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Martin Luther had advocated for the abolition of "such popish abominations as vigils, masses for the dead, processions...and all other forms of trickery on behalf of the dead." The most radical interpreted this instruction literally and began to bury one another without the usual service and hymns, without even a pastor being present. One clergyman complained that "the dead are buried without a cross or candles."

Elizabeth's tour of the rest of her estates proceeded much less eventfully. As soldiers marched out of their forts and serfs and hajduks wound their way down from their mountain hideouts, Elizabeth recorded and mourned her losses. Although the Countess had managed to save the Nadasdy family seat with the help of the mercenaries she had hired, most of the villages surrounding the castle had been burned down.

The long war with the Turks was draining the imperial coffers, along with the Holy Roman Emperor's generous patronage of the arts and sciences. Rudolf II's vast collections included bright minds and silver tongues--painters, poets, artisans, philosophers, mathematicians and scientists of every ilk. Obsessive, secretive and syphilitic, he shut himself away, surrounded with every bright and shiny thing imaginable.

The book was taking matters into its own hands. The pages rippled to the charm for spinning straw into gold and a nearby goblin unravelled into fibrous strands. Spells she had not mastered flowed from the book as if she had studied them all her life. All around her, goblins changed from one form to another. With a single word, she turned twelve goblins into geese, which flapped away into the skies.

Avra detoured to the hotel's kitchen to beg for a tray or a large plate and trudged upstairs. The two suites Black Garda had lent them took up half of the top floor of the hotel. On the door of one, the crew had hung a sign that read QUIET PLEASE! THIS ROOM IS FOR SLEEPING ONLY (with a doodle of a bed and an angry shushing face for those of the crew who could not read), so Avra let himself into the other suite.

"You're popular," Viyan commented. "I hadn't realized, somehow."
"I pay my bills on time and I tip generously," Avra said. "And I'm a very easy customer. Sometimes I just ask for a cuddle and have my hair petted. Sometimes I get a handjob and then cry."
Viyan blinked at him and Avra remembered suddenly that they were not in fact part of the crew but a respectable member of society. He forced out a raucous laugh.

It was difficult for Jackson to take things so slowly. Or seriously! But eventually, Eva strung the moves together, showing him what they hoped would work for him.
"This is Sissy dancing, remember," they said. "Imagine she's the one moving your body."
"Like...She's a Muppeteer, and I'm Fozzie Bear?'
"More like Miss Piggy. The diva."
"Whoa. Now, she's a lot to live up."

He went to the freezer and pulled out the bottle of vodka he had stashed there the day he'd arrived. It was the good sh**, distilled in small batches and impossible to buy outside of Russia. He grabbed two glasses and carried them and the bottle outside.
"Is maybe a good time for this," he said, holding up the bottle.
Shane turned warily and snorted when he saw the vodka.

Sane was going to come. The realization hit him suddenly, and, in a panic, he jerked his hips off the bed to remove any friction against his aching cock. Unfortunately, the move also caused him to smash Ilya in the face with his a**.
"Aah! What the f**k, Hollander?"
"Sorry!"
He turned to look over his shoulder, and Ilya was rubbing his jaw and scowling.
"I'm sorry!" Shane said again. "I didn't want to come yet."

"It's..." Shane grimaced. "It's not just me, right?"
"Not just you?"
"I mean...you feel it too, don't you?"
"Feel what?"
"God. You know what I mean! The last time we were...together...it was...different."
Ilya shrugged and looked away. He knew it was the wrong reaction, but he felt a horrifying swell of emotion that he couldn't let Shane see.
"Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about," Shane said angrily.

The Olympics were bulls**t.
Ilya had been on edge all week. It had been days of smiling for the Russian media and mingling with government officials who made his skin crawl. Men and women who supported their country's leader without question and who expected Ilya to do the same. Ilya hadn't had any time to enjoy himself; he'd barely had time to focus on his game.
And it showed.
The Russian men's team was a mess.

He led them up way too many stairs, to the top floor and then used a key to unlock another door. It opened to reveal a large loft apartment, only partially finished. The walls looked like they had been freshly plastered and hadn't been painted yet. There was a ladder leaning against one wall and an open box of tools beside it. The kitchen area had a brand-new countertop and cupboards, but no appliances.

Rozanov ran a hand through his damp hair in a move that was more interesting to Shane than it should have been. Rozanov was so...masculine. Shane was baby-faced and short and couldn't grow proper facial hair and barely had any chest hair. Rozanov was almost exactly the same age as him, but he looked like he had crossed over a magical line to adulthood.
Shane quickly turned his gaze to the floor.

Frex won't come from the other room to recognize his authority. "My calling is from the above, not from you," he shouts.
"I have no doubt," says the well-upholstered official. "But it is I who have come calling, not the 'above.' I have jurisdiction over the citizens here and also the visitors. We need to discuss the recent upsets happening in this community. Words are being spoken."

Elphie will never remember if she and Nessa went down to the edge of the lagoon the next day, or perhaps a week or two later.
Either way, it's early on in their stay in Ovvels, to be sure. One of those moments that stick, though not in sequence, exactly.
Frex and Nanny are on the prowl for a venues to hold an impromptu faith convocation. Told to stay home, the children light out. Lei Leila'ani can't stop them.

