Yes.” She smiled, liking the word. “What I feel like right now—I’d compare it to waking from a dream and seeing the real world. It’s a beautiful place, but it also has darkness. If you try to eradicate that darkness, you also destroy the light.” Pain for the future of her people tightened her heart.

I'm the hunter," Elena reminded him. "I should go first." "Of course you may go first. When I am dead.

After they were both done, the pile of knives and guns on the coffee table looked like they’d cleaned out an armory. “I think we have a problem, Dmitri.

Mercy laughed. “You have to excuse them—boys suffer from an incurable disability.” “What?” “Testosterone.

Truth was a tool. It should never simply be said. No, it had to be bent, twisted, colored, until it became a weapon.

I shut up everything inside. Everything." Words ground out through clenched teeth. "I thought if I could hold it, just hold it, it would be fine. But it's not." "Why?" she asked. "Why are you losing control so badly?" The answer, when it came, broke Sascha's heart. "Hawke." It was an almost soundless whisper. "Oh, Sienna." She stroked her hand over the girl's hair, even as her mind worked at piercing speed. "Has it been cumulative?" Sienna nodded. "The second I met him, everything crumbled, my shields, my conditioning, everything!

To be a legend, you generally had to be dead.