“I wonder if she has figured out that I'll never love Linden, especially not in the way she does, and that he'll never love anyone the way he loves her. I wonder if she realizes, despite all her efforts to train me, that I can never take her place.”

“Linden just wants to protect her, is what I want to say. She's all he has. I left him. I'm at arms reach, but I've left him.”

“He needs to grieve," I tell her. "He'll come find us when he's ready.""Rose is never going to be dead," she says, too disheartened to sound bitter.”

“As I go, I hear her screaming my name, in a brutal, bloody way, like she's being murdered, which maybe she is. But slowly. It will take her six years to die.”

“I nod like I'm not at all unnerved by this new cold side to him. Not cruel like his father. Not warm like the husband who sought me out on quiet nights. Something in between. This Linden has never woven his fingers through mine, never chosen me from a line of weary Gathered girls, never said he loved me in a myriad of coloured lights. We are nothing to each other.”

“Before I can process what’s happening, Deirdre has opened her hands and Linden has taken the ring from her and slipped it onto my finger.“Rhine Ashby,” he says.“My wife.”

“This is the real Madame. I can see why she hides herself in accents and gems and exotic perfumes. I can see why she's grown to hate anything to do with love. She isn't evil or corrupt the way that Vaughn is. She's broken. Only broken.”