“The Elders were closer to the Maker of All Things and should be deferred to whenever they made their will known.”

“Just as I’ve always known there are monsters in the world, monsters and things even more evil, I’ve always known that it is God who keeps evil at bay.”

“All change brings bad things and good things to replace the bad and good things that were before. It is natural to look back and say it was better before—but that does not make it true. Different is not worse. It is just different.”

“Apparently deciding Charles’s brief introduction wasn’t good enough, his brother reintroduced himself. “Dr. Samuel Cornick, elder brother and tormentor. Very nice to meet you, Anna—”

“To make great art, you had to expose your soul, and some things should be left safely in the dark.”

“Time was such an odd thing. One moment you could talk to someone, then suddenly, they were gone.”

“They staggered and stumbled, wounded but triumphant, singing the old Welsh folk song “Ar Lan y Môr.” And if there was something odd about returning from battle singing about lilies, rosemary, rocks, and—for some reason he’d never fathomed—eggs, of all things, by the sea, well, then the three of them made it sound pretty good and only he and Beauclaire knew Welsh.”