“Farid had brought an invisible guest with him.Fear.”

“She had only to open a door, nothing but a door between the words,just large enough for her and Farid to pass through....”

“And there stood Basta with his foot already on another dead body, smiling. Why not? He had hit his target, and it was the target he had been aiming for all along: Dustfinger’s heart, his stupid heart. It broke in two as he held Farid in his arms, it simply broke in two, although he had taken such good care of it all these years.”

“This world,' she said. 'Do you really like it?'What a question! Farid never asked himself such things. He was glad to be with Dustfinger again and didn't mind where that was.It's a cruel world, don't you think?' Meggie went on. 'Mo often told me I forget how cruel it is too easily.'With his burned fingers, Farid stroke her fair hair. It shone even in the dark. 'They're all cruel,' he said. 'The world I come from, the world you come from, and this one, too. Maybe the people don't see the cruelty in your world right away, it's better hidden, but it's there all the same.”

“Ah,yes!That...Silvertongue!" Orpheus spoke the name in a disparaging tone, as if he couldn't believe that anyone really deserved it.Yes, that's what he's called. How do you know?" There was no mistaking Dustfinger's surprise. The hellhound snuffled at Farid's bare toes. Orpheus shrugged. "Sooner or later you get to hear of everyone who can breate life into letters on a page.”

“For a moment Dustfinger felt as if he had never been away- as if he had simply had a bad dream, and the memory of it had left a stale taste on his tongue,a shadow on his heart,nothing more.”

“The tent in which she first met him had smelled of blood, of the death she did not understand, and still she had thought of it all as a game. She had promised him the world. His flesh in the flesh of his enemies. And much too late had she realized what he had sown in her. Love. Worst of all poisons.”