“Is this really your idea of flirting?” he whispers.

“Mildly insulting you and watching you try to hide your annoyance? Actually, yeah.”

“Alchemists need to break themselves into pieces. They want to rebuild the world around them so desperately that they would give their blood, body, or soul. But people in power cannot fathom breaking a world that already bows to them.”

“Space travel is boring. As a commweb maintenance team, we’re used to it. A boring day is a good day. Boring is what we strive for. When things are exciting, someone is usually about to die in some new and horrible way.”

“Meet the new boss.”

“But that’s human thinking. He can stop whatever spells I attempt. He’ll show no mercy. And ultimately, if I tried to prevent this, by all our rules and customs, I’d be the one in the wrong.”

When tainted objects are discovered buried in Mary's garden, when a boy she has treated with herbs and simples dies, and when their servant girl runs screaming in fright from her home, Mary must fight to not only escape her marriage, but also the gallows.

“Every truth has its time.”

“An Anthology of Folk Horror”

“She wondered if he had any idea what, exactly, he was asking of her, and decided he couldn’t. He never got his own hands bloody. At least Acaelus had the decency to be the one to pull the trigger, every so often.”

“I don’t know why it was so but Peter just didn’t feel right when everyone was content.”

“Give everything its own place; start there, and you will find the rest comes all the easier.”

“She dropped her gaze, shame and disgust flaring hot in her cheeks. Because she knew exactly what she was asking of him, and it still didn’t stop her.”

“Vanessa.” He didn’t ask if it was me; he just sort of said my name as if demanding it to be.”

“I knew you were the real threat. Mortals always are, aren’t they? If you read the stories.”

“Ashem was too naïve for this world if she thought people were only cruel when there was a point to it.”

“Come now, child, adjust your eyes, for sight/ Is here a lesser sense.”

“It can be hard for people to remember that you don’t remember.”

“The village hall is a factory where petty grudges are made, and there is no grudge like a petty, hobby-related grudge.”

“When you spend so long trapped in darkness, you find that the darkness begins to stare back.”

“I am not scared of rockets, I am scared of God.”