“I thought you people had a manual for this kind of thing.” He laughed. “We have a manual. Magic doesn’t.”

“My dad told me he knew where to find Zay. Which meant I had to cooperate with him...."Do you see what we have accomplished together? The healing of souls with the magic you carry. We have healed souls in death. With light and dark magic."“We? No, you stuck your hands in my chest and stole my magic and threw it at them. If you try that again, you won’t have hands. Where’s Zayvion?” Okay, maybe I was a little rusty on the whole cooperation thing.”

“magic was not a required course. He could have a degree in Wiffle ball for all I knew.”

“If you need us, for anything, never forget we are here for you. All of us. You have done amazing things to make this world a better place.” That was really sweet. And sincere. And if I didn’t look away from his kind expression, I was just going to cry like a little girl. “Wait until you see my encore,” I said.”

“I doubt she likes the idea of seeing him put back in a cage.” “Maybe not,” he said. “But she knows that the Authority are the only people who might be able to help him.” “Or kill him,” I said. “That too. What is life without risk?” “Long?” Terric laughed, a sort of high whooping that made me—and Zayvion, much to my surprise—smile. Contagious. For all he had a serious exterior, Terric was the guy you’d want to sit next to at a funny movie, just to hear him laugh.”

“He'd been working for my father and following me around for I didn't know how long. He probably knew a lot of things about me. Probably even knew what kind of underwear I wore. Which begged the question. Was he a boxer or brief kind of guy?”

“You’re a good kid. If you’d work on your pain-in-the-ass tendencies, you’d be real nice.” “Too bad that isn’t going to happen anytime soon,” he muttered. “Real nice doesn’t get you very far.” “Real nice can keep you from getting beat up,” I said. He smiled. “Right. Maybe we should both work on it, then.”