“Shut up, butcher," snapped Aliah. 'We know what you are.”

“I felt something fall away inside. Some floor, and from beneath it boiled up something dark, black and bitter, craving vengeance.”

“Time passed, unknowable amounts and I had no sense for it. There was just the blanket and grass, the cold of rain and the heat of Lilly like a small sun beside me, and we lay there until the clouds left and the SimStars reappeared.”

“A hand closed over my wrist. I looked over, and there was Lilly, cast in moonlight and blue, hair snaking around her, a siren calling to me: 'come on.”

“History is always written to serve the powerful.”

“The night felt like it had gone by so fast, yet every second of it was bright and burned into my mind, and I felt sure I would never forget any of it, almost like I'd left some part of me back there on that island, a piece carved out that wouldn't travel into whatever came next. It would just stay behind, living that night over and over.”

“Numbers are outlaws--bandits. They make rules in your mind.”