I want you and I hate wanting things and I especially hate admitting I want them.

whatever you love, that is your weakness

I'm afraid that whatever I touch is spoilt by the contact." "I'm not scared of being spoiled," Val said.

A girl like that, Grandad said, perfumes herself with ozone and metal filings.

You have to write a lot. And you have to rewrite what you wrote a lot more.

You both ... you both saved me?" "Come on," said Luis. "You make it sound like it was hard for Val to go to the Unseelie Court, strike a deal with Roiben, challenge Mabry to a duel, win back your heart, and then get back here during rush hour.

I can walk into someone's house, kiss their wife, sit down at their table, and eat their dinner. I can lift a passport at an airport, and in twenty minutes it will seem like it's mine. I can be a blackbird staring in the window. I can be a cat creeping along a ledge. I can go anywhere I want and do the worst things I can imagine, with nothing to ever connect me to those crimes. Today I look like me, but tomorrow I could look like you. I could be you.