“That’s my cousin, dickwad,” Agent Jaxon Tremain said from Hector’s left. Had Whacky Jacky been next to Dallas, he would have drilled his knuckles into the guy’s bicep. “Watch your mouth.”“By watch my mouth do you mean I should invite your cuz back to my place for a game of Hide the Magic Wand, or my new personal fave, Puff on the Magic Dragon?” Dallas asked conversationally. “And I know what you’re thinking. I’m really into wizardry these days. Well, you’re right.” Hector gave a rusty bark of laughter. He hadn’t observed Dallas in this good a mood in a long time.A low growl escaped Jaxon. “I meant I’d scoop out your liver with a spoon, you idiot!”“Sterling silver or plastic?” Hector asked. In their line of work, details were important. Besides, he liked being part of their banter.”

“Sadie?""What?""You with me?"I blinked in confusion and said, "Yes." And I was, wasn't I? I was standing in his arms for goodness sake."This is Sadie?" Hector went on.I blinked again. "Yes.""My Sadie?" he kept at it.This time I blinked for a different reason.His Sadie? Was there a Hector's Sadie? Was I Hector's Sadie? Did Hector think I was his Sadie?Oh…my…God.Before I could process what he said or get close to processing what that meant, I watched him smile, then he bent his head and kissed my lips."Yeah," he said, his face an inch away. "It's my Sadie.”

“Impossible. I merely brought the essentials. Clothes, my favorite boots, face cream, makeup, a few books to read, a couple cans of caviar, lingerie, and my coffeepot. Plus a few other things a girl like me just can’t live without but can’t mention in mixed company because it would be indelicate. You know, because they’re sexual.”- at “lingerie,” Hector and Dallas had stood a little straighter. At “sexual,” they’d moaned. Jaxon punched them both in the back of the head.”

“So,Miss Fitt," Clarence said once we turned onto a tree-lined road beside the river, "you are no doubt wondering why I invited you out."I swatted the ribbon from my eyes. "And here I assumed it was my unsurpassable good looks."He chuckled. "That was, of course, part of my motivation.""Only part?" I slid my gaze left and watched him from the corner of my eye. "Well then,the rest of your reason must be that bribe you mentioned the other evening." "Something like that.”

“If you were M. Pujol, Madeleine says, I would reach out my hand to you. Like this.If you were M. Pujol, Adrien says, I would press my mouth against your pulse. Like this. If you were he, she says, I would cup your chin in my fingers.If you were he, he says, I would take those fingers into my mouth.Then my mouth would envy my fingers, she says.Then your mouth must usurp your fingers, he says.And then, she says, I would do this.”

“You faced him down like a seasoned warrior," he [Hector] says. "Only because I had your daggers at my back.”