“In the Sapient tongue he said softly, ‘Tellme, Master, did you know Incarceron was tiny?’‘Is it?’ Sapphique replied in the same language, his greeneyes as he looked up lit by deep points of flame. ‘To you,perhaps. Not to its Prisoners. Every prison is a universe forits inmates. And think, Jared Sapiens. Might not the Realmalso be tiny, swinging from the watchchain of some being ina world even vaster?”

“Once Incarceron became a dragon, and a Prisoner crawled into his lair. They made a wager. They would ask each other riddles, and the one who could not answer would lose. It it was the man, he would give his life. The Prison offered a secret way of Escape. But even as the man agreed, he felt its hidden laughter.They played for a year and a day. The lights stayed dark. The dead were not removed. Food was not provided. The Prison ignored the cries of its inmates.Sapphique was the man. He had one riddle left. He said, "What is the Key that unlocks the heart?"For a day Incarceron thought. For two days. For three. Then it said, "If I ever knew the answer, I have forgotten it."--Sapphique in the Tunnels of Madness”

“Sapphique strapped the wings to his arms and flew, over oceans and plains, over glass cities and mountains of gold. Animals fled; people pointed up. He flew so far, he saw the sky above him and the sky said, "Turn back, my son, for you have climbed too high." Sapphique laughed, as he rarely did. "Not this time. This time I beat on you until you open."But Incarceron was angered, and struck him down.”

“Rix stroked the Glove. "There was a garden and a tree grew there with golden apples and if you ate one of them, you knew everything. And then Sapphique climbed over the fense and killed the many-headed monster and picked the apple, because he wanted to know, you see. He wanted to know how to Escape.""Right." She had wriggled back. She was close to his pocked face."And a snake came out of the grass and it said, 'Oh go on, eat the apple. I dare you.' And he stopped then with it to his mouth because he knew the snake was Incarceron."Keiro groaned. "Let me...""Put the Glove away, Rix. Or give it to me."His fingers caressed its dark scales. "And because if he ate it he would know how small he was. How much of a nothing he was. He would see himself as a speck in the vastness of the Prison.""So he didn't eat it, right?”

“I trust you, Jared," she whispered. "I always did. I love you, Master.”

“The Stars. Jared slept beneath them, uneasy in the rustling leaves. From the battlements Finn gazed up at them, seeing the impossible distances between galaxies and nebulae, and thinking they were not as wide as the distances between people. In the study Claudia sensed them, in the sparks and crackles on the screen. In the prison, Attia dreamt of them, She sat curled on the hard chair, Rix repacking his hidden pockets obsessively with coins and glass discs and hidden handkerchiefs. A single spark flickered deep in the coin Keiro spun and caught, spun and caught.”

“Walls have ears.Doors have eyes.Trees have voices.Beasts tell lies.Beware the rain.Beware the snow.Beware the manYou think you know.-Songs of Sapphique”