As long as you're alive, there's always a chance things will get better." "Or worse," said Liraz. "Yes," he conceded. "Usually worse." Hazael cut in. "My sister, Sunshine, and my brother, Light. You two should rally the ranks. You'll have us killing ourselves by morning.

He actually listened, rather than pretending to listen while waiting a suitable interval before it was his time to talk again.

Stars got tangled in her hair whenever she played in the sky.

Alas. I am not an option.

...wings—-vast shimmering wings, their reach so great they swept the walls on either side of the alley, each feather like the wind-tugged lick of a candle flame.

It was as if she had emitted a pulse of radiation that reached him even where he stood, and it bathed him and it burned him.

You could look out the window today, see the sky raining fire, and say that it has all been for nothing, everything we've ever done, because now we've lost. But folk were born and lived and knew friendship and music in this city, ugly as it is, and all across this land that we fought for. Some grew old, and others were less lucky. Many bore children and raised them, and had the pleasure of making them, too, and we gave them that for as long as we could. Who has ever done more, my friend?