Ladies who were no better than they should be, whose dresses were too tight, too bright and too all the things Magnus liked most, lounged on velvet-covered benches along the walls.

Magnus's eyes gleamed. "He seems to like you. I saw him going for your hand out there like a squirrel diving for a peanut.

I know about parabatai,” said Magnus, an angry, dark undercurrent to his voice. “I’ve known parabatai so close they were almost the same person; do you know what happens, when one of them dies, to the one that’s left —?

He lifted the violin to his shoulder then, and raised the bow. And he played.

And we believe in his promises. Therefore you can never lose hope - hatikva - because if you keep hope alive, it will keep you alive.

If you love someone, you're not supposed to want them to come back. Better a peaceful sleep in the earth than the life of a zombie--not really dead but not really alive, either.

Do people ever climb the demon towers? Like, for any reason?" Aline looked up. "Climb the demon towers?" She laughed. "No, no one ever does that. It's totally illegal, for one thing, and besides, why would you want to?" Aline, Isabelle thought, did not have much imagination. She herself could think of lots of reasons why someone might want to climb the demon towers, if only to spit gum down on passerbys below.