Holly Black

“Kaye took another drag on her cigarette and dropped it into her mother's beer bottle. She figured that would be a good test for how drunk Ellen was--see if she would swallow a butt whole”

“Nevermore," Lolli said. "That's what Luis calls it, because there are three rules: Never more than once a day, never more than a pinch at a time, and never more than two days in a row.”

“It's starting to sink in," Corny said. "I can almost look at you without wanting to bang my head against the wall.”

“She sat in the dew-damp grass and ripped up clumps of it, tossing them in the air and feeling vaguely guilty about it. Some gnome ought to pop out of the tree and scold her for torturing the lawn.”

“I'm the best kind of thief, the kind that leaves behind items equal in value to those he's stolen.”

“La ausencia aminora las pequeñas pasiones y agranda las grandes.”

“A girl like that, Grandad said, perfumes herself with ozone and metal filings.”

“This is never going to be over,” I shout. “Someone will always be after me. There’s always consequences. Well, BRING IT. I am done with being afraid, and I am done with you.”

“She looks honestly upset, but then, I’ve learned that I can’t read her. The problem with a really excellent liar is that you have to just assume they’re always lying.”

“I did it to get what I want. Maybe I should regret that, but I can’t. Sometimes you do the bad thing and hope for the good result.”

“Would you?” Mom smiles and touches my hair, pushing it back from my forehead. I let her, but I grit my teeth. Her bare fingers brush my skin. I am thankful when none of my amulets crack. “Do you know what the Turkish say about coffee? It should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love. Isn’t that beautiful? My grandfather told me that when I was a little girl, and I never forgot it. Unfortunately, I still like my milk.”

“There’s something about her—Cassel, I have met many evil men and women in my life. I have made deals with them, drank with them. I have done things that I myself have difficulty reconciling—terrible things. But I have never known anyone like your mother. She is a person without limits—or if she has any, she hasn’t found them yet. She never needs to reconcile anything.”

“You really dug your own grave,” he mutters. “And I’m going to bury you in it.” “Say that louder,” I tell him, under my breath. “I dare you.”

“At the end of a criminal’s life, it’s always the small mistake, the coincidence, the lark. The time we got too comfortable, the time we slipped up, the time someone aimed a little to the left. I’ve heard Grandad’s war stories a thousand times. How they finally got Mo. How Mandy almost got away. How Charlie fell. Birth to grave, we know it’ll be us one day. Our tragedy is that we forget it might be someone else first.”

“Some promises aren’t worth keeping.”

“She was the epic crush of my childhood. She was the tragedy that made me look inside myself and see my corrupt heart. She was my sin and my salvation, come back from the grave to change me forever. Again. Back then, when she sat on my bed and told me she loved me, I wanted her as much as I have ever wanted anything.”

“Refills are free,” the waitress tells us with a frown, like she’s hoping we’re not the kind of people who ask for endless refills. I am already pretty sure we are exactly those people.”

“He runs to the sink to spit it out. I grin. There’s nothing quite as funny as someone else’s misery.”

“The problem with cell phones is that you can’t slam them down into a cradle when you hang up. Your only option is to throw them, and if you do, they just skitter across the floor and crack their case. It’s not satisfying at all. I close my eyes and bend down to pick up the pieces.”

“I think Bob appreciated my outfit. He made me buy the more expensive pendant. You might think that was to my disadvantage, but I accept that status comes with a price.” “Not usually so immediately.” I shake my head. “You better not be hitting on federal agent ladies. They’ll arrest you.” His grin widens. “I like handcuffs.” I groan. “There is something seriously wrong with you.” “Nothing that a night being worked over by a hot representative of justice couldn’t fix.”

“You want me to say something? Okay. Sometimes I think I am what you made me. And sometimes I don’t know who I am at all. And either way I’m not happy.”

“You have a skill. You can do something no one else can,” Barron says. “Seriously. You know what’s good about that? It’s valuable. As in you can trade it for goods or services. Or money. Remember when I said it was wasted on you? I was so right.”

“She wants me to take out Patton.” Barron’s brows draw together. “Take out? As in transform him?” “No,” I say. “As in take out to dinner. She thinks we’d make a good couple.”

“It makes you a different person, to not have a past. It eats away at who you are, until what’s left is all construct, all artifice.”

“We’re all dying, Cassel. It’s just that some of us are dying faster than others.”

“You got a lot of ladies to get through. You’re still young. First love’s the sweetest, but it doesn’t last.” “Not ever?” I ask. Grandad looks at me with a seriousness he reserves for moments when he wants me to really pay attention. “When we fall that first time, we’re not really in love with the girl. We’re in love with being in love. We’ve got no idea what she’s really about—or what she’s capable of. We’re in love with our idea of her and of who we become around her. We’re idiots.”

“She sits up. I can’t read her expression, but her cheeks look a little pink. “I didn’t think you were going to be here.” “I live here.”

