"To Rowan!" said Scythe Goddard, holding his glass high.

"The scourge of the stiff-necked, and the shatterer of spines."

It was the most bitter glass Rowan had ever had to swallow.

"And now," said Goddard, "I do believe a party is in order." ...

The party that followed the Harvest Conclave was one for the record books, and no one was immune to Goddard's contagious energy. Even before guests started to arrive and the first of five DJs cranked up the music, Goddard threw his arms wide in the mansion's ornate living room as if he could reach from wall to wall, and said to no one in particular,

"I am in my element, and my element is hydrogen burning in the heart of the sun!"

It was so outrageous a thing to say, it even made Rowan laugh. "He's so full of crap," Scythe Rand whispered to Rowan, "but you gotta love it."

The front doors of the estate opened and in came strolling in Scythe Goddard’s junior scythe. It wasn’t surprising that you came in late. But scythe Goddard always noticed.