“The bottom half of the page had descended into a doodle of a tiny man giving the middle finger to a giant, angry eagle with razor-sharp talons. Beneath it, the caption: To Mock a Killing Bird.”

“A lot of the names in Talon reference other people or events. For example Amelia, the giant Eagle, was a “tip of my hat” to the extraordinary aviator Amelia Earhart. Both love(d) to fly!”

“A bat isn’t a bird isn’t a middle finger.”

“A man isn't tiny or giant enough to defeat anything”

“The combination of razor-sharp wit (completely real) and his credentials (completely fake) had won them over in the end.”

“...her hand closes on smooth metal. Her fingers test the sharpness of the edge. Perfect. It's a fresh blade. The girls' voices rustle in her head. Their clamoring pushes out all rational thought. She rolls up her sleeve. The bite of the blade kills the noise. It wipes out the memory of those staring faces. Willow looks at her arm, at the life springing from her. Tiny pinpricks of red that blossom into giant peonies.”