So violent. You want to mug and tase everybody these days." "I do," Zuzana agreed. "I swear I hate more poeple every day. Everyone annoys me. If I'm like this now, what am I going to be like when I'm old?" "You'll be the mean old biddy who fires a BB gun at kids from her balcony." "Nah. BBs just rile 'em up. More like a crossbow. Or a bazooka.

If it's not chocolate, it's not breakfast.

...they cupped their wings around their happiness and called it a world, though they both knew it was not a world, only a hiding place, which is a very different thing.

Once upon a time, a little girl was raised by monsters. But angels burned the doorways to their world, and she was all alone.

That is your legend?" Akiva asked, incredulous. Madrigal had told him the story of the sun and Ellai while they flew. "That seraphim are the blood of a rapist sun?

Jael returned the lazy smile. "You're not my type." "Well, you're not anybody's type," said Hazael. "No, wait. I take it back. My sword says she'd like to know you better.

She had been innocent once, a little girl playing with feathers on the floor of a devil's lair. She wasn't innocent now, but she didn't know what to do about it. This was her life: magic and shame and secrets and teeth and a deep, nagging hollow at the center of herself where something was most certainly missing.