“She was never going to seek gainful employment again, that was for certain. She'd remain outside the public sector. She'd be an anarchist, she'd travel with jaguars. She was going to train herself to be totally irrational. She'd fall in love with a totally inappropriate person. She'd really work on it, but abandon would be involved as well. She'd have different names, a.k.a. Snake, a.k.a. Snow - no that was juvenile. She wanted to be extraordinary, to possess a savage glitter.”

“She'd survived the outside. She'd survived the Aether and cannibals and wolves. She knew how to love now, and how to let go. Whatever came next, she would survive it, too”

“But although she was with family and friends, she'd never felt more alone. She felt as if she'd lost a vital part of herself and she had - her heart.”

“She'd become a governess. It was one of the few jobs a known lady could do.And she'd taken to it well. She'd sworn that if she did indeed ever findherself dancing on rooftops with chimney sweeps she'd beat herself to death with her own umbrella.”

“She'd assumed she'd be married and have kids by this age, that she would be grooming her own daughter for this, as her friends were doing. She wanted it so much she would dream about it sometimes, and then she would wake up with the skin at her wrists and neck red from the scratchy lace of the wedding gown she'd dreamed of wearing. But she'd never felt anything for the men she'd dated, nothing beyond her own desperation. And her desire to marry wasn't strong enough, would never be strong enough, to allow her to marry a man she didn't love.”

“It was the first time she'd discovered something she really didn't want to find, and she didn't know what to do once she'd found it.”