crazy belt

The other day while shopping I stopped at TJ Maxx. I'm not a clothes shopper, but my sister turned me onto this place (I actually avoided it for many years as a youth because when I was probably about 12 there was an incident wherein a local store did something racist-- kicked out some black kids for being black, or something-- and my mother commented on it, and in my head I thought TJMaxx=racists without even knowing what the store was for. I guess that was over two decades ago, gulp, so it's probably not really relevant anymore? but it's true, I never went in because of that).
Anyway.
I forgot I bought myself a pile of cheap Steve Madden socks (I love Steve Madden shoes, but socks? Well, they're sort of thin and weird, and $4 for 5 pairs, so, there you go), a leopard-print blouse, and a crazy Guess belt all studded with fake gemstones.
So I'm wearing the belt today.

I really came here to share a snippet of dialogue from the book I'm reading. Rereading. I bought marthawells's City of Bones as an ebook, my first ever real live ebook purchase (after getting a free ebook copy of alex_beecroft's Witch's Boy and realizing ebooks are kind of the bomb) and read it. I'm on a quest to get through her back catalogue to keep myself from going crazy until her next book comes out. But her back catalogue is kind of scant, alas.
Yesterday someone asked about this book, incidentally, and asked if she'd ever considered a sequel. Yes, she'd written a proposal for a sequel. She summarized it, and I have never wanted to read a book so badly as I do that one. Ugh! But Tor was unenthusiastic about it, so she sold Death of the Necromancer to Avon instead and I'm glad she did, because I love Necromancer, but I weep inwardly for never seeing the Krismen Enclave.

Anyway. I tend to reread endlessly the juicy parts of books, the bits where there's action or high drama or manly stoicism or whatever else pushes my little buttons. And I miss rereading the witty banter parts. So here's one of my favorite snippets of witty banter in the book. Elen is a Warder, a representative of Imperial justice, kind of a secret agent really since they're kind of adversarial with the more mundane police force. Khat is the main character, a sarcastic semi-criminal outcast, Sagai his slightly more respectable partner, and Arad is a scholar who has just stumbled into their important heroic quest.

Elen said, “Yes. If we’re caught, go to the Master Warder and tell him everything that happened, everything we said.”
“About the traitor in his house,” Arad said gravely. “Will he believe me?”
“Just tell him what I said; he’ll know you’re speaking the truth. Please,” she added more softly. “I can’t do this with a clear conscience unless I know you’ll tell the Master Warder what happened.”
“Why is a clear conscience necessary?” Sagai asked, not helpfully. “All it takes is a confused sense of duty and a disregard for personal survival.”
“Elen will enjoy herself more with a clear conscience,” Khat told him. He asked her, “Are you done? Can we hurry?”
“Just be quiet,” Elen snapped.