As I dive between the legs of a big Gunnar, I see Mair wind up and slam her shockstick hard as she can between the V of another guy’s thighs. Falling, he makes a noise that I can’t say I’ve heard a human utter before, sort of like I imagine a puppy would sound being put through a juicer.

I imagine the ones we’ve lost as ghosts who prowl about the edges of the light, waiting for us to join them. Sometimes that’s terrifying, and sometimes it’s reassuring, a promise of homecoming.

Each love is unique. Special. Giving to one never takes away from another.

So I make no effort to hide my pain. I don’t ever put it all on display like this—but for today and all the rest of the days of the trial, I must. My every flinch, every flicker of pain, will be magnified a hundred times over, then dissected by the pundits and talking heads. But I’m told it’s necessary; the world needs to see me vulnerable and wounded. I cannot appear not to care or to lack remorse, but that removes a crucial component of my self- defense mechanism and leaves me bleeding for all the world to see. I suppose that’s rather the point.

He's earned a lifetime of peace and happiness, but some people never get what they deserve. That's why there are saints in gutters and sadists in palaces.

A divided heart offers a strange sensation.

A curve of silver hung amid the brighter specks; it looked to me like a curved dagger, pretty but deadly, as if it might slice the sky in two.