Lulu Benninger

“Where was the fear? She searched herself as she listened: sometimes the rat-tat-tat of gunfire, rapid and snippy like the keys of two vast duelling type-writers battering out threats to each other on a paper sky.”
― Lesley Glaister, Blasted Things

“The trial awaiting Helen was known among the Toltecs as a Kazil,
a special court convened to consider only those state crimes serious
enough to be punished by death. It consisted of a joint session of
the Kinshazen and the highest-ranking priests of the Temple of Kronos,
who were referred to as the Host of the Faithful.
A Kazil was always conducted at Kindred House, the building where
the members of the Kinshazen met. Its outer layer consisted of massive
blocks of polished pink granite, which had a decidedly dark cast to it.
Kindred House was closest to Lake Shambhala of all the structures in
the Nighthall government complex.
Those summoned before a Kazil and convicted of the charges were invariably put to death within three days of the proceeding. And in only a few, very rare, instances had anyone been found innocent on trial before a Kazil.”
― Candace L. Talmadge, Stoneslayer: Book One Scandal

“I felt sure…that these creatures were never threatened by the grimness of history, either.”
― Elizabeth Kostova, The Historian

“Our cousin Patrick Hacker McKaybees, died fighting by the side of the king.”
― Gabriel F.W. Koch, Steel Blood