“Downstairs, Grandad's warning Barron about something. His voice swells, and I catch the words, "In my day we were feared. Now we're just afraid.”

“His eyes were on his heart, completely caught up in his work. 'Just something kicking around in my head. Reminds me of you. Fiery and sweet, all at the same time. A flame in the dark, lighting my way.' His voice... his words... I recognized one of his spirit-driven moments. It should've unnerved me, but there was something sensual about the way he spoke, something that made my breath catch. A flame in the dark.”

“It's that undefined something we're really afraid of-the flicker of movement we don't quite catch out of the corner of our eye, the bad dream we can't quite remember when we wake up, the sound of a door opening downstairs we thought we heard. And worst of all, the things we're not sure even happened, the things that we might just have imagined, that might mean we're going mad, all those nameless, nebulous things we can't quite put our finger on and can only guess at.”

“Two Windclan apprentices were wandering toward them. Fireheart twitched his ears to warn his friends they had an audience. "Oh, yes," meowed Ravenpaw, raising his voice. "We loners eat Clan apprentices whenever we can catch one.”

“We lose and lose, but we're still here. Shaking in place, afraid of doing something. I'm tired of settling for this because I don't know if something better exists. It has to. What point is there otherwise? I can do something about it now. And I will.”

“Sometimes, we are afraid of something because we're afraid of something else. ”