"Day, the boy from the streets with nothing except the clothes on his back and the earnestness in his eyes, owns my heart. He is beauty, inside and out. He is the silver lining in a world of darkness. He is my light."

"Day leans in toward me. He reaches up to touch my face. I can tell it still hurts him to use his fingers, and his nails are dark with dried blood. "You're brilliant," he says. "But you're a fool to stay wish someone like me."I close my eyes at the touch of his hand. "Then we're both fools."

"Money is the most important thing in the world, you know. Money can buy you happiness, and I don't care what anyone else thinks."

"I smile bitterly at him, then weave an illusion of his face across my own. Raffaele's expression flickers in surprise for a moment before settling back into its pool of calm. "They may have a hard time finding me, I reply.Raffaele gives me a tight smile in return. "Do not underestimate your enemies, Your Majesty, he says."

"If I've learned anything from my past and my present, it's the power of fear. You can give your subjects all the generosity in the world, and still they will demand more. But those who are afraid don't fight back. I know this well enough."

"Can one mistake really destroy a lifetime together?"

"You risked an awful lot for someone you hardly know.' I narrow my eyes. 'THAT doesn't say much about your character. Perhaps you should wait until someone's about to be executed for a mistake YOU made."

"The irony of life is that those who wear masks often tell us more truths than those with open faces."

"Day will move on and live his life. So will I. We will be okay. Someday, perhaps in the far and distant future, we'll find each other again."

"I never saw her again. But even now, as an old man, I remember her as clearly as if she were standing before me. She was ice personified. There was once a time when darkness shrouded the world, and the darkness had a queen."

"Your strengths might make you hard to approach, and might make your words sound uglier than what you actually mean, but they also make people look up to you."

"I don't know if anyone's ever told you this", he begins. He doesn't blush, and his eyes don't dart away. Instead I find myself staring into a pair of oceans - one perfect, the other blemished by that tiny ripple. "You're very attractive." catches me off guard. But it startles me so much that without thinking I blurt out, "I could say the same about you." I pause. "In case you didn't know."A slow grin spreads across his face. "Oh, trust me. I know."

"Forever and ever, kid, until you're sick and tired of seeing me."

"There was once a time when darkness shrouded the world, and the darkness had a queen."

"He loved you."

"Yeah, something was wrong. That was the understatement of the year."

"June has never looked more beautiful than she does now, unadorned and honest, vulnerable yet invincible."

"He was the last thread suspending me in the light. Without him, I can feel myself spiraling downward, falling to a place where I can no longer pull myself back up."

"Logic will save you when nothing else will."

"I want to fall into the purity that is Day, soaking in his simple honesty, his heart that sits open and beating on his sleeve."

"The world's deadliest mercenaries choose to serve you, the whispers say, because they have yet to meet me."

"I find myself pausing to admire her face.For a brief moment, I'm lost to my surroundings."

"I turn even more flustered when I remember that I have actually pistol-whipped him in the face before. Romantic."

"I want to run. To do what I always do, have always done, for the last five years of my life. Escape, flee into the shadows. But this time, I stand my ground. I'm tired of running."

"I will hunt you down. I will scour the streets of Los Angeles for you. Search every street in the Republic if I have to. I will trick you and deceive you, lie, cheat and steal to find you, tempt you out of your hiding place, and chase you until you have nowhere else to run. I make you this promise: your life is mine."

"It's strange being here with you. I hardly know you. But...sometimes it feels like we're the same person born into two different worlds."

"No. I will never let you hurt Day like that. Not the way I've already hurt him."

"I'm not loyal enough to the Republic to stamp that loyalty right on my face. Leave that to June."

"Then I realize from the hollow sound of her gun's click that her gun isn't loaded. Apparently she just wants to slap me around with it."

"Dust everywhere... and out of that emerged this beautiful boy with the bluest eyes I'd ever seen, holding his hand out to help me to my feet."

"He doesn't know who I am."

"I am still alone, broken and small, the butterfly fighting for life in the grass."

"All they're going to see is a wealthy man who has no idea how to heal their suffering."

"When Compasia took pity on me, she reached down into the Underworld, touched the shoulder of Moritas, and asked her forgiveness. Then Compasia took my sister in her arms and placed her in the sky, where she, too, turned to stardust.Magiano looks at me, his eyes wide. It seems as if he already, somehow, understands."My goddess made me a promise, I whisper.Only now do I realize that I have never seen him cry before.In the stories, Compasia and her human lover would descend each night from the stars to walk the mortal world, before vanishing with the dawn. So, together, we stare at the sky, waiting."

"You cannot harden your heart to the future just because of your past. You cannot use cruelty against yourself to justify cruelty to others."

"I'd gotten someone killed.The price people seem to pay for crossing my path."

"We determine whether a book is for boys or girls long before the reader gets a chance to decide: we package them with soldiers and ballet slippers on their covers, war machines and glittering gowns."

"But every now and then, when I steal a glance at the Girl, or feel her eyes on me, I helplessly drift back to thinking about her."

"Now, as we stand three feet apart and stare at each other, I feel the full distance that comes with spending so much time apart, a moment filled with the electricity of a first meeting and the uncertainty of strangers."

"After she was gone, I sheathed her sword at my belt, draped her cloak over my shoulders, carried her heart in my arms, and, somehow, went on."

"You think me cruel."No. Magiano hesitates for a long moment. "Maybe a little."I'm not branding them because I am cruel, I say calmly. "I'm doing it as a reminder of what they've done to us. To the marked. You're so quick to forget."I never forget, Magiano replies. This time, there is a slight sharpness to his tone. His hand hovers near his side, where his childhood wound continues to plague him. "But branding the unmarked with your crest will not make them any more loyal to you."It makes them fear me."Fear works best with some love, Magiano says. "Show them that you can be terrifying, yet generous. The gold bands in his braids clink. "Let the people love you a little, mi Adelinetta."

"I can taste the good-bye on his lips."

"What is the point of searching for love, when love is nothing but an illusion?"

"Tell me there is still good in the world. Tell me there is still hope for all of us."

"If Metias joined the Patriots, he'd be a Hacker too. If he were alive."

"We are the children of gods and angels."

"My wandering has led me to the beginning of our journey together. I suppose it's only fitting for me to be here at that journey's end."

"To those who, in spite of everything, still choose goodness."

"I laugh with him. I imagine mixing poison into his tea, then watching his face turn purple and anguished; I picture myself leaning over him, looking on patiently, with my chin resting in my hands, admiring his dying, writhing body as I count out the minutes."

"My heart's been torn wide open, just like I feared it would be, and I have no willpower to close it back up. Any barrier I might've succeeded in putting up around myself, any resistance I might've built up against my feelings for her, is now completely gone. Shattered."