Babel

might as well dazzle

choice but to stand out,

Inside, the heady wood-dust smell of freshly printed books was overwhelming. If tobacco smelled like this, Robin thought, he’d huff it every day.

A lie was not a lie if it was never uttered;

lie was not a lie if it was never uttered;

Robin learned quickly that the professor was a precise and reticent man

even his imagined vision of the shore faded away

and then a raw emptiness, as if a grappling hook had yanked his heart out of his body

Only he could determine the truth, because only he could communicate it to all

Yínfúlù, silver talismans.