I don't say anything and he casually leans against my desk, picking up the novel that's sitting there. "It's bullshit," he tells me, flicking through it. "There's no such thing as Atticus Finch." I shrug. "It'd be nice if there was, though.

All I need to understand is the unwritten law of warriors," he said firmly. "And women and children are never sent to do our work without our protection." He pointed to the trees, emphatically. "That's the language I share with them.

In the end, the sum of my vices is all me.

It's too late. Seventeen-year-olds don't need fathers. Oh god. I'm thirty-four years old and I need a father. I can't even begin to think what my daughter needs.

She gently placed his hand against the beating pulse of her heart. Always, always it beat out of control, and he held his hand to it until he felt it perfectly match his.

I'll run one day. Run for my life. To be free and think for myself...I'll run to be emancipated.

Balthazar pledged to die defending his royal house of Lumuatere. Finnikin swore to be their protector and guide for as long as he lived. Lucian vowed he would be the light whom they traveled toward in times of need.