Optimize for joy and make money doing it.

The docks in San Pedro had one thing going for them—it was easy to keep everything in front of you and avoid being ambushed from behind if you planned it right.

Orcs smelled like moldy cheese. Even if I couldn’t see under their thinly-veiled illusion charms to their true faces, I would be able to smell them from across a room because they reeked of cheese.

She held my hand the whole way to the car, gripping it so tightly, she must have feared letting go and having me run off again. She had nothing to worry about, though.

I followed the wall around the palace until I came to the front entrance. An evil-eyed woman came out from behind the gate.

Alexi didn’t fly me all the way to Cairo, but together we made it to Turkey, where I forced Ollie to wire him another ten thousand dollars for the ride.

In that second of hesitation, I pulled the drawer I had been looking through fully out of the cabinet and slammed it across his face, sending him flying into another one and smashing to the ground.

The drive from Berlin to Moscow was a little bit shorter than traveling from Los Angeles to Oklahoma City and twice as boring, which was saying something.

Getting through the Iron Curtain wasn’t easy, even for somebody who knew Russian and could shapeshift into any form they wanted.

Demons were notoriously hard to corner alone, as they were both incredibly strong and infinitely cagey. The most powerful demons in Hell stayed that way through conniving, back-stabbing, and deception

I hated it when Ollie called me because it always meant a big job that took me away from home for long stretches. She was a good client, but she was all business and refused to take no for an answer.

A million years ago the world ended. Since then a group of five have kept the City running. Now, one of them has died.

I shouldn’t have said anything. I should have left like a thief in the night, but I couldn’t do it. I needed them to know I was going.

I didn’t understand the Third. It wasn’t like the Outer Rings at all. There were big buildings, loud noises, and everybody seemed angry.

Turn around! There’s still time! Just turn AROUND! The words ran through my head over and over again as I stood in the monumental line to get into the Center.

People are so ridiculous and easily impressed. All I did was stand close to Earth for a minute.

Violet was nice. I had liked her. She has such kind eyes, I thought—no, she had nice eyes.

There is no oppressor without an oppressed. That quote came from a book I read in elementary school called The Tail of Guhman the Mouse.

I made it back to my room just as the guards returned to duty. Very quietly I slipped into bed and shut my eyes, trying to get my heart to stop thumping in my chest.

Gone was the crooked smile on the Constable’s face, replaced instead by a deep, dark scowl. And screaming. My god, the screaming.

The red, blinking light above the camera turned off. A woman next to the camera dropped her cue cards as two brutish men lowered their guns on either side of me.

When they saw I was basically a human pincushion, they dragged Cam out of the car and beat her within an inch of her life.

What I just did was suicide. But it was not the first time I’d committed suicide since I’d left home, and I was still alive.

I have never been suicidal. Sure, I’ve had dark thoughts in my life, but who hasn’t? They were never more than just a passing thought that swooped into my mind and left as quickly as they came.

The woman manipulated and obfuscated, but she did not lie. I liked that about her.