I wanted it in the way you sometimes want to jump into very cold water, even though you know it won't feel good. I wanted to go numb. To see what it felt like to be someone else.

The treachery of demons is nothing compared to the betrayal of an angel.

I had only to remember that centuries before, men fell in battle for the daughter of Troy, that passions carried greater weight than decorum. It took so little to prove that human life and property are devastatingly temporary. All she had to do was lie down for a prince. They burned the city to the ground.

The things I had were mine and some of them were broken, but they were real. They were so very far from nothing.

That was the thing about being bereaved. People were overcome with sympathy. They did things for you without even considering whether or not it was the right thing to do.

The world is full of unused corners.

But what Davenport had been born into had taken so much from her, leaving her with just the wickedest and the worst. Her father had given her life, and then taken every scrap of joy or freedom, and even now that he was dead, all he had left her with was a deep, abiding hatred for what she was.