“Names are just words. I know that. But learning that the last name I’d used all my life was fake…“So what should I call myself, then?” I asked. “Sophie Atherton? Sophie Brannick?” Both sounded weird and made me feel like I was wearing clothes that didn’t fit.Mom smiled and brushed my hair away from my face. “You can call yourself whatever you want.”“Okay. Sophie Awesome Sparkle-Princess it is.”
“All the magic in the world can’t simplify affairs of the heart.” (Sophie's dad)”
“By now, all three Brannick women—all four, if you counted Mom—were staring at me. Man, what had that piney-tasting stuff been? The Brannick version of Red Bull?”
“Cross.” His head popped up a few shelves over. “What?” “Check out the magic crap.” He shot me a look. “Oh, is that what we’re supposed to be doing? Because I’ve just been drawing hearts and our initials in the dirt.” Sophie + Archer”
“Do you know anything about the Brannicks?""Irish girls, red hair," I replied, remembering a picture of them from Mrs. Casnoff's "People Who Want to Kill Us All" lecture at Hex Hall last year. I also remembered Mrs. Casnoff saying that if the Brannicks and The Eye ever teamed up, we were screwed.”
“I expected him to do his usual thing of "Oh, Sophie, but that is impossible b/c of this big word, and that big word, and also this abstract concept.”