If you are not careful, soon you will have men locking themselves in dungeons so that you can rescue them.

It is this kindness of his that unsettles me most. I can dodge a blow or block a knife. I am impervious to poison and know a dozen ways to escape a chokehold or garrote wire. But kindness? I do not know how to defend against that.

Jewels can be replaced, cousin. Independence, once lost, cannot.

We are all of us, gods and mortals, made up of many pieces, some of them broken, some of them scarred, but none of them the total sum of who we are.

You would throw away all that we have given you for a man’s love?” “Not a man’s love,” I say softly. “But Duval’s. And I would find a way to serve both my god and my heart. Surely He does not give us hearts so we may spend our lives ignoring them.

And so it is with us; we serve as handmaidens to Death. When we are guided by His will, killing is a sacrament.

Good intentions are only lies the weak tell themselves.