“Then, slowly, like the sunrise peeking over the horizon, she smiled.She snapped the box closed.She didn’t scream. She didn’t run. She didn’t faint.There might have been a little crying.But mostly… she danced.”

“She didn’t have the body of the supermodel. But that’s OK, because she didn’t have the face of one either.”

“Laurel was no bullshit. She didn’t say things she didn’t mean.”

“She didn’t sound overjoyed. She didn’t sound even slightly joyed.”

“Zahara didn’t respond, she just ran, knowing if she turned around she might be as likely to kiss him as she would be to grab the dagger and ram it into his mouth.”

“Those who sought her never found her, yet she was known to come to the aid of those in greatest need. And, then again, sometimes she didn’t. She was like that. She didn’t like the clicking of rosaries, but was attracted to the sound of dice. No man knew what She looked like, although there were many times when a man who was gambling his life on the turn of the cards would pick up the hand he had been dealt and stare Her full in the face. Of course, sometimes he didn’t. Among all the gods she was at one and the same time the most courted and the most cursed.”