Magic won't save us. The power it would take to conjure on such a scale, the tithe would destroy us. The only hope...is hope. You don't need tokens for it - it's in your heart or nowhere. And in your heart, child, it had been stronger than I have ever seen.

And they were quiet but their blood and nerves and butterflies were not—they were rampantly alive, rushing and thrumming in a wild and perfect melody, matched note for note.

My phone buzzes. It’s from Karou: a list of conversation openers that I won’t be needing. —a) Hi. I’m Zuzana. I’m actually a marionette brought to life by the Blue Fairy, and the only way I can gain a soul is if a human falls in love with me. Help a puppet out? —b) Hi. I’m Zuzana. The touch of my lips imparts immortality. Just sayin’. —c) Hi. I’m Zuzana. I think I might like you.

How could you tell if your instincts were just hope in disguise, and if your hope was really desperation parading as possibility?

Karou saw them with her human eyes, this army she had rendered more monstrous than ever nature had, and she knew what the world would see in them if they flew to fight the Dominion: demons, nightmares, evil. The sight of the seraphim would be heralded as a miracle. But chimaera? The apocalypse.

Take up a weapon and you become an instrument with as pure a purpose as the weapon itself: to find arteries and open them, limbs and sever them; to take what is alive and deliver it unto death.

The main thing I've learned is that we all have to learn to work with - and appreciate - the brain we've been given, and not waste time wishing things were easier.