“I will tell you the story of how we found ourselves in a realm where dreams are formed, destiny is chosen, and magic is as real as a handprint in the snow.”

“What frightens you?What makes the hair on your arms rise, your palms sweat, the breath catch in your chest like a wild thing caged?Is it the dark? A fleeting memory of a bedtime story, ghosts and goblins and witches hiding in the shadows? Is it the way the wind picks up just before a storm, the hint of wet in the air that makes you want to scurry home to the safety of your fire?Or is it something deeper, something much more frightening, a monster deep inside that you've glimpsed only in pieces, the vast unknown of your own soul where secrets gather with a terrible power, the dark inside?If you will listen I will tell you a story-one whose ghost cannot be banished by the comfort of a roaring fire, I will tell you the story of how we found ourselves in a realm where dreams are formed, destiny is chosen, and magic is as real as your handprint in the snow. I will tell you how we unlocked the Pandora's box of ourselves, tasted freedom, stained our souls with blood and choice, and unleashed a horror on the world that destroyed its dearest Order. These pages are a confession of all that has led to this cold, gray dawn. What will be now, I cannot say.Is your heart beating faster?Do the clouds seem to be gathering on the horizons?Does the skin on your neck feel stretched tight, waiting for a kiss you both fear and need?Will you be scared?Will you know the truth?Mary Dowd, April 7, 1871”

“Tell my brother to remember his heart in all things. That is where his honor and his destiny will be found. Tell him.”

“He said to tell you to remember your heart in all things, that it is where your honor and your destiny will be found. Does it mean anything to you?'It is something he would say from time to time-that the eye could be misled, but that the heart was true.”

“No person has ever held all the power. There must be a balance between chaos and order, dark and light. With the Temple magic bound to you, the realms are no longer in balance. The power could change you... and you could change the magic.”

“We sit and listen and are enthralled anew, for good stories, it seems, never lose their magic.”

“Why should we girls not have the same privileges as men? Why do we police ourselves so stringently- whittling each other down with cutting remarks or holding ourselves back from greatness with a harness woven of fear and shame and longing? If we do not deem ourselves worthy first, how shall we ever ask for more?”