The Argentine tango isn’t here to play nicely with the other children. The Argentine tango is here to seduce your women, spill things on your rug, and sneak out your bedroom window in the middle...

Is there any time in your life when you do not feel the need for caffeine?””Sure. Sometimes I’m asleep.

I’m a cat. We aren’t required to make sense.

When you’re late in a fairy tale, people wind up dead. And not true-love’s-kiss, glass-coffin-nap-time dead. Really dead, the kind of dead you don’t recover from.

Hey!” I turned, crossing my arms and glaring. “I was talking to him!”Tybalt eyed me with amusement, which just made me glare harder. “No, you were inciting him to stab you with a toothpick. Again,...

But you’re so easy to sneak up on.” He crossed his arms, leaning back against the wall. “You should be honored that I bother, since there’s no challenge to it.””Right,” I said dryly.Tybalt has never...

When Rome burned, the emperor’s cats still expected to be fed on time.

Sure. If she gets mugged, she can just flute them to death.

Growing up in my family meant ambushes on your birthday, crossbows for Christmas, and games of dodge ball where the balls were occasionally rigged to explode. It also meant learning how to work your way...

Crazy gets all the knives.

October—You were sleeping so peacefully that I was loath to wake you. Duke Torquill, after demanding to know what I was doing in your apartment, has requested that I inform you of his intent to...

I’ve done tangos with men who thought my ass was a squeaky toy.

But that’s what family is, isn’t it? It’s traditions and trinkets that only matter when we hold them up against the mirrors of our lives, lending them meaning, lending them weight, until they become heavy...

The mythology warped and twisted back along itself until Buffy Summers, the girl who once railed against the unfairness of being Chosen, looked at a squadron of girls who were just like she’d been and...

Cats never listen. They’re dependable that way; when Rome burned, the emperor’s cats still expected to be fed on time.

The problem with people who say monsters don’t really exist is that they’re almost never saying it to the monsters.” —Alice Healy

Children’s games are stronger than you remember once you’ve grown up and left them behind. They’re always fair, and never kind.

I’ve never liked being looked at like I was a hero. I always wind up letting someone down. Sometimes I get lucky. Sometimes the only person who gets hurt is me.

Most cats don’t like water, and despite her pretensions of tigerhood, Julie was no different. Yes, tigers have stripes; so do tabbies. If you want to know the difference, try tossing one of each into...

I stared at her. “But she drugged us.””That is no longer news, dumbass. Are you going to ask why she drugged you?””Allright,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “Why?””Because, dear October, you’re the most passively suicidal...

Now let’s get out of here before the healthy ecosystem eats us.

I would love a sandwich,’ said Tybalt, with enough gravity to make it sound like a formal proclamation. Resolved: that we will have ham and cheese sandwiches.

Only an idiot would trust a Kelpie this close to the water. Getting on its back with the scent of the sea in the air would be a fast, painful means of suicide, and I’m...

In Tybalt’s case, it means bloody control of the local Court of Cats. He became their king by right of blood; he’s held the position by beating the crap out of anyone who tries to...

You’d challenge me and lose. You know it, I know it, but you’d still do it. Sometimes your sense of honor confuses the hell out of me.

I have never wanted to punch a highway in the face as badly as I do right now.

He said that he was sure you would be amendable to this course of action.” April paused, eyes widening, before she said indignantly, “I believe he may have lied to me!

You are covered in blood,” Tybalt said again, stressing the words harder this time. “It makes me tense.” There was a thud as the guard hit the floor, and Tybalt returned to my side.”Wow. You...

What happened? Did the prettiest little princess miss her carriage home?

If anything attacked us, we could just panic at it until it went away.

Call me a sucker for a man who had a great ass who knows how to bake a macaroni casserole and can tolerate six hours of Sesame Street a day.

If something happened to Gillian, I’d rip the world down to save her, even if she spat in my face when I did. That’s what parenthood means.

It’s not hard to marginalize people when they’ve already done it to themselves.

Let’s go commit senseless acts of science.

I really don’t think you should put your hand inside the manticore, dear. You don’t know where it’s been.”–Enid Healy

Wisconsin doesn’t look kindly on the weeks that slip in between the death of cold and the birth of warmth; Persephone may have left her husband, but she isn’t home yet, and this is one...

I watch him go, and wonder if being good isn’t its own punishment as much as it’s supposed to be its own reward.

Luna had told us not to drop the rose, not to leave the path. But we never dropped the rose – it was on me the whole time – and we didn’t leave the path,...

We hated each other so well and loved each other so badly…

We came here because no place would take us after our momma died. They all said go away, come back when you’re older, when you know better, when you’ve learned. Only no one wants to...

He’s going to be okay,” said Quentin. “He has to. He’s Tybalt. You’d be all weird and irritating if he wasn’t around.” “Weird and irritating?” I raised an eyebrow. “What gives you that idea?” Quentin...

Everyone thinks of them in terms of poisoned apples and glass coffins, and forgets that they represent girls who walked into dark forests and remade them into their own reflections.

Parthenogenesis means never having your mother tell you to stop doing that or you’ll go blind.

Humanity has always had a flair for guilt by association.

I squared my shoulders, trying to ignore the fact that I was standing in the apartment of the sea witch, wearing a fairy-tale prom gown, waiting for the attack of the mermaids.

Clichés are relatives of the fairy tale, and tropes aren’t bad; they go with the territory.