It was very bad if the council had resorted to recruiting men. By tradition men were our last line of defence, their physical strength bent towards the single and most important task of protecting our homes and children. This meant the council had decided that our only defence was to defeat the enemy, period. Anything else meant the end of Darre.

You are Insignificant. One of millions, neither special nor unique. I did not ask for this ignominy, and I resent the comparison. Fine. I don't you like you, either.

So here is why I write what I do: We all have futures. We all have pasts. We all have stories. And we all, every single one of us, no matter who we are and no matter what’s been taken from us or what poison we’ve internalized or how hard we’ve had to work to expel it – – we all get to dream.

And in that sliver of time, I felt the power around me coalesce, malice-hard and sharp as crystal. That this analogy occurred to me should have been a warning.

He was dead again when I got home that day. His corpse was in the kitchen, near the counter, where it appeared he'd been chopping vegetables when the urge to stab himself through the wrist had struck. I slipped on the blood coming in, which annoyed me because that meant it was all over the kitchen floor.

Determination could easily become obsession.

They live forever. But many of them are even more lonely and miserable than we are. Why do you think they bother with us? We teach them life's value.