“[Nicodemus] 'Magistra DeVega, can I ask for your help?'[DeVega] 'You can ask,' she said with her usual calmness, 'but the clerics haven't developed a cure for death by idiotic leadership.”

“You spoke to Nicodemus?' Vivian asked.[Francesca] 'We did.'V: 'And he trusts you?'F: 'As much as one might after a first impression involving hatchets.”

“Magistra, if you save my student, I don't care a snap what you say about my heart.She snorted. "Typical of a man, caring only when an external organ is belittled.”

“[Francesca] 'You really are a few biscuits short of breakfast.'His eyebrows furrowed in confusion.'You're a few colors shy of a rainbow?' she offered. 'Not pulling a full wagon? Knitting with only one needle? All foam and no beer? Your cheese slid off the cracker? You couldn't pour water out of a boot with instructions on the heel?'[Nicodemus] 'All right. I get it.”

“All my life, I've been trying to fill an emptiness inside. But that emptiness...I've built myself around it. Filling it in would be like filling in the empty space within a cathedral.”

“That which is original creates a new origin. That which is original, by definition, must stray off the previously worn paths. It must wander; it must err.”

“Moistening her lips, she asked, "That's what this is all about? Bringing me here?" His hesitation was so slight she almost missed it. "It could be. Probably is, after all." "You still want to seduce me." "I want whatever you can give me," he murmured against her ear. "Where we go from here may depend on what I can give you.”