“There was nothing she could say to them--nothing would be heard or answered. What were the weapons, she thought, in a realm where reason was not a weapon any longer? It was a realm she could not enter.”

“Kenric grabbed her arms and pulled her closer, shaking her once. "I've told you it will make no difference! Why are you doing this?" "Because I love you," she whispered brokenly. Those were the words. Of any she could have said to him, those were the only ones that could crumble his defenses. He'd heard them too often in his mind, certain she would never think to use them as a weapon. They sliced through him as cleanly as the sharpest knife.”

“She had no illusions of becoming a master knife fighter. This wasn't the Realms, where a thought delivered result. But she also knew she'd giver herself a better chance. And in life, at least in her new life, chances were the best she could hope for. They were like her rocks. Imperfect& surprising & maybe better in the long run than certainties. Chances, she thought, were life.”

“Where else would she feel more comfortable than in this subterranean realm where people wrote down what they couldn't say, where they gave voice to their most shameful longings and knowledge?”

“Eve followed him into the building. No one would dare frisk her, and she entered Beckett’s inner sanctum fully armed—not that she needed her weapons.”

“She remembered lying in the crevasse, buried by snow. She thought of that perfect silence. Also now, like then, no one knew where she was. This time too, no one would come. But she no longer expected them to. She smiled at the clear sky. With a little effort, she could get up by herself.”