“She had had a real fright but had fallen back to earth. The odd thing was that in her fall her fear too had been dashed down and broken. It was gone.”

“It had been too much for Edith to take and she had gone to her room so that her nieces wouldn't see her cry anymore.”

“Right now the nightmares were in her waking hours so she needed to stay asleep. She was broken. Shattered. Devastated. Crushed. There was nothing left of the woman she had been. She could see it in her eyes. When she was awake she had to acknowledge her brokenness. She had to admit to herself that she might never be fixed. It was too much to think about. Her boy had to come back and, until he did, she needed to stay in her dreams.”

“She had loved before, had been loved, had tasted what it was to dream, and had felt what it was to dance on air. She had also learned what it was to cruelly land back on the earth with a thud. Having to take care of her sister’s child had sent her love away and there had been no one since. She had learned not to lose control of her feelings again.”

“Somehow, she had grown into a woman in between the fall of kings and collapse of worlds. Once she had been terrified of change. Then she had been terrified of losing Elend. Now her fears were more nebulous - worries of what would come after she was gone, worries of what would happen to the people of the empire if she failed.”

“Grief she could not feel, for there had been too much bitterness between her mother and herself to leave in her heart any deep feeling of affection; and looking back on the girl she had been she knew that it was her mother who had made her what she was.”