“I tossed it on a pile with the coat, my stiff-with-cold jeans and the expensive scrap of silk that had been wedged up my ass for the past half hour.”

“My sometimes friend, sometimes enemy, all the time pain in the ass.”

“I started to get up, but that hand tightened on my foot. I wanted to pace, needed to let off some of the nervous energy that kept me from eating half the time, kept me from sleeping. And just when I told myself I was being paranoid and everything would be fine, something tried to drown me in the goddamned bathtub.But I didn't get up. Because then I'd lose that bried, human connection. A connection that shouldn;t have been there, because Priktin wasn't the touchy-feely type. He touched me in training, when he had to, and grabbed me in the middle of crises. But I actually couldn't recall him ever touching me just ... because.”

“I felt rather than heard someone come up behind me and I didn’t have to wonder who. My vagina had just gotten a heartbeat.”

“My name is Cassie Palmer and I’ve cheated death more times than anyone has a right to expect. In the last two months, I’ve been shot, stabbed, beaten and blown up a few dozen times, and that doesn’t count all the magical ways I’ve almost been killed. I’d have been dead a long time ago if not for my friends, one of whom had just jumped off the cliff after me. I’d have been a lot more appreciative if he hadn’t pushed me first.”

“Pritkin gave me a little shake and I eyed him without favor. The only other occasions when I had been dragged back in time, the trip had been triggered by proximity to a person whose past was being threatened. I have to tell you,” I said frankly, “if someone is trying to mess with your conception or something, I’m not feeling a pressing need to intervene.”

“I looked up, but had to crane my head back, leaving the features above me wrong-side up. The clear green eyes were the same, and, unfortunately, so was the spiky blond hair. It didn’t look any better from this angle, I decided.”