“She had come out tonight because she believed there had to be a present tense, somewhere, and she'd followed Gav and Barnesy because she'd hoped they knew where it was. Is. And they'd dragged her to yet another haunted house. Where was the now? In bloody America, probably, apart from the bit that Tucker lived in, or in bloody Tokyo. In any case, it was somewhere else. How could people who didn't live in bloody America or bloody Tokyo stand it, all that swimming around in the past imperfect?”

“She'd lost her fury, somewhere, as they'd talked. She didn't feel it anymore. She wished she did, because she preferred it to the emptiness that had settled in its place.”

“She'd said that revenge was not sweet, that it was bloody. She was wrong. It *was* sweet. For one fleeting, glorious moment you felt incredible satisfaction. Then it was gone, empty, and you had to go on living. The power high that filled me with her light had faded, and all I tasted now were bitter ashes.”

“She had always thought that she wanted someone to love her beyond all reason. Someone who would slay a regiment of knights to save her the slightest inconvenience. She'd been wrong. That sort of fool left nothing but a swath of bloody knights in his wake.”

“Two decades had passed, yet she still saw her parents' bloodied bodies in every shooting victim she treated.”

“The crimson leaf that blew past looked the twin of the one she'd picked up in the palace courtyard: a bloodied hand.”