Home > Author > Amanda Downum
1 " A dozen cobras moved as one, shattering their bottles. Wine and glass sprayed the room. The snakes sprang for Isyllt's attacker with fangs unfolded. He screamed high and sharp as they uncoiled, long slick bodies whipping through the air. She wasn't sure if their venom could survive death and pickling, but it didn't seem to matter. After several bites, he curled on the floor, weeping and trying to bat the undead snakes away. "
― Amanda Downum , Kingdoms of Dust (The Necromancer Chronicles, #3)
2 " The daughter prays; the mother listens. "
― Amanda Downum , The Drowning City (The Necromancer Chronicles, #1)
3 " Jodiya's shoulders shook in a silent laugh. Slowly, she lowered her pistol.And flung the grenade she held in her other hand.The fuse kindled in midair, burning unnaturally fast. No chance to outrun the explosion.Instead, Isyllt caught it. She hissed at the pain in her left hand, at the precious fraction of fuse being consumed. As soon as iron touched her skin, he magic began to work. Rust bloomed across damp metal, corroding at preternatural speed. Within heartbeats the iron shell crumbled in her hands, black powder hissing to the ground. She turned her head just in time as the fuse caught the last of the gunpowder and sprayed her with sparks.Her hand twisted with the pain of it, but she bared her teeth at Jodiya. "Again?" "
4 " Isyllt moved carefully forward until her knees bumped stone. A bench, strewn with pillows of threadbare velvet and soft-worn brocade. The stone leeched warmth from her flesh as she sat. She tugged off her right glove, shaking her hand dry. Her breath was harsh and loud in the stillness. An icy draft heralded the vrykola's arrival, a presence that made the hair on Isyllt's nape prickle. She rose and bowed low, grateful not to stumble or crack her head on anything. Tenebris' laugh crawled over her skin, cold and slick as oil. "You sit so bravely in the dark." A match crackled and orange-gold light blossomed, brilliant enough to make Isyllt's eyes water. A candle flam quickened and acrid blue smoke coiled through the air. "Is that better? "
― Amanda Downum , The Bone Palace (The Necromancer Chronicles, #2)
5 " Azarné came to watch me play tonight," he said at last."Oh," she said, and marveled at her own wit. "I thought you preferred living women."His mouth quirked. "I do." Finally he looked at her and set the wine aside. She took the invitation and sat beside him again. "Even ones half-starved and pale as you." He dropped a kiss on her shoulder, but his heart wasn't in it. "But--""But she's beautiful anyway," she finished. "Do mice find cats beautiful before the kill? Or owls?""If mice have poets, I think they must. "
6 " They ate griddle cakes and mulled cider at the Black Holly tea shop across the plaza, and Isyllt explained about Forsythia's murder and the haematurge. "
7 " I imagine being a flock of birds for years was... taxing. "
8 " They sat in cold and silence for a moment while the blue light of dawn rose behind the curtains. She didn't say that's horrible, because he knew it was. She didn't say how could you? because she knew how he could. She didn't say I'm sorry because that didn't help anything."She's due her revenge," Isyllt said at last. "
9 " She turned from him, the shape of her shoulders a shutting door. "
10 " He remembered her wild moods from her first life; death had done nothing to settle them. Some physicians thought that her particular combination of mania, black despair, and violent temper was an illness, an imbalance of humors or aethers. But if it were a physical malady, shouldn't it have died with her first body? A defect of the soul, perhaps? Or was she simply so used to being mad that it had become habit? "
