Erin Bow

Taggle was absorbed in the meat pie. __t__ covered in BREAD,_ he huffed. __hat fool has covered MEAT with BREAD?

Her father sat her down and spoke to her with great seriousness. "You are not a witch, Katerina. There is magic in the world, and some of it is wholesome, and some of it is not, but it is a thing that is in the blood, and it is not in yours."The foolish will always treat you badly, because they think you are not beautiful," he said, and she knew this was true. Plain Kate. She was a plain as a stick and thin as a stick and flat as a stick. Her nose was too long and her brows too strong. Her father kissed her twice, once above each brow. "We cannot help what fools think. But understand, it is your skill with a blade that draws this talk. If you want to give up your carving, you have my blessing.""I will never give it up," she answered.

Often she dreamt she had two wings, and one was frightened, and one was happy.

No writing is wasted. Did you know that sourdough from San Francisco is leavened partly by a bacteria called lactobacillus sanfrancisensis? It is native to the soil there, and does not do well elsewhere. But any kitchen can become an ecosystem. If you bake a lot, your kitchen will become a happy home to wild yeasts, and all your bread will taste better. Even a failed loaf is not wasted. Likewise, cheese makers wash the dairy floor with whey. Tomato gardeners compost with rotten tomatoes. No writing is wasted: the words you can't put in your book can wash the floor, live in the soil, lurk around in the air. They will make the next words better.

I am not sure I can.""Become sure," said the cat, his eyes flashing green in the firelight. "Once you leap on a boar's back, you can't sheath your claws.

No, blowing up cities doesn't work, not in the long term. You've got to find something that the people in charge aren't willing to give up. A price they aren't willing to pay.Which leads us to Talis's first rule for stopping wars: make it personal.

Kate faced the crowd. They were just eyes and teeth to her, just spit and voices. It was a moment, even, before they became people: a man with one blind eye, another whose neck was thick with lumps and weeping wounds of scrofula. The poorest of the market.At Kate's feet, Drina. Her scarf and shirt were torn open.

I'm not a cruel man. I mean, technically I'm not a man at all.

They're gone. I let them chase me. I led them like a sunbeam and vanished like a shadow.

You made tools of us. Have you never considered: the thing of a tool is that anyone may use it.

I wished for impossible things. It was never going to have been a fairy tale for us. There are no fairy tales about two princesses.

She was dry. She was lying on something soft. She was wrapped in quilts. There was a star of light drifting above her, and a smell like a herb garden. Taggle was a long warmth stretched out at one side, his chin in her hand, his tail curled over her neck. She thought they might be in heaven.Taggle farted.Plain Kate coughed and sneezed. And then she really was awake.

Fantasy elevates ordinary and eternal problems of young people into stories via the language of myth. It turns __o one really knows me_ into ____e got a secret identity._ It turns __ don__ understand why other people act the way they do_ into ____ trapped in a faerie realm._ It turns __y high school must have been built over the mouth of hell_ into __y high school must have been built over the mouth of hell._ There are certain things in life that are glorious, and they are glorious for everyone. There are more that are hard, and they are hard for everyone. We like to see these things retold, but with dragons.

Behjet eased the horse forward again. "The harvest is failing. There will be no crop at all if this rain doesn't stop - not even hay."The rain. The rain she'd been so grateful for, the rain that concealed the warping of her shadow. It was going to kill people.

Well. I am not afraid. But to protect you, Katerina, I will be discreet." Plain Kate considered a cat's idea of discretion, and was frightened.

And suddenly, in the place of the woman-shape made of shadow, there was something else. Something huge, something ugly. Linay flung up both hands. The thing screamed like a hawk and opened to wings: one white as a death cap, one clotted in shadow. The wings came together and the whole pond shuddered.Something hit Kate's ear and shoulder and smashed to the deck by her feet. It was a swallow, dead. She could hear them falling all over the pond.

Your shadow is bought and paid for, and your death will not remit that payment. You can go shadowless into the shadowless world, and your death will only be one last dark thing on my long dark road. It will hurt me but I do not care. It is all but over.

Taggle looked up at her, his amber eyes as deep as the loneliness Kate had felt before he became her friend."The traditional thing," he said slowly, "involves the river and a sack.