“we missed you at the wedding," he said."Yeah." puck shrugged. "I was in Kyoto at the time, visiting some old kitsune friends. We were travelling up to Hokaido to check out this old temple that was supposedly haunted. Turns out, a yuki-onna had taken up residence there and had scared off most of the locals. She wasn't terribly happy to see us. Can you believe it?" He grinned. "Course, we, uh, might've pissed her off when the temple caught fire-you know how kitsune are. She chased us all the way to the coast, throwing icicles, causing blizzards...the old hag even tried to bury us under an avalanche. We almost died." He sighed dreamily and looked at Ash. "You should've been there ice-boy.”

“Well,” Puck said cheerfully, forcing a rather pained smile, “it’s just like old times, isn’t it? You, me, ice-boy, the future of the Nevernever hanging in the balance…we just have to wait for Furball to show up and then it’ll be perfect.” “He is already here, Goodfellow,” came a familiar voice behind us, sounding bored and offended all at once. “Where he has been for much of the conversation, waiting for you to see past the end of your nose.” “Yep.” Puck sighed as we all turned to face Grimalkin. “Just like old times.”

“But...' Horace looked from one familiar face to another. 'How did you come to..?'Before he could finish the question, Will interupted, thinking to clarify matters but only making them more puzzling...'We were all in Toscana for the treaty signing,' he began, then corrected himself. 'Well, Evanlyn wasn't. She came later. But, when she did, she told us you were missing, so we all boarded Gundar's ship-you should see it. It's a new design that can sail into the wind. But anyway, that's not important. And just before we left, Selethen decided to join us-what with you being an old comrade in arms and all-and...'He got no further. Halt, seeing the confusion growing on Horace's face, held up a hand to stop his babbling former apprentice...Will stopped, a little embarrassed as he realized that he had been running off at the mouth.”

“Chase picked up the card. “I’m happy to share from my personal experience, if you like.”Temple grinned at his hand. “And I.”It was all too much. “I do not need advice. She enjoyed it immensely.”“I hear they don’t all enjoy it right off the bat,” Cross said.“That is true,” Chase said, all expertise.“It’s fine if she didn’t, old man,” Temple offered. “You can try again.”“She enjoyed it.” Bourne’s voice was low and tight, and he thought he might kill the next person who spoke.“Well, one thing is for certain,” Temple said, casually, and Bourne ignored the pang of disappointment that the enormous man was very likely the only one at the table he could not kill.”

“True. The one certainty about riding, Braygan, is that - at some time - you will fall off. It is a fact. Another fact you might like to consider, in your life of perpetual terror, is that you will die. We are all going to die, some of us young, some of us old, some of us in our sleep, some of us screaming in agony. We cannot stop it, we can only delay it.”

“You are too young to know how the world changes everyday,' said Mrs Creakle, 'and how the people in it pass away. But we all have to learn it, David; some of us when we are young, some of us when we are old, some of us at all times in our lives.”