“There were a dozen reasons why she might refuse him. But they were all someone else’s reasons. Her mother’s, her peers’, society’s. She’d already left all those expectations behind.”

“No one else could see all the bodies she’d left behind, but they were there, looking at her. Or maybe that was just her, looking at herself, and not liking what she saw. Knowing she could never escape her own judging gaze.”

“She had her reasons. Not that they were the same as anybody else's reasons.”

“Commitment and family were important decisions, but so were matters of the heart. [Monique] might not know much about politics, but she knew she couldn’t command her heart to love. And she’d never be pressured into giving herself to Eero, not to appease her family or to strengthen her brother’s political position. She’d seen all she cared to of him and his power in the short week that he pursued her and that night he’d tried to bind their powers without her consent.”

“He loved her beyond all reason and didn't expect her to love him back. He was just waiting for her to wise up.”

“She fears him, and will always askWhat fated her to choose him;She meets in his engaging maskAll reasons to refuse him;But what she meets and what she fearsAre less than are the downward yearsDrawn slowly to the foamless weirsOf age, were she to lose him.”