Scott Hawkins

“Scream.” She spoke softly, in Pelapi. “Try to scream. If you scream for me, I’ll stop.” Smiling now. “If you scream for me, I’ll let you go. Going once…going twice…no?”

Some people have an enormous capacity for feeling guilt, deserved or otherwise.

She wanted to burn the whole place to ashes but, at the same time, it would be kind of nice to see it again.

Home

first ambition, then perception, and finally regret.

He lived barricaded in the crown of the black pyramid at the end of time, and rarely manifested in the former world

Yes. The wolves have a saying—” Here Michael made wolf noises.

“Um. Yes.”

“It means, uh, ‘heart too big for the hunt.’ David is, maybe, too friendly? Too kind to be a fight?”

She knew every word that had ever been spoken, but she could think of nothing to say that might ease his grief. All she could do was wipe away his tears with the tips of her fingers.

One such was the notion of uzan-iya, which was what they called the moment when an innocent heart first contemplated the act of murder. To the Atul, the crime itself was secondary to this initial corruption

What was left inside wasn’t as bad to look at as she had feared. More than most of them, David was a devoted pupil. His craft was already very strong, second only to Father’s.

He had cooked away almost to the bone before he died