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“What were you thinking of just now?” he asked instead of answering my question. He walked over to the window, stood beside me and joined me looking out. We gazed across the Elbe River, marveling at the amazing and incredible beauty spread out before us in the glorious sunny early morning. Then he continued, “When we came and opened the door, your face was so intent on some sort of dream. Not a happy one I think,” it was a very gentle tone, the loving nuances. I saw the look of longing in his eyes and my heart skipped a crazy beat. I clasped my hand more firmly and gazed toward the view of the far line that marked the edge of the Elbe river of Hamburg Harbor. I was thinking about Hamburg,” I told him. “Thinking about the escape they seem to offer.” “Escape?” he asked. “I would have said a prison, rather.” “That, too. It’s a false escape of course. I was thinking about their dangers, too. “Go on,” he said. Then I put my fancy into words. “I suppose I used to love the feeling of shutting out the world, of drawing a line of that water in the harbor around me and letting all the achingly familiar scenes stay outside the line. I started to cry. “It’s been years, Adrian. I kept everything in my heart because that’s what all was left; everything, absolutely everything. It’s completely messed up and you have no idea, at all. I was left alone to mourn.”

“What were you thinking? You just met him. (Selena) I know. It’s so not like me, but I couldn’t help myself. It was just like that weird magnetic force that grabs me when I’m walking past the Frostbyte Café and makes me swerve in to get a triple scoop of Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey. The power of temptation was just too much, Selena. I couldn’t resist it. He was a Chunky Monkey container and all I could think was, ‘Someone give me a spoon.’ (Sunshine)”

“What were you thinking?" I demanded once we were moving to the music. I was trying to ignore his hands. "Do you know how much trouble you may have gotten me in?" Adrian grinned. "Nah. They all feel bad for you. You'll achieve martyrdom after dancing with a mean, wicked vampire. Job security with the Alchemists.”

“What were you wearing? Why did you go to his empty house alone? Did you drink any alcohol or take any drugs before going to Samael's house? Do you have a boyfriend? If so, are you serious with him? Are you sexually active? What did you eat that day? Who cooked for you? Who dropped you off at Samael's house? I was mentally prodded, poked and attacked with quickfire questions that made no sense to me. My mind couldn't begin to fathom why they needed to know those things about me. I was astounded by how different it was this time. The worst question they asked me was: are you sure you didn't imagine it considering your past? Like it was my fault. Like I had imagined the sexual assault I had undergone. Like I had just assumed that he was that kind of guy because of what the monster did to me. I was on the verge of throwing up throughout the entire trial. My mum and dad both sat silently watching, looking like they were ready to burst. This was serious they kept on telling me. Sam was over eighteen. I could be ruining his life right now if I was wrong.”

“What … what other species are still endangered?” asked Ponter. Mary shrugged a little. “Lots of kinds of birds. Giant tortoises, Panda bears. Sperm whales, Chim…” “Chim?” said Ponter. “What are---?” He tilted his head, perhaps listening to Hak providing its best guess at the word Mary had started to say. “Oh, no. No. Chimpanzees? But … these are our cousins. You hunt our cousins?” Mary felt all of two feet tall. How could she tell him that chimps were killed for food, that gorillas were murdered so their hands could be made into exotic ashtrays? “They are invaluable,” continued Ponter. “Surely you, as a geneticist, must know that. They are the only close living relatives we have; we can learn much about ourselves by studying them in wild, by examining their DNA.” “I know,” said Mary, softly. “I know.” Ponter looked at Reuben, then at Louise, and then at Mary, sizing them up, it seemed, as if he were seeing them—really seeing them—for the first time. “You kill with abandon,” he said. “You kill entire species. You even kill other primates.” He paused and looked from face to face again, as if giving them a chance to forestall what he was about to say, to come up with a logical explanation, a mitigating factor. But Mary said nothing, and neither did the other two, and so Ponter went on. “And, on this world, my kind is extinct.”

“What? What the fuck are you ‘just saying’?” I grit out, unable to stop my voice growing louder with each syllable. “You were a fucking journalist, Caro! You could have found me any time if you’d wanted to. It would have been so easy for you. So easy! I didn’t even know your last name. I was so desperate to find you that I even tried to see that prick of a husband of yours, but he slammed the door in my face and called my CO. I was on fucking punishment duties for weeks after that. But you didn’t give a shit, did you? It’s just lies. You just tell me what you think I want to hear. How can I ever trust you?”

“What - what was I doing the whole time?" So much for Alis's warning. Lucien let out a sharp breath, running a hand through his red hair. "He had you dance for him for most of the night. And when you weren't dancing, you were sitting in his lap." "What kind of dancing?" I pushed. "Not the kind you were doing with Tamlin on Solstice," Lucien said, and my face heated. From the murkiness of my memories of last night, I recalled the closeness of a certain pair of violet eyes - eyes that sparkled with mischief as they beheld me. "In front of everyone?" "Yes," Lucien replied - more gently than I'd heard him speak to me before.”

