Competence

I live on a ship full of outcasts, populated by society's unacceptable. And yet, here I stand, happy. And I love them all. It is time, Primrose thought, to tender myself the same level of courtesy. Or perhaps it is time that I simply accepted that I too am one of the strange and abandoned. Appearances be damned.

Footnote, tail high, led the way in that manner of cats which is one part banner-waving herald and one part attempted murder by tripping. Cats in hallways – escort meets assassination attempt.

Cats liked to occupy liminal spaces: both inside and outside, both tame and wild, both yawn and meow.

Yes?" Percy did not try to tame the grumpiness in his voice. He hated to be disturbed while he was reading. Of course, he was always reading, but that did not signify.

You will be the death of me. But such a lovely way to go.

And I need to be where other people are not for a while. Percy knew himself well enough for that.

We simply must convince them that pishtacos are the latest and greatest diet scheme ever, and the local Californians will welcome them with open arms.

The Ottoman Empire was a glorious time for tassels.

The man was dead after all. But not powerless. Formerly Floote was many things, but powerless wasn't one of them. He had knowledge.

Frankly, Percy was accustomed to offending people into near murderous rages. When someone actually tried to pot him off, it felt endearingly honest.

Footnote, his cat, also liked Spoo. Therefore Spoo must be a genuinely good egg. Or possibly eat a great deal of tuna. Footnote couldn’t be trusted to be entirely discriminating.

If she was lucky, the most strenuous endeavour she need undertake in any given day was the lifting of a teacup to her lips.

He’d nothing intelligent to add to these details, so he said nothing. A policy he wished the world in general would obey.

It is a word from Gaelic times, before our recorded history. The Fair Folk they were also called. You look much as they were described: terribly beautiful.

It was best to assume that a non-tea drinker might, at any moment, develop refinement.

The sun was near to rising. Percy downed the last of his drink and pondered the nature of love and manipulation and ghosts and souls, confident in his own superiority in needing none of these things to be content with his life.

If Primrose had learned anything from her unusual childhood in a vampire hive, it was this: do not give untapped wealth and social influence to a woman whose greatest love in life is increasingly outrageous hats.

Independent thought,” emphasised Percy, “is independent thought. We cannot control the outcome. And if we try, we risk becoming the very thing we fear and are persuading him against. Evil.

Auribus teneo lupum.” “No Latin! You know I can’t abide Latin during unsustainable situations!

The stars were vast and twinkling with savage cheer above them, and the sea was a vast and satin-rich bed of cruelty below. Primrose shivered at her own fancy, but there was something about the wide emptiness that terrorised. I suppose I am nothing if not a creature of cities with bustling streets and cosy hearths. This vastness is not for me. And I am not for it.

Virgil to Percy: "Well, sir, no offense, but you're rather shaky with all things moral and ethical yourself." Percy thought he ought to be even more affronted, but he found this to be more like a compliment than not. It implied that he never allowed his scientific analysis of a situation to be troubled by how the rest of the world thought it ought to be.

This is the time for obscure Italian mathematicians