It's funny how you can forget everything except people loving you. Maybe that's why humans find it so hard getting over love affairs. It's not the pain they're getting over, it's the love.

There's not much you need to know about the world. Except how to use a sword and trust very few.

As I walk back to the school on my own, I realise I'm crying. So I go back to the stories I've read about the five and I try to make sense of their lives because in making sense of theirs, I may understand mine.

One of Sir Topher's rules was to never indulge in sentimentality, never return for what was left behind.

I heard your song the moment we were born. And years later, it dragged me back from the lake of the half-dead when all I wanted to do was die. Each time someone tried to kill me, it sang its tune and gave me hope.

You said to me once that you weren’t what I dreamed of. You were right. You surpass everything I dreamed of. Even the rot in you that’s caused you to do shameful things. Some men let the rot and guilt fester into something ugly beyond words. Few men can turn it into worth and substance. If you’re gods’ blessed for no other reason, it’s for that.

And then their voices stopped and their souls stood still and they ceased being who they had been. Because who they were had always been determined by him.