Time passes.

In Savannah, he answers to Professor Lefevre and they wonder at his decision to adopt his wife's surname when they marry, at the expense he went to for a computer that looks at home next to his grandfather clock and antique fountain pens, at his blend of accents and casual assertion that as a lapsed Catholic he's switched his fealty ( Read more... )

( and let us make fire, and silence, and sound, and let us burn, and be hushed among bells. )

In ten, twenty, thirty years they will not forget the crunch of metal and bone before Martel went to his knees in Zemoch, breathing blood; he was blessed and then he was dead, and what followed is burned into memories not belonging to him. The city fell, then, taking its dead with it - and there were many of them ( Read more... )

The masquerade is nothing that Martel has any interest in attending - but Petrana gets wind of the fact he's been invited (which means she's been invited, and he suspects his mother pointed this out), and then he really doesn't have as much say in the matter as he might have liked. Despite the effort on his part that would be required to give any ( Read more... )

( In which Martel has FOUR parents and still turned out like this, good job guys. )

The phrase I would give anything to make this better is a fascinating one - I've certainly always thought so. What a grand demonstration, a suitably tortured self-flagellation, and in its way it absolves you from amends. No gestures grand enough, no sacrifice that will grant more than a hollow sort of satisfaction. How charming! How pointless, in ( Read more... )

( The muffled metallic thud of a coin purse hitting the table interrupted his thoughts, and his gaze met that of the white-haired knight in front of him. )

( Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been thirteen years since my last confession. )

( I wanted to say two further things to you today: irony: Do not let yourself be governed by it, especially not in unproductive moments. In productive ones try to make use of it as one more means of seizing life. )

( a selected glossary of terms, supplied out of character. )