“It didn't occur to him that she might have chosen to remain this way. That where he saw reserve and loneliness, Cassandra saw self-preservation and the knowledge that it was safer when one had less to lose.”

“She saw Valentine's eyes as the sword hurtled toward her; it seemedlike eons, though it could only have been a split second. She saw that hecould stop the blow if he wanted. Saw that he knew it might well strike herif he didn't. Saw that he was going to do it anyway.”

“The collar represented something of big importance to her. He knew she saw it as losing who she was. He saw it as her trusting him enough to let him be in charge.”

“I saw Hunter when I woke up. I saw Hunter as I ate a bowl of cereal. I saw him in human sexuality, where he seemed to be trying to break a record for most innuendos in one hour. I saw him at work where he assaulted my email. I saw him every night at dinner. I saw him go to and from the bathroom. I saw him at our stupid meditations, where were as pointless as socks with sandals.I. Saw. Him. EVERYWHERE.”

“He thought about alone in Constantinople that time, having quarreled in Paris before he had gone out. He had whored the whole time and then, when that was over, and he had failed to kill his loneliness, but only made it worse, he had written her, the first one, the one who left him, a letter telling her how he had never been able to kill it . . . . How when he thought he saw her outside the Regence one time it made him go all faint and sick inside, and that he would follow a woman that looked like her in some way, along the Boulevard, afraid to see it was not she, afraid to lose the feeling it gave him. How every one he had slept with had only made him miss her more. How what she had done could never matter since he could never cure himself of loving her.”

“It was instinct that drove him to hibernate, not choice, but he would have chosen it at that moment anyway because he saw that blood had nothing to offer him but more of this, standing in the shadows, watching other people live.”