“He waved his bloody finger in a sort of thank-you.”

“He let her do it, then looked around for his fingers. There they were, curled like a bloody quotation mark on the lead. He laughed.”

“Goodfellow snickered."Wouldn't be any fun if we didn't run into some sort of catastrophe." Pulling his dagger ,he waved me on."After you,your highness.Puck to Ash”

“And after his unparsable response, including a passage where he said he was 'blurring the boundaries between a thing and thought,' she said, 'Thank you, I get lost sometimes,' while laying two fingers on his folded arm.”

“Is that from the fight or the window?”“The window,” he answered, frowning at my bloodied nails.“You saved my life, you know.”His eyebrows pulled together. “I wasn’t leaving without you.”“I knew you’d come,” I smiled, squeezing his fingers between mine.”

“Safeguard your weaknesses, for your enemy will always use them against you. But more importantly …” He raised a single bony finger, waving it rhythmically to the cadence of his words. “Safeguard your true strengths. If he knows not what you are capable of, he will always underestimate you.” He fixed his unflinching eyes on mine. “And you are not to be underestimated.”