While I don't particularly like the Nikita-style dynamics of Sienna development, it still feels like the author has done their homework developing her charachter.
Q:
He reddened. “That wasn’t so smart. You made me look stupid in front of Sovereign.”
“I didn’t ‘make’ you look stupid,” I said. “You are stupid. I just gave you the opportunity to showcase it.”
“Ooh.” He let a little air pass through his lips as he narrowed his eyes, the mark of a suppressed fury. “Are you being snide and condescending?”
“And here I was, worried you were too stupid to pick up on it.”
He laughed, but it was a mirthless, mean-spirited guffaw. “I already have your people marked down for a hell of a violent death, did you know that? But I’m brainstorming more creative ways to make them suffer before they die every time you throw a wrench in my plans. I’m up to vivisection and acid baths, in case you’re wondering.”
“Well, gosh, I guess I should just surrender now and make their deaths easier and marginally less painful.”
He made a tsk-ing sound and smiled. “You’re trying to get my goat. Trying to make me say something … unwise.”
“I would never try to get your goat,” I said. “I’d hate to deprive you of your only outlet for sexual release.”
“Oh, wow.” He blanched in annoyance, “I’d forgotten how incredibly irritating you are. Did you just summon me here to dig a deeper grave for all those hangers-on you laughably call your friends? Or was it because you missed me?”
“I do miss how easy it is to make a mockery of you,” I said. “I’m afforded so very few truly witless targets to spin in circles with my derision. But I wouldn’t say I miss you—in fact, last time I’m pretty sure I hit you to the tune of a gaping stomach wound. Maybe soon I’ll have another opportunity to test my aim on you.” I took a step closer to him. “You can threaten me and my friends all you want. I know you want to kill them. I know you’re going to try and make it painful. And out there in the real world, you have lots of power backing you up.” I disappeared in a wisp of smoke and appeared again behind him. “But here … you’re in my world. Let me show you who has the power here.”
I clamped a hand on his face and he screamed. It was a wrenching, gut-level cry of agony. “I can manipulate the dream world, Weissman.” I brought him to his knees, screaming in anguish all the while. “I can find you anytime you go to sleep. I can torment you every night from here until I die.” I circled around him, looking in his dark eyes. “I can wrench every ounce of happiness out of your life and make it hell until the very end, and I suspect I’ll be living a lot longer than you will, however this turns out.”
“You … little … bitch …” His words were choked out, and he was on his knees. I shaped a thought and filled the air with the smell of urine.
“That’s just sad,” I said. Because I was shaping the world, it was real to him. For all I knew, it was reflecting life and he’d wake up to a wet bed. “I know you’re committed to this little war of yours, but I don’t think you realize how committed I am. You better start sleeping during the day, Weissman.” I knelt next to him. “Because I’m going to haunt your dreams every night for the rest of your life.”
(c)
Q:
“It’s just … Janus. He’s so different since he woke up,” she said, staring at herself in the mirror. “So … preoccupied.”
“Maybe he’s worried about being exterminated,” I suggested, a little lightly.
“Maybe,” she conceded. “Things just feel so different. I was worrying that maybe I was starting to look my age.”
I wondered how she had survived so long, being as thoroughly non-serious a person as she was. Then again, I wasn’t exactly super-serious all the time myself. “Don’t be ridiculous. Most girls who have hit a centennial would be lucky to have skin like yours. Because you don’t have any wrinkles. At all. And honestly, the way you grin all the time like a—” I stopped myself before saying moron, “—very happy person, that’s a good thing. You look fine.”
“Thank you, Sienna,” she turned to me, and I realized I’d just offered encouragement to her. I felt a little dirty, like I’d just crawled around on the floor of a girl’s locker room at high school. “That’s very sweet of you to say.”
I gagged on the responses I came up with, trying to remember that she probably considered sweetness a virtue or something. “Meeting?” I asked, smiling faintly through the wave of nausea.
“Oh, yeah, right,” she said and led the way to the conference room. She bubbled the whole way there, and I nodded in time with her comments, saying, “Sure,” at the appropriate intervals.
(c)
Q:
They glanced at each other, bereft of any amusement.
“I should probably introduce you,” Weissman said. “This is Grihm.” The red-haired one smiled, his pointed teeth revealed. “And Frederick.” The clean-shaven one nodded his head slightly.
I stared. “Frederick? Seriously?”
“I like it,” Frederick said, and I was surprised at how there was no growl in his voice. He sounded … almost normal. Almost. “It sounds cultured.”
“Also, it’s multi-syllabic, which is definitely bucking the family trend,” I said.
(c)
Q:
Frederick frowned at me. Actually frowned. No growl at all. “You’re a very sarcastic person. I suspect it’s stunting your emotional growth.”
“What. The. Hell?” Did I just get psychoanalyzed by a Wolfe brother? I could feel some displeasure somewhere deep inside, from Wolfe himself. A choice comment about Frederick being a smug asshole floated my way from within.
(c)