You shy, Francesca?” Javier asks me later on. I shake my head. “Not really.” I’m just sad, I want to say. And I’m lonely.

They separate us into groups. The Ringleaders and the Others. I belong to the Ringleaders because my weak, pathetic, traitorous, fundamentally base peers point to me when someone asks them who is in charge.

No chance. It'd be like cutting off our hands." "Then learn to live without your hands." "No, because then we won't be able to do this," Ben says, giving him the finger [...]

It is what a man does for strangers that counts more than what he does for his family.

She made a sound of regret. ‘We come second, you and I, Luc-ien,’ she said. ‘Our allegiance is always to our kingdoms. Without that allegiance, our people would fall.’ She placed her head back against his chest and he felt her tears. ‘This is not our time.’ ‘But that will never mean I love you less,’ he said.

Do you think I don't want him to be gone more than you do? I do. Because I need to know that I can still breathe properly when he's not around. If something happens to him, I have to know that I won't fall apart.

If something happened to me, whose face will be on the front page of the paper begging for me? Is a person worth more because they have someone to grieve for them?