“Nothing made you feel so useless as another person's grief.”

“Just then, lit only by the flicker of his wings,the sight of him was so..right somehow. He was right. It made no sense at all, but the feeling flooded through Karou”

“...Your body is nothing but an envelope, Karou. Your soul is another matter, and is not, as far as I know, in any immediate danger." "An envelope?" She didn't like to think of her body as an envelope--something others might be able to open up and rifle through, remove things from like so many clipped coupons. "I assumed you felt the same way," he'd said. "The way you scribble on it." Brimstone didn't approve of her tattoos, which was funny, since he was responsible for her first, the eyes on her palms.”

“Yearning for love made her feel like a cat that was always twining around ankles, meowing Pet me, pet me, look at me, love me.”

“He was right. It made no sense at all, but the feeling flooded through Karou, and whatever it was, it was as sweet as a patch of sun on a glossy floor and, like a cat, she just wanted to curl up in it.”

“In moments Akiva was up in the ether, scarcely feeling the sting of ice crystals in the thin air. He let his glamour fall away, and his wings were like sheets of fire sweeping the black of the heavens. He moved at speed, onward toward another human city to find another doorway bitter with the devil's magic, and after that another, until all bore the black handprint....Once all the doors were marked, the end would begin. And it would begin with fire.”

“She had said she didn’t feel fear, but it was a lie; this was her fear: being left alone. Because of one thing she was certain, and it was that she could never love, not like that. Trust a stranger with her flesh? The closeness, the quiet. She couldn’t imagine it. Breathing someone else’s breath as they breathed yours, touching someone, opening for them? The vulnerability of it made her flush. It would mean submission, letting down her guard, and she wouldn’t. Ever. Just the thought made her feel small and weak as a child...”