“But he is pretty. God, I hope he's not an asshole. Do you think there's any chance he's both non-orifice and single? I mean, seriously. What are the chances?”

“As long as you're alive, there's always a chance things will get better.""Or worse," said Liraz."Yes," he conceded. "Usually worse."Hazael cut in. "My sister, Sunshine, and my brother, Light. You two should rally the ranks. You'll have us killing ourselves by morning.”

“But Hazael only said, "I brought you a present."Liraz took the flower, looked at it, and then a Hazael, expressionless. And then she ate it. She chewed the flower and swallowed it."Hmm," said Hazael. "Not the usual response.""Oh, do you give flowers often?""Yes," he said. He probably did. Hazael had a way of enjoying life in spite of the many restrictions they lived under, being soldiers, and worse, being Misbegotten. "I hope it wasn't poisonous," he said lightly.Liraz just shrugged. "There are worse ways to die.”

“You mean he came to your school? The scandalous rodent-loaf!”

“James often wondered at the chain of flukes it must have taken to bring him through with his own life and limbs intact. Once he might have believed it to be the work of Providence but it seemed to him now that to thank God for his life would be to suggest God had shrugged off all the others flicked them away like cigarette butts by the thousands and that seemed like abominable conceit. James Dorsey took no credit for being alive. His higher power these days was Chance.”

“What can a soldier do when mercy is treason, and he is alone in it?”

“Magic?" Akiva had asked. "What bird does this come from, that its bone are made of magic?""Oh, it's not magic. The wishes don't really come true.""Then why do it?"She shrugged. "Hope? Hope can be a powerful force. Maybe there's no actual magic in it, but when you know what you hope for most and hold it like a light within you, you can make things happen, almost like magic.”