Of loss and love... Chapter 8 is up.

Here's a little teaser:

 “Anders.” 

He raised his head, surprised, and looked at her, the lines of concentration on his face dissolving as his eyes focused on her face; she could see a barely contained hunger in them. 

“Hawke…” he said softly and let her name hang in the air between them; the multiple undercurrents in his voice made it hard for Hawke to guess what he was thinking.

“Hi.”

“You come alone?” he asked her, his eyes searching behind her for someone else.

“Uh… yes,” she replied, puzzled by his question. “I just came by to see if you want to help me out with a job. If you’re not busy, that is-”

“I’ll help,” he answered almost before she finished talking.

“A…alright, then. Great! Varric and Aveline are already waiting for us.”

He raised an eyebrow, “…Not Sebastian?”

Her heart winced at the mention of his name and even though there was nothing in Anders’s clinic that could possibly remind her of Sebastian, his face seemed to shape itself out of the walls, out of the very air, to haunt her. 

(Read more...) 

 To read the story from the beginning, click here.

The Cygnet and the Firebird...

I finished reading this book (by Patricia A. McKillip) a few days ago and I’m having a hard time letting it go. I can tell because days have passed and I still don’t have the heart to start a new book; I find myself holding on to the remnants of the story, of the characters that found a secret way into my bones when I wasn’t looking and now refuse to let me move on. Not yet, they seem to whisper, Let us settle down between your cells before you begin filling them with new worlds…

So I’m going to let them. I owe them that much.

Do you know the feeling when you start reading a new book before the membrane of the last one has had time to close behind you? You leave the previous book with ideas and themes—characters even—caught in the fibers of your clothes, and when you open the new book, they are still with you.

—	The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield