“She's been conned, ruined, left for dead, and she's not going to forgive any of it. She will soldier on, if only out of spite.”

“She looked resentfully at Mr. Cann. It would, she was sure, have been difficult enough to persuade him, in spite of his protestations, to leave the house alive. Dead, he was going to be far more trouble.”

“No, she wasn't going to go to Martin's, curse him, but she wasn't going to run back to her room either, if just to spite Mr. Nobley. The man deserved to be spited. Or spitted. Or both.”

“She was real and she was dead. And she was out there somewhere.”

“And yet she could not forgive herself. Even as an adult, she wished only that she could go back and change things: the ungainly things she’d worn, the insecurity she’d felt, all the innocent mistakes she made.”

“It was one of those idiotic things that could've been resolved in a split second. Tara had no right to touch Raphael, and once she did he had every right to punch her. She should've left it at that, and now she was dead because she didn't.”