I am sorry,' he whispers. 'I am sorry I treated you so ill. I thought only to protect Duval.' 'It was not I who was poisoning him,' I say. 'No, but you had stolen his heart and I was afraid you would rip it from his chest when you left.

If he is smart, he will run. He is not.

It is a good thing I no longer have a heart, because if I did, it would surely break.

One heart cannot serve two masters.

You come to us well tempered, my child, and it is not in my nature to be sorry for it. It is a well tempered blade that is the strongest.

I am a handmaiden of Death. I walk in His dark shadow and do His bidding. Serving Him is my only purpose in this life.

I bear a deep red stain that runs from my left shoulder down to my right hip, a trail left by the herbwitch's poison that my mother used to try to expel me from her womb.