In the long run, he thought, the new, fey Perceval with so many ancient souls behind her eyes might even be a match for Cynric the Sorceress, in wisdom if not in craft.

Her eyes stung with the beauty.

Five hounds now, not four, Kit saw, and the fifth one white as starlight on snowdrifts, running strongly alongside the others, like an idealized alabaster statue rather than any real hound, even a transformed one.

Pure white light enfold him and he smiled at the lie.

His eyes meet hers, and she gives him a sad little smile, half a curve of the lips that falls away softly.

He let her have the silence while she selected her words.

I felt as if I had been navigating a vast space by touch alone, groping in the darkness, and suddenly I could see.

As far as Benedick was concerned, cynicism was a toy for children.

Oh, don't think we're all seriousness and stealth, Merlin.

All for Queen and country, and not even honor for themselves.

A warm hand rested on Rien's nape. It was comforting, and it sent a shiver between her shoulders. She swallowed and licked salt from her lip and tried to think of what to say.

Around me, a seemingly transfinite number of leaves chimed in a space without a wind.

Perceval was fevered, and her blood-still shocked by the unblade and the amputation of her wings-was not fighting as it should.

All right, they were cute. But she couldn't afford to start thinking of them as human.

Barb saw the choreography of the upcoming fight unfold before her inner eye as if the combatants were actors belting taped marks.

Do not believe in angels, Rien Conn, for they are all corrupted by the lies of the Builders, as your forebears were corrupted, too.