“The thought sent a cold chill down my spine, but at the same time, I knew that I’d be able to handle anything Astrid, Loki, or the world could throw at me. After all, I was Hilda Overholt’s granddaughter, and just like her, I was made of pure fire.”

“I knew your father. I hated him.""That surprises me your Majesty." Loki smiled broadly at her. "My father was a stone-cold jerk. That sounds like your taste exactly.”

“Bryn?"Chase's voice was a whisper in my mind, and the sensation sent a single chill up my spine."Yes?""You asked me what I liked, before." He paused, and all the silence tickled my mind, the chill in my spine climbing its way to the hairs on the back of my neck. "Before, I loved cars, Yeats, having a bedroom that locked from the inside, and you.”

“At last the cold crept up my spine; at last it filled me from foot to head; at last I grew so chill and desolate that all thought and pain and awareness came to a standstill. I wasn't miserable anymore: I wasn't anything at all. I was a nothing-- a random configuration of molecules. If my heart still beat I didn't know it. I was aware of one thing only; next to the gaping fact called Death, all I knew was nothing, all I did meant nothing, all I felt conveyed nothing. This was no passing thought. It was a gnawing, palpable emptiness more real than the cold.”

“She could handle if he decided to throw her in the dungeons for a little while, too.Because somehow, the thought of him getting hurt- or worse- made her willing to rick just about anything.”

“I wish I knew why she never told me any of this. Maybe she thought I wouldn't be able to handle it, that I was too sheltered or too innocent or something. If she had told me why she cut herself all the time, or that it was the pills that made her act so spaced out, or that she was even on pills, or even saw doctors, or any of it, I would have done my best to help her. I'm not saying I'm a superhero. I'm not saying I would have just swooped down and saved her. I'm just saying the only reason everything was a waste was that she made it a waste. That whole time, back when I was just a normal kid in high school, living out my normal life, I really thought everything mattered.”