Django Wexler

‘‘This isn’t some stupid storybook where the underdog wins in the end. This is the real world. The strongest do what they want, and everyone else has to live with it. Or”—she glanced significantly at Isaac—“not.”

“Ashes, how did you do it?”

“I’d like to say it was all my own talent, but cats are naturally modest.”

“The strongest don’t always get what they want,” she said to Ending. “Not when the weak can work together.”

Magic, you’ll find, is nine parts dull to one part excitement, and the exciting bits usually hurt like the blazes.

“You’re a cat,” she said automatically.

“Your powers of perception are astounding,” the cat drawled. “Although I feel obliged to point out, in the interests of ontological exactitude, that I am in fact only half cat. Personally, though, I have always considered it the better half.”

“I wouldn’t try it,” Alice said. “They’re bigger than you are.”

“They’re all wing,” he said dismissively. “Believe me. Large birds are the natural prey of the cat.”

“Maybe once they’ve been roasted and carved,” Alice said. Ashes snorted.

It was a bit like trying to tie both shoelaces at once, one with each hand.

“You’re not very loyal,” Isaac said as Alice took his hand.

“Loyalty,” Ashes sniffed, “is for dogs. Cats have better sense.”

But—though she was not an expert on cats—she was fairly certain that they did not, as a rule, snicker.

The more he didn’t know, she reasoned, the easier he would be to fool.

The sum total of Alice’s medical knowledge was that blood was supposed to stay on the inside.

“Patience, my friend.”

“I’m not your friend. And I’m not patient.”