The more powerful you become, the more others will find ways to master you. They'll do it through those you love and those you hate. They will find the bit and the bridle that fits your mouth and will make you yield.

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

One night you will ask me for something I cannot give.

Poisonous jealousy thrummed through my veins.

You don't have to protect these people, Cassel." I am these people.

The funny thing about good people—people like Daneca—is that they really honestly don’t get the impulse toward evil. They have an incredibly hard time reconciling with the idea that a person who makes them smile can still be capable of terrible things. Which is why, although she’s accusing me of being a murderer, she seems more annoyed than actually worried about getting murdered. Daneca seems to persist in a belief that if I would just listen and understand how bad my bad choices are, I’d stop making them.

More and more I feel like the boy who cut off his nose to spite his face.