“Her imagination painted Georgie twenty years later, sitting in leg irons before some Broken psychiatrist. "Well, you see, it all started with bubbles...”

“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. He had the two wards of the fucking Marshal of the fucking Southern Provinces in a stolen car. An entire continent away from where the two of them were supposed to be. In the Broken. Where they had beat up some Broken children. Well, if those children weren’t broken before, they were surely broken now. Fate, that broody, vicious, fickle bitch.”

“I almost had her."Curran nodded. "I heard. And you could've taken her, too."My voice came out flat. "Rub it in, why don't you."He grinned. "No time for that now, maybe later."I closed my eyes. There wouldn't be any later."Are you imagining me rubbing it in?" he asked.”

“Not only will you sleep with me, but you will say 'please.'"I stared at him, shocked. The smile widened. "You will say 'please' before and 'thank you' after." Nervous laughter bubbled up. "You've gone insane. All that peroxide in your hair finally did your brain in, Goldilocks.”

“How are you?""Perfectly fine," he said."Are your ribs broken?""Probably not. Cracked at most. We fought very carefully.""Did this settle anything?""It made me feel better," he said, sitting up. "Did you see me kick him in the kidneys?""I saw.”

“Georgie, stop trying to resurrect the shoes. They were never alive in the first place.”

“You'll lose.""What makes you so sure?""You have no discipline. All you do is tear down shit down. My father is a bastard, but at least he builds things. You turn cities into smoking ruins and blunder about like some hyper child, smashing anything you see. And then you sit here and wonder, 'Why did all of my children turn out to be violet idiots? It's a mystery of nature,'.”