“This is killing me. I can’t do this. I don’t want to do this.”
“It’s supposed to kill you, Sonny, that’s how you know that the right parts of you are dying. Do you see the peaking stars above?” Reaper asked as he set his cigarette out in the sand next to him. Sonny nodded, wiping his tears with a blood-soaked sleeve.“Hope punctures holes into our black sky to tell us that this ever present darkness is only for a short while. There is a light Sonny, and it’s breaking in piece by piece. I have given you darkness, but in time you will see its stars. In time, light will break through, but for now, the killing in you has begun. I know it hurts, I know its voice too, but what I know more is that all of your dying will lead to life. What feels like death to you is the side of you that needs to die.”
“It is a mistake,” he said, “to suppose that the public wants the environment protected or their lives saved and that they will be grateful to any idealist who will fight for such ends. What the public wants is their own individual comfort. We know that well enough from our experience in the environmental crisis of the twentieth century. Once it was well known that cigarettes increased the incidence of lung cancer, the obvious remedy was to stop smoking, but the desired remedy was a cigarette that did not encourage cancer. When it became clear that the internal-combustion engine was polluting the atmosphere dangerously, the obvious remedy was to abandon such engines, and the desired remedy was to develop non-polluting engines. “Now then, young man, don’t ask me to stop the Pumping. The economy and comfort of the entire planet depend on it. Tell me, instead, how to keep the Pumping from exploding the Sun.”
Reklam
The Culling Test
“Wow, demi-Fey? I’ve never seen one. What did they look like?”
“Fucking weird, pardon my language. The man had pointy ears,
obviously. Dark hair. Tattoos on his arms, eerie silver eyes like metal.
Beautiful blonde woman with him. You know, I don’t mind the women
demi-Fey quite as much. I’d give her one,” he says thoughtfully. “Pardon
the expression.”
I toss a horseshoe, and it clatters to the floor of his stall. A thought starts
to blossom in my mind. “Did they have anything with them?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. Why do you ask?”
I open my eyes wide. “Well, like you said, they’re dangerous. And you
know the saying, if you see something, say something.”
He holds up a finger. “Do you know what, love? The fella was carrying
something. It was in a box, like a musical instrument or something. They
never brought it out again.” His eyes widen. “Do you think they could be
planning something? You don’t think it was a bomb, do you?” He scrubs a
hand over his mouth. “With all these people here? Should I call the police?”
I toss both horseshoes one after the other, so off the mark that one
nearly hits one of the prize dolls. “It’s probably nothing. I doubt demi-Fey
even know how to make a bomb. We don’t want the police shutting the
whole fair down over an empty box.”
What I know at this point is that Raphael and Vivian came in earlier and
left a package here, then left.
The Excalibur replica.
“We will obviously need to reschedule the shadow trial.” Wrythe sighs.
“Ms. Melisende can do it properly with the rest of the cadets.”
“No,” Raphael says.
Wrythe frowns at him. “Right. You think she should be expelled after
all?”
“She won’t do the shadow trial again. She’s shown her leadership by
sending cadets to call for backup,” Raphael says. “She followed an enemy
agent through the fair
New Faces and Lullubies
“I’m Darius.” He waves. “Nice to meet you. I’ll get out in just a
moment. I just came for a quick reading.”
“Darius is addicted to Tana’s readings,” Serana explains. “You know
drug addicts? He’s like that, but for cartomancy. He’s here every night,
asking about love. Tana, where is my soulmate? Tana, is the fella I met
today the one? Tana, does this devil on the card mean I stop following my
old lovers through the streets of Camelot, or am I destined for a gorgeous
bad boy?”
“I also ask about weightier subjects, not just my love life,” Darius
snaps.
“I don’t mind either way.” Tana is shuffling her cards. “But before we
do your reading, I promised one for Nia.”
Darius scoots to the corner of the bed and gestures at me. “Ladies first.”
“It’s not necessary,” I say warily.
“Oh, let her get on with it,” Serana says. “Or she won’t stop harping
about it.”
I sit down between Darius and Tana, and she hands me the deck of
cards. “Shuffle and think of the future.”
I shuffle the cards, but thinking of the future seems impossible. I used to
have everything planned years in advance. But now? I have no idea what’s
happening.
I finally hand the cards back to Tana, and she flips the first one. I peer
down to see what it is, and a chill sweeps over my skin. I don’t know a ton
about tarot, but this one is obviously ominous. It looks like a tower struck
by lightning, with silhouettes of bodies falling from it. Flames rise from
some of the windows, and dark storm clouds surround it.
“The Tower,” she says.
“Like…Avalon Tower?” I ask.
“Perhaps. The cards shouldn’t be taken too literally.”
She frowns and flips another card, which she places across it. This one
Life isn't good enough for no cigarette...
Showing pictures of blackened lungs to smokers leads to higher levels of anxiety, which drives many people to reach for a cigarette. If you’re not careful about cues, you can cause the very behavior you want to stop.
Reklam
Reklam