Sublime

Lord Waxillium Ladrian.

That Thomas had worked for the Chronicle since 1976 was easily established, as was the fact that he’d published three brief novels since that date. Out of a sense of delicacy Carleton never mentioned that he owned all three of these, and found them elegant and elliptical, couched in prose that had the cadence of the King James Bible, and concerned

Mercy’s mother was sheathed in a violet dress and wore silver chains in her hair and around her neck, all set with amethysts. Her hair drifted like part of the shadows, and she tapped black lips with fingernails of purple crystal as she walked.

quiescent

conceit

tenuous

contrivance,

propriety.