“What - what - what are you doing?" he demanded. "I am almost six hundred years old," Magnus claimed, and Ragnor snorted, since Magnus changed his age to suit himself every few weeks. Magnus swept on. "It does seem about time to learn a musical instrument." He flourished his new prize, a little stringed instrument that looked like a cousin of the lute that the lute was embarrassed to be related to. "It's called a charango. I am planning to become a charanguista!" "I wouldn't call that an instrument of music," Ragnor observed sourly. "An instrument of torture, perhaps." Magnus cradled the charango in his arms as if it were an easily offended baby. "It's a beautiful and very unique instrument! The sound box is made from an armadillo. Well, a dried armadillo shell." "That explains the sound you're making," said Ragnor. "Like a lost, hungry armadillo." "You are just jealous," Magnus remarked calmly. "Because you do not have the soul of a true artiste like myself." "Oh, I am positively green with envy," Ragnor snapped. "Come now, Ragnor. That's not fair," said Magnus. "You know I love it when you make jokes about your complexion." Magnus refused to be affected by Ragnor's cruel judgments. He regarded his fellow warlock with a lofty stare of superb indifference, raised his charango, and began to play again his defiant, beautiful tune. They both heard the staccato thump of frantically running feet from within the house, the swish of skirts, and then Catarina came rushing out into the courtyard. Her white hair was falling loose about her shoulders, and her face was the picture of alarm. "Magnus, Ragnor, I heard a cat making a most unearthly noise," she exclaimed. "From the sound of it, the poor creature must be direly sick. You have to help me find it!" Ragnor immediately collapsed with hysterical laughter on his windowsill. Magnus stared at Catarina for a moment, until he saw her lips twitch. "You are conspiring against me and my art," he declared. "You are a pack of conspirators." He began to play again. Catarina stopped him by putting a hand on his arm. "No, but seriously, Magnus," she said. "That noise is appalling." Magnus sighed. "Every warlock's a critic." "Why are you doing this?" "I have already explained myself to Ragnor. I wish to become proficient with a musical instrument. I have decided to devote myself to the art of the charanguista, and I wish to hear no more petty objections." "If we are all making lists of things we wish to hear no more . . . ," Ragnor murmured. Catarina, however, was smiling. "I see," she said. "Madam, you do not see." "I do. I see it all most clearly," Catarina assured him. "What is her name?" "I resent your implication," Magnus said. "There is no woman in the case. I am married to my music!" "Oh, all right," Catarina said. "What's his name, then?" His name was Imasu Morales, and he was gorgeous.”

“What white middle America loathes these days are poor and poorish people, especially the kind who look and sound like they just might live in a house trailer. They will swear on a stack of Lands' End catalogs that they are not bigots, but, human nature being what it is, we are all kicking someone else's dog around, whether we admit it or not.”

“What whites have rarely had to think about—because being the dominant group, we are so used to having our will done, with a little effort at least—is that maybe the point is not victory, however much we all wish to see justice attained and injustice routed. Maybe our redemption comes from the struggle itself. Maybe it is in the effort, the striving for equality and freedom that we become human.”

“What will a Hillary Clinton presidency look like? The answer by now seems obvious: It will look like her presidential campaign, which in turn looks increasingly like the first Clinton presidency. Which is to say, high-minded ideals, lowered execution, half truths, outright lies (and imaginary flights), take-no prisoners politics, some very good policy ideas, a presidential spouse given to wallowing in anger and self-pity, and a succession of aides and surrogates pushed under the bus when things don't go right. Which is to say, often.”

“What will always be possible is for someone to walk into a dark room and experience a film and connect to it. And that's why I make my films - for people to go and have that experience. That's really the whole dream for me, so that hasn't gone anywhere. What has gone somewhere is making the numbers add up on each side of it. And who knows? I've had all kinds of freak-outs. I got married recently, and my wife listened to me go off the other day on this fear that maybe our culture has just moved beyond art entirely. Maybe we don't need it anymore.”

“What will be interesting to see is whether or not we see from the [Donald Trump] administration initiatives on higher education for this work force, because if those kinds of training opportunities are not provided, then I do think this program begins to look like a defensive holding action, a rear-guard action, buying time for workers who might not otherwise find positions in the 21st century.”

“What will be required to increase the quality of life and health is a coming together of technology and values, based on a scientific guiding principle that people can agree on. Securing a healthy global future requires this guiding principle to preserve freedom of spirit yet be as provable as the laws of physics. A guiding principle that addresses the meaning of life and is compelling enough to generate social cohesion and behaviors that serve the greater whole. After thirty years of investigation and research, it has become clear to me that the answer lies within the human heart.”

“What will be the judgment a century hence concerning the lorded works of our favorite composers today? Inasmuch as nearly everything is subject to the changes of time, and - more's the pity- the fashions of time, only that which is good and true will endure like a rock and no wanton hand will ever venture to defile it. Then, let every man do that which is right, strive with all his might towards the goal which can never be obtained, develop to the last breath the gifts with which the gracious Creator has endowed him, and never cease to learn. For life is short, art eternal.”

“What will be the reward for all this discomfort?" I asked after a particularly bad night of loneliness and restlessness. "Can you live without knowing the answer to that question? Can you just walk through these steps and work without any promise of reward? Can you trust that more will be revealed? Can you take the risk of not knowing what your future will look like? Do you have the courage for that?”