The funny thing about fate? Despite everything you try to do, despite every effort to save yourself and everyone you cared about from imminent destruction in the best and most direct way possible, there are times when that most unhappy of threads of the Loom of Creation take you down a road you least expected.

I didn't realize Kismet had arrived until I felt her touch my arm, looking around in stunned disbelief, still filtering Isis's poison to the gathering through the power ...