“A basic moral imperative is in play here. If you can protect a child, you must.”

“Such lonely, lost things you find on your way. It would be easier, if you were the only one lost. But lost children always find each other, in the dark, in the cold. It is as though they are magnetized and can only attract their like. How I would like to lead you to brave, stalwart friends who would protect you and play games with dice and teach you delightful songs that have no sad endings. If you would only leave cages locked and turn away from unloved Wyverns, you could stay Heartless.”

“You have to be very specific when it comes to magic,” A-Through-L said sheepishly. “You must say things as carefully as you can. Magic is like a machine that only does exactly what you tell it to do. So you have to speak to it in a way it can understand. And magic only understands you if you spell it out slowly. And use small words. You didn’t tell the card which Prince or how quickly you wanted to go. For all we know this is the shortest path—or it thought you meant our fragrant friend here! Or perhaps the Alleyman is some sort of Prince, too. The word Prince is very open-ended. You can’t really trust anything that far down in the alphabet.”

“I am not a toy, September! Fairyland cannot just cast me aside when it’s finished playing with me! If this place could steal my life from me, well, I, too, can steal. I know how the world works—the real world. I brought it all back with me—taxes and customs and laws and the Greenlist. If they wanted to just drop me back in the human world, I can drop the human world into theirs, every bit of it. I punished them all! I bound down their wings and I set the lions on them if they squeaked about it. I made Fairyland nice for the children who come over the gears, I made it safe. I did it for every child before me who had a life here, who was happy here! Don’t you see, September? No one should have to go back. Not ever. We can fix this world, you and I. Uncouple the gears and save us both! Let this be a place where no one has to be dragged home, screaming, to a field full of tomatoes and a father’s fists!”

“She must protect herself. There would be no one to do it for her. A plan started to prick up its ears inside her, slowly, but getting stronger.”

“I can never remember my dreams," said the shadow of the Marquess quietly. "You must have had rich, tasty ones then. When you can't remember a dream, it's because a Baku ate it.”

“You wish to rule the Dreaming City; you must excel in all its ways. Play with me, a single game of Lo Shen. If you best me, I will go into seclusion as you ask, and you will ascend to the Tower without the slightest argument, and without battle. No one will contest you, and you will rule as well as you are able. If you lose, however, you must disband your army, and take the vows of one of our Towers, enter it as a novice, and pledge yourself to our City for the rest of your days. In the Anointed City, this is the way disputes are settled. If you would rule us, you must behave as one of us. Show me that you are the rightful Papess. Show me that you exceed us in all things."Ragnhild seemed to laugh, but no sound issued from her rosy mouth. Her eyes glittered like snowflakes catching the sun. "You cannot be serious. A single game to decide five hundred years of history?" "Were it not that once my predecessor harmed you, I would simply kill you where you stand.”