“What was war really like? What vast crack had buried Jeff down in the mud, had sent Andy off with cattle? What had changed her best friend so much he could barely look at her now?”

“she was so much a personality and so little anything else that even staring straight at her he had no idea what she really looked like.”

“He had never been in love. He had not known what it would feel like. He understood what the term meant, but his life had not allowed for exploring its possibilities. There had been few he had really loved. His parents; Michael. That was it. And that was love of a different kind. Less intense, less hungry. What he felt for Simralin went so far beyond anything manageable that it shocked him. He could tell himself it was because he had found her beautiful in a way that transcended anything he had ever known. But his attraction to her was a response to so much more. To her self-confidence and way of speaking. To her smile and the quirky way she lifted one eyebrow when she was amused. To the way she carried herself. To the way she looked at him.”

“...the eldest who had the misfortune of being too beautiful and had a far off look in her eyes. Madame Cohen had seen what could happen to girls like that, they were picked off like fruit on a tree, devoured by blackbirds.”

“She had grown older. And he loved her more now than he had loved her when he understood her better, when she was the product of her parents. What she was now was what she herself had decided to become.”

“Take care of him, her father had charged her. She had thought - until he wakes. But she began to see what her father had trusted to her, and how very much Sasha needed someone he could trust-Someone as brave as her father, someone not afraid of him - no matter what.”