“The humans were sitting cross-legged on the floor in a circle of soldiers, pointing at things and learning more Chimaera words: salt, rat, eat, which unfortunate combination led to Zuzana rejecting the meat on her plate."I think it's chicken," Mik said, taking a bite."I'm just saying there were a lot more rats around here earlier.""Circumstantial evidence." Mik took another bite and said, in passable Chimaera and to guffaws of laughter, "Salty delicious rat.""It's chicken," insisted one of the Shadows That Live. Karou wasn't sure which it was, but she was flapping her arms like wings, and even producing chicken bones to prove it.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“As for Ellai, she told her sister what had passed, and Nitid wept, and her tears fell to earth and became chimaera, children of regret...”

“Let's just get this out of the way so I can relax. Karou, your friends aren't going to eat us, are they?"No, Karou thought. They are not. She whispered back, "I don't think so. But try not to look delicious, okay?”

“Do you think it's over now, though? That he's through with me?""One way you could make sure," said Chiro. She was glib, jesting - surely - but her eyes were bright. "You could die," she said. "Resurrect ugly. He'd leave you alone then.”