Naomi Novik

And we must still try or we would be leaving our friends to fight without us. I think this is what you have meant by duty, all along; I do understand, at least this much of it.

The river flows to the sea, whatever the wind says about it

I didn't properly think about what was happening even as I kissed him back, my laughter spilling into his mouth and making stutters of my kisses. I was still bound up with him, our magic snarled up into great messy tangled knots. I didn't have anything to compare that intimacy to. I'd felt the hot embarrassment of it, but I'd thought of it vaguely like being naked in front of a stranger. I hadn't connected it to sex__ex was poetic references in songs, my mother's practical instructions, and those few awful hideous moments in the tower with Prince Marek, where I might as well have been a rag doll as far as he'd cared. But now I toppled the Dragon over, clutching at his shoulders. As we fell his thigh pressed between mine, through my skirts, and in one shuddering jolt I began to form a startled new understanding.

I grabbed back at him just as incautiously with my hand and my magic both, even as he pressed magic on me from his side as well. His breath huffed out sharply, and our workings caught on one another, magic gushing into them.

I do not know that the Chinese system is any worse; there is a limit to the evil one despot alone can do, and if he is truly vicious he can be overthrown; a hundred corrupt members of Parliament may together do as much injustice or more, and be the less easy to uproot.

I am of the opinion", Tharkay said, "that you ought not assign to free will something more likely the consequence of a sharp blow to the skull.

Enough of that, you damned conspirators, you will have us hanged a great deal sooner than we will.

Elsie eyed him puzzledly, and then offered, "Would you like to see my plate?

Temeraire said, 'It is very nice how many books there are, indeed. And on so many subjects!

I should rather have you than a heap of gold, even if it were very comfortable to sleep on.

But none of that matters at all._ His head raised to stare balefully at me, but I said, incoherent yet convinced, __t__ just__ way to go. There isn__ only one way to go._ I waved at his notes. __ou__e trying to find a road where there isn__ one. It__ like__t__ gleaning in the woods,_ I said abruptly. __ou have to pick your way through the thickets and the trees, and it__ different every time.

You are not wrong," Laurence said. He had assumed as much himself, after all, in his Navy days: had thought the Corps full of wild, devil-may-care libertines, disregarding law and authority as far as they dared, barely kept in check-- to be used for their control over the beasts, and not respected."But if we have more liberty than we ought," Laurence said, after a moment, struggling through, "it is because they have not enough: the dragons. They have no stake in victory but our happiness; their daily bread and nation would give them just to have peace and quiet. We are given licence so long as we do what we ought not; so long as we use their affections to keep them obedient and quiet, to ends which serve them not at all-- or which harm.""How else do you make them care?" Granby said. "If we left off, the French would only run right over us, and take our eggs themselves.""They care in China," Laurence said, "and in Africa, and they care all the more, that their rational sense is not imposed on, and their hearts put into opposition with their minds. If they cannot be woken to a natural affection for their country, such as we feel, it is our fault, and not theirs.

All maps are fiction when the world is seen from the sky. But if ten thousand dragons choose to believe in this one, I think you will find it nearer truth than otherwise.

No." Laurence said, "I mean to retire when we have returned. I have enough money to keep Temeraire now, and enough of a countenance to ask my brother to put us up on one of the farms." Or they might return to Australia, or to China. Temeraire has every right to ask that of him now that the war was won. Laurence did not mean to refuse him, he only hoped to go back to Wollaton Hall first and find a way to carry it with him somehow. He longed in a deep inward part for Britain, for home, and the house standing at twilight with all the windows lit. A child's memory of peace. He would even be grateful there for the counterfeit honors that had been heaped onto his head, if they gave his mother some peace, and his brother need not be ashamed to give him a field for Temeraire to sleep in, for a little while.

The gate is perfectly simple," Temeraire said. "There is only a bar across the fence, which one can lift very easily, and then it swings open; Nitidus could do it best, for his forehands are the smallest. Though it is difficult to keep the animals inside the pen, and the first time I learned how to open it, they all ran away," he added. "Maximus and I had to chase after them for hours and hours--it was not funny at all," he said, ruffled, sitting back on his haunches and contemplating Laurence with great indignation.

I will tell you what we shall do: if ever you need to rescue Catherine, or you Berkley, Maximus, I will help you, and you will do as much for me. Then we do not need to worry, I do not suppose anyone could stop all three of us, at least not before we can escape

You__e been inexpressibly lucky,_ he said finally. __nd inexpressibly mad, although in your case the two seem to be the same thing

I will see you bereft of all that you have, of home and happiness and beautiful things. I will see your nation cast down and your allies drawn away. I will see you as alone and friendless and wretched as am I; and then you may live as long as you like, in some dark and lonely corner of the earth, and I shall call myself content. -Lien, Albino Celestial (Dragon)