“Great. I'd been dumped in Hell's waiting room.”

“The war mages might have been running a full-on offensive, but she'd been right there with them. She'd sent them screaming in terror. She'd imprisoned one like a bug under glass. She'd run one the hell down.Mom, I realized in shock, had been kind of a badass.”

“The most temptation I'd experienced had been with Tomas, the Senate's spy who had been feeding off me without permission, and Mircea, who was probably plotting some nefarious scheme. I have no taste in men.”

“Once upon a time, when I was a child reading fairy tales, I'd ached to have my own adventures. Not that I'd wanted to be some dippy heroine languishing in a tower, awaiting rescue. No, I'd wanted to be the knight, charging into battle against overwhelming odds, or the plucky country lass who gets taken on as an apprentice to a great wizard. As I got older, I'd found out the hard way that adventures are rarely anything like the books say. Half the time you are scared out of your mind, and the rest you're bored and your feet hurt. I was beginning to believe that maybe I wasn't the adventurous type.”

“To know Pritkin was to want to kill him, but so far I'd resisted temptation.”

“How the hell do you think I feel?" I don't want to end up inside a woman!" He paused. "Well, at least not that way”

“If I'd had enough breath, I would have screamed, both at the sensation and at the sheer pettiness of the bastard who wouldn't allow me even a tiny chance of escape.”