“Fuck me, I thought. I can do magic.”

“Can you sacrifice people?' I asked. 'Take their magic that way?''Yes,' he said. 'But there's a catch.''What's the catch?''You get hunted down even unto the ends of the Earth and summarily executed.”

“Could it have been anyone, or was it destiny? When I'm considering this I find it helpful to quote the wisdom of my father, who once told me, "Who knows why the fuck anything happens?”

“For a terrifying moment I thought he was going to hug me, but fortunately we both remembered we were English just in time. Still, it was a close call.”

“This is your brain on magic.”

“You put a spell on the dog," I said as we left the house."Just a small one," said Nightingale."So magic is real," I said. "Which makes you a...what?""A wizard.""Like Harry Potter?"Nightingale sighed. "No," he said. "Not like Harry Potter.""In what way?""I'm not a fictional character," said Nightingale.”

“This is why magic is worse even than quantum physics. Because, while both spit in the eye of common sense, I've never yet had a Higgs bosun turn up and try to have a conversation with me.”