No writing is wasted. Did you know that sourdough from San Francisco is leavened partly by a bacteria called lactobacillus sanfrancisensis? It is native to the soil there, and does not do well elsewhere. But...

The night was white-blind with fog, and Kate staggered over every stone and stumbled in every puddle, but she pushed on as fast as she could.

Kate faced the crowd. They were just eyes and teeth to her, just spit and voices. It was a moment, even, before they became people: a man with one blind eye, another whose neck was...

Be brave. Things will find their shape.

It’s true that when you read YA you rarely have to read about middle-aged men having affairs. Personally I consider that a plus.

They’re gone. I let them chase me. I led them like a sunbeam and vanished like a shadow.

my high school must have been built over the mouth of hell.” There are certain things in life that are glorious, and they are glorious for everyone. There are more that are hard, and they...

Behjet eased the horse forward again. “The harvest is failing. There will be no crop at all if this rain doesn’t stop – not even hay.”The rain. The rain she’d been so grateful for, the...

I am not sure I can.””Become sure,” said the cat, his eyes flashing green in the firelight. “Once you leap on a boar’s back, you can’t sheath your claws.

She was dry. She was lying on something soft. She was wrapped in quilts. There was a star of light drifting above her, and a smell like a herb garden. Taggle was a long warmth...

Taggle was absorbed in the meat pie. ‘It’s covered in BREAD,’ he huffed. ‘What fool has covered MEAT with BREAD?

And suddenly, in the place of the woman-shape made of shadow, there was something else. Something huge, something ugly. Linay flung up both hands. The thing screamed like a hawk and opened to wings: one...

Often she dreamt she had two wings, and one was frightened, and one was happy.

Your shadow is bought and paid for, and your death will not remit that payment. You can go shadowless into the shadowless world, and your death will only be one last dark thing on my...

Her father sat her down and spoke to her with great seriousness. “You are not a witch, Katerina. There is magic in the world, and some of it is wholesome, and some of it is...

Taggle looked up at her, his amber eyes as deep as the loneliness Kate had felt before he became her friend.”The traditional thing,” he said slowly, “involves the river and a sack.

Well. I am not afraid. But to protect you, Katerina, I will be discreet.” Plain Kate considered a cat’s idea of discretion, and was frightened.

Plain Kate greased her boots and bandaged her feet, and soon she would walk like a Roamer born. She helped Drina with the water and the wood, and in the long, wet evenings she carved...

They hurried when they could, and dozed when they had to, hiding in tangles of bloodtwig and heartsease at the edge of the road.

Taggle, meanwhile, made himself popular, killing rats and bringing a rabbit into camp every evening, preening in the praise – silently, thank god, though at night, he recounted choice bits to Kate: “Rye Baro says...

At night the fog was thick and full of light, and sometimes voices.