“He didn't look back or wave, although I watched. He just assumed Shaun was there, and would always be there.Humans take so much for granted.”

“I always assumed it owed more to the fact that he didn't like me.”

“Please go" he said. "Just take my money - take anything - and go"I didn't get why he wanted me to take something, but he seemed really worried about it. So I looked around, and he had a bowl of fruit on the side, so I grabbed an apple, 'cause I always get hungry after I've been drinking."I'll take this, okay?" Then I left him there, but I took the knives and I hid them in the hall cupboard, just in case.”

“It was just regular growing up, of course, the kind everyone does - but it still hurt him, I know, like the memory I have of the time he dropped me off at the train station when I was going back to Chicago. I could see him through the window of the train, but he couldn't see me through the tinted glass. I waved, trying to get his attention as he walked up and down the platform trying to figure out where I was sitting. From up in the train, he looked so small. If he'd seen me, he would have smiled and waved, but he didn't know I could see him, and the sadness on his face was exposed to me then. He looked lost. He stood there on the platform a long time, even after my train started pulling away, still trying to catch a glimpse of me waving back.”

“Although Mar would be quite pleased to be consort, Skjaldwulf didn't want to be wolfjarl.He wanted Isolfr, and he would take the damned job that went with it, if he could win it, if that was what it took.”

“He threw in the towel before we were tested. Maybe because he didn't want to be tested. Maybe because he assumed we would fail. Maybe because, at the time, he just didn't love me enough.”