From the Bookshelf of The Folly Irregulars…

Lesley always said that I wasn’t suspicious enough to do the job properly, and tasered me in the back to drive the point home. So, yeah, I stay suspicious these days–even when I’m having tea with likable old buffers.

Because she lost her face, man. Because that had to be like having your identity ripped away. Because you’re looking in the mirror and a hideous stranger is staring back. And what would I do if I was her, if I was give that choice?–like there would even be a decision. And getting angry doesn’t bring back her face or unmake the choice that she made.

[…]

Thank god for aliens, I thought, muddying the water since 1947. I’d once asked Nightingale the same question and he’d answered ‘Not yet.’ So I suppose if they were to suddenly turn up they’d be part of our remit. But I hoped they didn’t turn up anytime soon. It’s not like we don’t have enough work to do already.

“Peter,” [Beverly] said, “some things you don’t talk about.”

“Not even to me?”

“Especially to the feds,” she said, “Double so the magic feds.”

“You said that there’s weird shit, but it normally turns out to have a rational explanation.” [said Dominic]

“It does,” said Beverly. “The explanation is a wizard did it.”

“That’s my line,” I said, and Beverly shrugged.

“You didn’t say anything about spells!” said Dominic.

“It’s just a werelight,” I said.

“So the moon affects magic, why?” [asked Dominic]

“I’m working on several theories,” I said. “But I’m currently favouring the hypothesis that the moon has a seemingly arbitrary effect on magic because it likes to piss me off.”

“That’s a theory with a high degree of applicability to other spheres of life,” he said.

“Yes, it is,” I said, and we spontaneously fist bumped.

My dad would have told me to take the breaks as you get them and not worry about where they come from. But my mum never saw a gift horse that she wouldn’t take down to the vet to have its mouth X-rayed – if only so she could establish its resale value.