Location 135:

“Oh bite me, wizard boy,”



Updated Oct 12, 2019:


Location 1344:

“I’ll have my cell phone on me. Try to call me before things start exploding.” “Maybe this time it’ll be different. Maybe I’ll work everything out through reason, diplomacy, dialogue, and mutual cooperation.” Thomas eyed me. I tried to look wounded. “It could happen.”



Location 1709:

“I am freezing off my well-tailored ass,” Chandler said cheerily, in an elegant accent straight from Oxford. “But I endure thanks to excellent breeding, a background in preparatory academies, and metric tons of British fortitude.”



Updated Oct 13, 2019:


Location 2032:

He stared at me for a silent minute before taking in a slow breath, settling back into the chair, and regarding me with steady blue eyes. “Why should I believe you would do any such thing?” “Because your balls are in a vise and I’m the only one who can pull them out,” I said. He arched an elegant silver eyebrow. “Okay,” I said. “That came out a little more homoerotic than I intended.” “Indeed,” said the Merlin.



Location 2061:

The Merlin considered me for another long moment, and then shook his head. “There is a condition.” “A condition,” I said. “Before you will agree to let me help you get your ass out of the fire.” He gave me a bleak smile. “My ass is reasonably comfortable where it is. This is hardly my first crisis, Warden.” “And yet you haven’t told me to buzz off.” He lifted a finger, a gesture reminiscent of a fencer’s salute. “Touché. I acknowledge that it is, technically, possible for you to prove useful.”



Location 3103:

“This is not how diplomacy is done,” Anastasia said as we approached the Château Raith. “You’re in America now,” I said. “Our idea of diplomacy is showing up with a gun in one hand and a sandwich in the other and asking which you’d prefer.” Anastasia’s mouth curved up at one corner. “You brought a sandwich?” “Who do I look like, Kissinger?”



Updated Oct 13, 2019:


Location 4778:

After a few minutes, Molly came partway up the short ladder to the bridge and stopped. “Do I need to ask permission to come up there or something?” “Why would you?” I asked. She considered. “It’s what they do on Star Trek?” “Good point,” I said. “Permission granted, Ensign.”



Updated Oct 15, 2019:


Location 5210:

“It isn’t a pizza.” I said. “It’s a promotion. Get this work done, and from that time forward, you will be . . .” I paused dramatically. “Major-General Toot-toot Minimus commanding the Za-Lord’s Elite.”



Location 5232:

I shambled out onto the deck, unconcerned about the rain ruining my leather duster. One handy side effect of going through the painfully precise ritual of enchanting it to withstand physical force as if it had been plate steel was that the thing was rendered waterproof and stainproof as well—yet it still breathed. Let’s see Berman’s or Wilson’s do that. Sufficiently advanced technology, my ass.



Updated Oct 16, 2019:


Location 6659:

“Stop learning, start dying,” Ebenezar said, in the tone of a man quoting a bedrock-firm maxim. “You’re never too old to learn.”



Location 6852:

“Maybe,” Ebenezar said, “you’d have a thought or two of your own, someday, that you’d want to write down.” “Always the optimist, sir.”



Location 6875:

Wardens formed a perimeter all the way around the stage, at the doors, and in the aisles that came down between the rows of benches. Everyone present was wearing his or her formal robes, all flowing black, with stoles of silk and satin in one of the various colors and patterns of trim that denoted status among the Council’s members. Blue stoles for members, red for those with a century of service, a braided silver cord for acknowledged master alchemists, a gold-stitched caduceus for master healers, a copper chevron near the collar for those with a doctorate in a scholarly discipline (some of the wizards had so many of them that they had stretched the fabric of the stole), an embroidered white Seal of Solomon for master exorcists and so on. I had a plain blue stole with no ornaments whatsoever, though I’d been toying with the idea of embroidering “GED” on it in red, white, and blue thread.



Location 7011:

Warden Dresden, the Merlin said. Or thought. Or projected. If you would be so good as to prevent Peabody from escaping. Warden Thorsen and his cadre are on the way to support you, but we need someone to hound Peabody and prevent him from further mischief. We do not yet know the extent of his psychic manipulations, so trust none of the younger Wardens. I love being a wizard. Every day is like Disneyland.



Location 7527:

I stepped aside, grabbed the geek standing behind me, and tugged him forward. “This is Waldo Butters,” I said. “And his geek penis is longer and harder than all of ours put together.”