“God, I hate you,” she says. “So much. Why do boys think that it will be better to lie and tell a girl how much they loved her and how they only dumped her for her own good? That they only tried to rearrange her brain for her own good? Does it make you feel better, Cassel? Does it? Because from my perspective, it really sucks.”

“Don’t.” She looks directly into my eyes. After a month of being forced to avoid her, I feel stripped bare by her gaze. “You can be as much of a charming bastard as you want, but you’re never going to bullshit your way into my heart again.”

“More and more I feel like the boy who cut off his nose to spite his face.”

“The funny thing about good people—people like Daneca—is that they really honestly don’t get the impulse toward evil. They have an incredibly hard time reconciling with the idea that a person who makes them smile can still be capable of terrible things. Which is why, although she’s accusing me of being a murderer, she seems more annoyed than actually worried about getting murdered. Daneca seems to persist in a belief that if I would just listen and understand how bad my bad choices are, I’d stop making them.”

“Mirroring behavior. When a mark takes a drink from his water glass, so should you. When he smiles, so should you. Keep it subtle, rather than creepy, and it’s a good technique.”

“What other stuff do they teach you at federal agent school?” I ask. It shouldn’t bother me that he’s fitting in so well. So what if he’s faking it? Good for him. I guess what bothers me is him faking it better than I am.”

“I can’t help feeling a little bit competitive and a little bit disappointed in myself that I’m already so far behind. After all, Yulikova thinks Barron has a real future with the Bureau. She told me so. I told her that sociopaths are relentlessly charming. I think she figured I was joking.”

“Feels almost like real agent work, doesn’t it?” Barron says as we walk down the street, heads bowed against the wind. “You know, if we caught your girlfriend committing a crime, I bet Yulikova would give us a bonus or something for being prize pupils.” “Except that we’re not going to do that,” I say. “I thought you wanted us to be good guys.” He grins a too-wide grin. He’s enjoying needling me, and my reacting only makes it worse, but I can’t stop. “Not if it means hurting her,” I say, my voice as deadly as I can make it. “Never her.” “Got it. Hurting, bad. But how do you excuse stalking her and her friends, little brother?” “I’m not excusing it,” I say. “I’m just doing it.”

“And Barron is probably right—we should give this up. Not for the reason he’s saying but for the one that’s implied. The one about it not being okay to lurk around outside buildings, spying on girls you like.”

“Mine. The language of love is like that, possessive. That should be the first warning that it's not going to encourage anyone's betterment.”

“Barron’s stuck teaching me. It’s supposed to be just for a few months, until I graduate from Wallingford. Let’s see if we can stand each other that long.”

“Boys never believe I can beat them, she told me back then. But I always win in the end.”

“No quiero ser esa persona, así que paso la mayor parte de mi tiempo en la escuela fingiendo y mintiendo. Se necesita un gran esfuerzo para fingir algo que no eres. No pienso en la música que me gusta, pienso en la música que debería gustarme. Cuando tuve una novia, traté de convencerla de que era el hombre que ella quería que fuera. Cuando estoy en una multitud, me quedo en la retaguardia hasta que pueda encontrar la manera de hacerlos reír. Por suerte, si hay una cosa que se me da bien, es fingir y mentir.”

“Girls like her, my grandfather once warned me, girls like her turn into women with eyes like bullet holes and mouths made of knives. They are always restless. They are always hungry. They are bad news. They will drink you down like a shot of whisky. Falling in love with them is like falling down a flight of stairs. What no one told me, with all those warnings, is that even after you’ve fallen, even after you know how painful it is, you’d still get in line to do it again.”

“That’s family for you. Can’t live with them, can’t murder them.”

“Love changes us, but we change how we love too.”

“Nobody ever really sees me the way I am, underneath everything. But she did. She does.”

“She wears trouble like a crown. If she ever falls in love, she’ll fall like a comet, burning the sky as she goes.”

“Ruthless. That’s my girl.”

“You're a pretty cool customer, huh?" says Agent Hunt. "I hide my inner pain under my stoic visage." Agent Hunt looks like he would like to put his fist through my stoic visage.”

“She put a hit on her boyfriend, so it's not like she hasn't murdered someone." "And you know that how?" Sam asks. I'm trying really hard to be honest, but telling the whole thing to Sam seems beyond me. Still, the fragments sound ridiculous on their own. "She said so. In the park." He rolls his eyes. "Because the two of you were so friendly." "I guess she mistook me for someone else." I sound so much like Philip that it scares me. I can hear the menace in my tone. "Who?" Sam asks, not flinching. I force my voice back to normal. "Uh, the person who killed him.”

“Philip Sharpe was a soldier in God's army," says the minister. "Now he marches with the angels.”

“He’s quiet then. We lie next to each other, twin corpses waiting for burial.”