“Spit and blood!”

“She was spared the slow, steady droplets of blood that began to spatter the beds, drip, drip, drip, painting the white sheets in shocked flowers of red”

“You can’t tell half a tale, Poison. You can’t write half a book. Whatever you choose to do next will completely change the aspect of what has gone before. if you decided to suddenly kill your friends as they slept –“ Why would I do that?” Poison interjected.Bear with me,” Fleet said patiently. “If you did, then the tale would take on a whole new light. Instead of being the journey of Poison from Gull to save her sister, it would be the terrible story of how a young girl became a cold-blooded killer. They way it would be written would be different. Do you see? Or you might die right now, and it would turn out that it wasn’t your tale all along it was Bram’s or Peppercorn’s, and you were just one of the sideline characters. The whole story has to be known before it can be recorded; otherwise it might suddenly change. That’s the beauty, Poison. You never know what’s going to happen next. When the tale is ended, then the writing will be visible to your eyes; until then it is unwritten.”

“Not for the first time, he wished he commanded a highly trained bunch of soldiers instead of a ragtag mob of rejects in varying stages of alcoholism.”

“How was is that life never worked out the way it did in his head?”

“Poison." he said, deadpan. "That's an unusual name to give your child. You must love her very much."She's a treasure." Bram agreed, blithely ignoing the sarcasm.....Then went a few dozen feet in silence, until they were out of eaarshor of the gaurd.She's a treasure." Poison mimicked, and Bram burst out laughing.”

“Our heroes have arrived, then," the stranger said, his voice a soft, bubbly murmur."Excuse me?" Poison queries.The odd creature put down his rod in a little wooden cradle that rested next to him and got up from the edge of the jetty. He looked them over with his vast, yellowish eyes."Hmm," he said gloomily. "You don't seem a bad bunch." He jostled past them and began to shuffle back towards his house. "At least you're not the typical muscle-bound warrior, beautiful sorceress, and amusing thief sidekick. By the waters, did that become stale fast.”