“Rapture cults had packed their suitcases and were massing together in great vigils, waiting for the end."All bogus," she'd told Zuzana. "Just a bunch of crackpots waiting for the Apocalypse.""Because, fun, right?" Zuzana rubbed her hands together in mock glee. "Oh, boy. The Apocalypse!""Right? I know. How much does your life have to suck to want the Apocalypse?”

“How much does your life have to suck to want the Apocalypse?”

“Nerves," Mik told Karou."Bad?""Terrible." Stepping up behind Zuzana, he bent down to enfold her in a spoon-hug. "Ferociously, dreadfully awful. She's unbearable. You take her. I've had enough."Zuzana batted at him, then squealed as he buried his face in the curve of her throat and made exaggerated kissing noises.”

“¿Hola? ¿Quién está ahí? Que se vuelva a poner Zuzana.¿Zuzana? Hay una tía ñoña al teléfono haciéndose pasar por ti…”

“oh, good, Pestilence is free," said Karou, heading towards the sculpture. Massive emperor and horse both wore gas masks, like every other statue in the place, and it had always put Karou in mind of the first horseman of the Apocalypse, Pestilence, sowing plaque with one outstretched arm.”

“Zuzana arched an eyebrow. She was a master of the eyebrow arch, and Karou envied her for it. Her own eyebrows did not function independently of each other, which handicapped her expressions of suspicion and disdain.”

“Karou saw them with her human eyes, this army she had rendered more monstrous than ever nature had, and she knew what the world would see in them if they flew to fight the Dominion: demons, nightmares, evil. The sight of the seraphim would be heralded as a miracle. But chimaera? The apocalypse.”