“Age before beauty, Mr. MacRieve. If you think you can fit.""Only humans call me Mr. MacRieve.""I'm not a human. So would you like me to call you Bowen, or Bowe for short?""Bowe is what my friends call me, so you doona.""No problem. I have a slew of other more fitting names for you. Most of them end in er.""You in the tunnel first.""Don't you think it'd be unbecoming for me to be on my hands and knees in front of you? Besides, you don't need my lantern to see in the dark, and if you go first, you'll be sure to lose me and get to the prize first.""I doona like anything, or anyone, at my back. And you'll have your little red cloak on, so I will no' be able to see anything about you that might be... unbecoming.""Twisting my words? I'll have you know that I am criminally cute - ""Then why hide behind a cloak?""I'm not hiding. And I like to wear it. Fine. Beauty before age.”
“MacRieve, you're on my cloak. Let up -. Give it back!""It was slowing you - and therefore me - down.""If you had gone first - ""I dinna. If you want it, why no' use magick to take it from me?""You really do not want me to do that.""You really must no' want your cloak back. Come then, witchling, just take it from me.""Keep the cloak. It'll be worth money one day.""Doona fret, witch. You're no' so unbecoming from my angle. Bit scrawny where it counts, but no' too bad.""Scrawny where it counts, MacRieve? Funny, I'd heard the same about you.""No' likely. Maybe you're just too young to have heard the rumors about Lykae males. Tender wee ears and such.”
“Some people wouldn't see a traitor when they looked at me. Some people would see a survivor. Call me anything you like—I sleep fine at night. But you will look at me when you say it. Or I'll get so far in your face you'll be seeing me with your eyes closed. You'll be seeing me in your nightmares. I'll scorch myself on the backs of your eyelids. Get off my back and stay off it. I'm not the woman I used to be. If you want a war with me, you'll get one. Just try me. Give me an excuse to go play in that dark place inside my head.”
“You're so beautiful," said Alice. "I'm afraid of looking at you and not knowing who you are.""I think that even if you don't know who I am someday, you'll still know that I love you.""What if I see you, and I don't know that you're my daughter, and I don't know that you love me?""Then, I'll tell you that I do, and you'll believe me.”
“My friends call me by my name.""You don't have any friends.""I don't want you to be my friend, Selia, or my servant, not now. I thought you were both. You have let me know I was wrong. So are you to treat me so. You are wrong.”
“Montana," he said, dragging her against him."Montana, I'm so sorry. I was wrong. What I said, how I treated you." He drew back so he could see her face. "I love you. I have from the first. You're the best part of me. You are the light to my dark and without you, I'm blind. I'll give you anything, if only you'll stay with me.”