“...something was starting to take shape, out of magic and will. Smoke and bone.”

“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.”

“Hope is the real magic, child.”

“Magic won't save us. The power it would take to conjure on such a scale, the tithe would destroy us. The only hope...is hope. You don't need tokens for it- it's in your heart or nowhere. And in your heart, child, it had been stronger than I have ever seen.”

“Like attracts like, beauty finds beauty, and freaks look on from the smoking section, aching.”

“...magic was ugly—-a hard bargain with the universe, a calculus of pain.”

“She had been innocent once, a little girl playing with feathers on the floor of a devil's lair. She wasn't innocent now, but she didn't know what to do about it. This was her life: magic and shame and secrets and teeth and a deep, nagging hollow at the center of herself where something was most certainly missing.”