“Pa Larkspur?"She smiled. "Don't be so chauvinistic. He's the best cook in the county. His baskets bring in more money than any others at the picnic auctions.""Jesus. Baskets? Picnic? Just how country is the Nest?""Very." His horrified expression made her laugh. "Clay, you live in a tree. I don't think you should throw stones.”

“Ozymandias controls not only the dead, but the living. He works the dark magics, and it is said he knows the paths between the worlds and walks them without fear. He wields the-""Stop! In English, okay?"""In English?" she asked, throwing the empty wineglass into the picnic basket. Riley nodded."You're in serious shit.”

“Not long since, a strolling Indian went to sell baskets at the house of a well-known lawyer in my neighborhood. “Do you wish to buy any baskets?” he asked. “No, we do not want any,” was the reply. “What!” exclaimed the Indian as he went out the gate, “do you mean to starve us?” Having seen his industrious white neighbors so well off—that the lawyer had only to weave arguments, and, by some magic, wealth and standing followed—he had said to himself: I will go into business; I will weave baskets; it is a thing which I can do. Thinking that when he had made the baskets he would have done his part, and then it would be the white man’s to buy them. He had not discovered that it was necessary for him to make it worth the other’s while to buy them, or at least make him think that it was so, or to make something else which it would be worth his while to buy.I too had woven a kind of basket of a delicate texture, but I had not made it worth any one’s while to buy them. Yet not the less, in my case, did I think it worth my while to weave them, and instead of studying how to make it worth men’s while to buy my baskets, I studied rather how to avoid the necessity of selling them. The life which men praise and regard as successful is but one kind. Why should we exaggerate any one kind at the expense of the others?”

“Cormac smiled at her, but it was Finn who spoke. "Can I ask you a question?""Sure."He leaned forward conspiratorially. "So, if I gave you some catnip would you act all weird and stoned?""I don't know. If I throw a stick, will you fetch?" She smiled sweetly at Cormac's cousin.Burke made a choking noise, covering a laugh with his hand. Finn screwed up his face, as if in disgust. "Dude. I am NOT a dog.""And I’m not a pampered house cat.”

“Hand me a picnic basket and call me Red Riding Hood. After all I was about to go meet the big bad wolf. -Sophie”

“Piper went a little crazy. She cried out with relief and dove straight into the water.What was she thinking? She didn't take a rope or a life vest or anything. But at the moment, she was just so happy that she paddled over to Leo and kissed him on the cheek, which kind of surprised him."Miss me?" Leo laughed.Piper was suddenly furious. "Where were you? How are you guys alive?" "Long story," he said. A picnic basket bobbed to the surface next to him. "Want a brownie?”