“You faced him down like a seasoned warrior," he [Hector] says. "Only because I had your daggers at my back.”

“You would have made a fine warrior, you know that?"I am one. Death is my enemy."Yeah, it is, isn't it." God, it made such sense that he'd bonded with her. She was a fighter… like him. "Your scalpel's your dagger."Yup.”

“Sadie?""What?""You with me?"I blinked in confusion and said, "Yes." And I was, wasn't I? I was standing in his arms for goodness sake."This is Sadie?" Hector went on.I blinked again. "Yes.""My Sadie?" he kept at it.This time I blinked for a different reason.His Sadie? Was there a Hector's Sadie? Was I Hector's Sadie? Did Hector think I was his Sadie?Oh…my…God.Before I could process what he said or get close to processing what that meant, I watched him smile, then he bent his head and kissed my lips."Yeah," he said, his face an inch away. "It's my Sadie.”

“But you see, Crumb, it is hard to give up what you have worked at since you were a boy. There were some Italian visitors once, they were cheering us on, Brandon and myself, and they thought that Achilles and Hector had come back to life. So they said.'But which is which? One dragged through the dust by the other ...The king says, 'You turn your boy out beautifully. No nobleman could do more.''I don't want him to be Achilles,' he says, 'I only want him not to be flattened.”

“But if you can confront your inner demons—""I did confront my inner demon. I punched him in the face and he exploded."Valkyrie had to laugh. "But now he's back.""Of course he's back. He's resourceful. He is my inner demon, after all.”

“I say that I'm not into you like that, Camryn, because..," he pauses, searching my face, looking at my lips for a moment as if deciding whether or not he should kiss them again, "...because you're not the girl I could only sleep with once.”