“The next day Georgia left for school before I even got to the breakfast table. From behind his newspaper, Papy asked tiredly, "Are you girls on World War Four now, or is it Five?”

“Five days a week, she came into my room at four in the morning, force-fed me breakfast, and proceeded to teach me my English lessons for three hours before I left for school and she went to work.”

“It didn't matter.Carson wasn’t the one for me. He wasn’t even the one for right now. My life would hopefully have its great love story but this wasn't it. It would happen in D.C. in the next four years or it would happen in Africa, if I ever got there, or in Sienna or, for all I knew, Kentucky or Timbuktu.Life was long.And people only really had great love affairs in high school in the movies. And maybe during world wars. But this was not a movie and not a war, even if it sometimes felt that way. It was only high school and it was almost over with anyway.”

“Before you know it, you'll be smiling at her across the breakfast table.""I don't smile," Cahill said, though he was having to fight his amusement."So you'll be scowling at her across the breakfast table. That isn't my point.”

“A cockroach stepped out from behind the ketchup, gave me a quick impassive once-over, decided that I was of the Brahmin faith, and walked earnestly across the table on errands of his own. Somebody had left a newspaper on the bench beside me, and I picked it up and swatted the cockroach, permitting his soul to transmigrate into the body of a quartermaster.”

“Russell?”“Yeah! You got my back now?” Russell asks in a sour tone, looking over the railing from the tower above. “’Cuz one of them freaky demon things almost ate me after y’all left!”“A Riser nearly ate you?” Reed asks with humor in his tone“Yeah, whatever—it’s not funny!” he calls down, sounding irritated. “Next time, I want Zee for my wingman.”“That is because I am the ultimate assassin,” Zephyr replies from behind Reed.”