Year in and year out, the Quadlings fail to grasp the rationale behind Frex's mission. They've never invited him to convert them in the first place. But then, they're by nature a polite people.
It seems unchanging, the exercise of his calling. He rereads the texts of the unionist fathers. He sermonizes and delivers advice, asked for or no. He smells like citrus peel and beeswax. He stalks about with presence.

I used to beg people to hear me. I would plead. Threaten. Terrify. And now here you are. You know you're the fifth person tonight? I can't even go to a bar without someone recognizing me, sliding over, offering me a drink--a fine ale, this, thank you--and asking for my story. I should make you pay me for it.
And why do you even want to know? You know what happened.
Well, you're here now. Sit there. Don't interrupt.

"What were you working on?" he asked innocently, as if he had no idea at all. Miles didn't buy it, glaring over the rims of his glasses. "Yes, I know it's a book. But what book? Something new?"
"Must be, seeing as I've already written all the old ones."
"Fair enough." He took a few light steps over to the desk. He could tell by the amusement at the corner of Miles's mouth that he was not being successfully casual.

I pocket the only photo of Juliette among her things: one where she's standing in front of Heaven's gates with a nervous smile, ready to embark on her first research trip with her parents.
"Esaal." I'm not sure when Derrick appeared again in the room or how long he's been saying my name. Everything is a blur. Between my pounding head and the emptiness eating me up inside, nothing seems to make much sense.

"There she is." Jacob smiled from behind the wheel. Sophie made sure to smile the shy, closed-lip smile he expected, the one he liked. "You up for a house party?"
"On a Wednesday?"
"My parents left for Barbados again," Emily said, her arms flayed out in exasperation. "They never get bored of that place. So, you coming?" Her green eyes sparkled. Her makeup was always so good and her skin had never known a blemish.

Bacon has been the victor over Dee, for while the latter may have concurred with Marlowe's Faustus that "necromantic books, are heavenly," the former had the benefit of results. Wizards like Dee held to a faith that from their scrying mirror they were speaking to angels, that Enochian truths were imparted through arcane rituals, but Baconian empiricism led to the entire technological revolution.

Lilith enters Jewish and Christian mythology as a bit of a rounding error. Because the Bible offers two clashing tales of creation--Adam and his partner are first having been described as simultaneously generated from the earth and only later is the more famous story about Eve drawn from Ada's rib recounted--Lilith was introduced as a means of correcting such an obvious disjuncture.

Paradise Regained is an epic which reads as if it were written by a Puritan, a triumph not of the purple but of the plain. Milton's second great epic sings "not of arms/But to vanquish by wisdom hellish wiles." Any attempt at temptation which Satan makes to Christ--neither appeals to pride, power, or knowledge are capable of swaying Jesus from his mission--fails.

In Which I Woke Up with a Curious Lightness and Went through the Day Humming under My Breath until I Realized, with Something Not Unlike Horror, that This Is the Happiest I've Ever Been in My Life, and that I Have No Desire for Humanity to Forgive Me.
Heresy became our preferred method of bonding. I followed the mad sorcerer like a little black lamb, absorbing his forbidden teachings. "A goat," he corrected.

"Speaking of being a massive gay boy, did Oliver message you back? I'm sorry for winding you up about it before. I know you really like him..."
"It's okay," I say with a shrug. "Alicia was right. He is just a boy...A boy who's taking me on a date!"
"He is not!"
"He is!" I say. "He came right up to me this morning and asked me out like it was nothing. Oliver Chen asking me on a date."

"Look," Chris says, surprisingly gently. "I don't know what's going on here, but you seem pretty torn up about something, so maybe you should head home."
"Whatever," I say, pushing myself off the fence. "I never liked you anyway."
"Never liked you either, mate," he says, laughing. If Mum heard him say that, she'd have dropped him in a heartbeat. "Get home safe, though, okay?"
"Don't tell me what to do!" I yell back.

In the final hearing, the court ordered the children into the care of their father, again favoring the expert evidence of Dr. X. Six months after the children were removed from Sandra, Robert moved them to another school.
Sandra says she still can't believe the court would tear the children away from their primary attachment figure when there was no evidence that she or her parents were a threat to them.

Brendan can't even remember why he started abusing his wife. He had never hit a woman before. "But once I had, that was it." His abuse didn't come in a rage; rather, "it was just cold-blooded revenge." It became like an addiction he couldn't shake and ruined not only the lives of his wife and children, but also his own life; by the time he was planning to murder his wife, he was also planning to kill himself.

Gottman talked about this particular study with such enthusiasm and detailed recall, it was as if the results came in yesterday. "Here's another thing that surprised us," he said. "The violence decreased over time, so we thought, Oh, maybe this problem just takes care of itself. But we were wrong. Once a perpetrator has frightened the victim, they don't have to use as much violence to get control.

Olympian rule has lasted longer than any other. Maybe all the time that Hera thought she was fighting against her family, she was strengthening them without realising. and now that she's built this empire with them, the one she wanted to destroy for so long, she discovers that she is afraid of it falling apart.
The last hero of Troy reaches home. The survivors grow old and die and their feats live on in memory.