I'm almost finished," said Wilhelm, wiping out a line with his sleeve and drawing over it."I never doubted you for a moment," said Vex, then looked at Aurora and spoke more softly. "I actually doubted him the whole time. He's really not very good."Wilhelm turned. "I'm standing right in front of you. I can hear literally every sound you make.""Wilhelm, please," said Vex, "this is a private conversation.

What are we going to do when we get into the temple, anyway? Are we going to fight our way through the Necromancers on our own?""No, we're going to find a way to let our friends in, and we'll let them fight while we stand by and look smug.""I like that plan.""It has its moments.

I have chiseled features. Look. Look how chiseled they are. And my teeth are at least as white as his. You seriously think he's good-lookin'?""I do," said Tanith."Right," Sanguine said and nodded. "I'm gonna kill him."She kept her laugh soft so it wouldn't travel. "I think he's good-looking, but I think you're better looking.""Oh," Sanguine said. "I mean, yeah. I am. I'm glad you noticed.

He liked murder. Murder and long walks had been two of his favorite things when he was younger.

I've always been a monster,' Scapegrace told her, 'but now, finally, my physical for reflects my inner darkness.''You smell terrible.''That's the smell of evil.''It's like rancid meat and bad eggs.''Evil," Scapegrace insisted.

Everyone gets tortured these days. Skulduggery by Serpine, who then turned around and did that red right hand thing at you. Then Skulduggery was tortured again by the Faceless Ones. I figured it was my turn, you know? You're not part of the team if you haven't been tortured- that's what I always say. Well, I'll be saying that from now on anyway.

You're not used to early mornings, are you?"He shook his head. "Early mornings were invented by the system to keep the people occupied. But not me. I'm on to them. They're not gonna catch me napping. Metaphorically, like. Obviously, they can catch me physically napping like, four or five times a day, but, metaphorically, I am so far beyond their reach.

I was going straight for Mantis, but then that bloody gas got in my eyes and, I don't know, some massive bloke reared up in front of me. I hit him, but I swear, it was like hiting a wall."Gracious nodded. "You hit a wall."Maybury blinked at him. "I what?""I saw it. You ran into a cloud of gas and stumbled around for a second until you reached a wall, and then you shrieked and punched it. It was very heroic.

The Engineer smiled (internally, for of course it had no mouth). It was feeling good. It was feeling optimistic. Moving at its current speed, it would arrive back in Ireland in plenty of time to shut everything down before a series of overloads and power loops inevitably led to a sequence of events which would, in turn, eventually lead to the probable destruction of the world. The Engineer wasn't worried.And then the truck hit it.