Thief's Covenant

It was one of the primary rules of thievery. When hiding, sneaking, and trickery are all out, the correct answer is "run like hell.

A true lady should have the wit and the imagination, or at least the very restraint, to express herself without resorting herself to such base vocabulary.

Genevieve hunched her shoulders against the storm of sound and fury and struggled to imagine a worse sort of hell. Widdershins, of course, seemed perfectly happy, but Widdershins was weird.

Olgun?, she asked, her tone again little more than a breath. "Dogs?" A pause, an answer. "Ah. And do you think you should maybe do something about that?" Self-satisfied gloating. "You already did." It wasn't a question. Another affirmative. Widdershins sighed. "I hope you didn't hurt them." Olgun sent a flash of horror running through her, so strong that she felt herself shudder. "All right, I'm sorry!, she hissed. I know you like dogs. I know you wouldn't hurt them! I wasn't thinking!" The god sniffed haughtily.

The front door of the Flippant Witch gave a series of loud clicks and swung inward. Renard Lambert, his blue-and-purple finery resembling a plum in the twitching lanterns, practically hurled himself through the open doorway “Widdershins!” he called loudly, cape flowing behind him, “I—gaaack!” He ducked, barely in time to avoid the carafe that shattered loudly against the wall just behind his head. The tinkling of broken glass, a dangerous entry chime indeed, sounded around him. “Oh,” Genevieve said, her tone only vaguely contrite. “It's just your friend. Sorry, Renard.” “Sorry? Sorry?! What the hell were you—ah. Um, hello, ah, Widdershins." Widdershins, who had lurched to her feet as the door opened, was suddenly and forcibly reminded by Renard's stunned stare that Genevieve had disrobed her in order to get at the rapier wound. Blushing as furiously as a nun in a brothel, she ducked behind her blonde-haired friend and groped desperately for her shirt. “Didn't mean to take your head off, Renard,” Genevieve said, mainly to distract him. “But you rather startled us.” “Quite understandable,” the popinjay responded absently, his eyes flickering madly as he fought to locate some safe place to put them.

Can I ask one more question?” Cateline repressed a sigh. “One more. Then you need to eat your supper.” “If Davillon has so many gods, how come not one of them got off his butt and saved my mommy and daddy?!

She looked to be maybe fifteen, give or take a year or two; still somewhere in that nether realm between childhood and womanhood. Her hair, to judge by the few unsoiled strands he could see, was an earthy brown, and her eyes shone with a blue-green hue so liquid that he almost expected to see waves. A small, ever-so-slightly upturned nose sat in the center of a slender face.

She'd pushed it down, crushed it beneath the weight of stubborn determination, but still it haunted her at night, when such terrors shamble from their dens to torment innocent insomniacs.

Well…Shit.” They were, as last words go, not terribly inspired. But