“And for the first time, I pity her, because when she says love, I think she really means it. For her, this is love. This is what she does to someone she loves. And I wonder if I am any better, because this is what I did to Zan all those rotations ago. I seduced her until she loved me with all her heart, and when it came time to do what needed to be done, I was willing to sacrifice that love, but she was not.”

“And for the first time, I pity her, because when she says love, I think she really means it. For her, this is love. This is what she does to someone she loves. And I wonder if I am any better, because this is what I did to Zan all those rotations ago. I seduced her until she loved me with all her heart, and when it came time to do what needed to be done, I was willing to sacrifice that love, but she was not.”

“They'd pay attention to me less. They'd judge me by gender, by looks, by weight before anything else. I automatically started every interaction at a disadvantage.”

“Because until you know what you want to be, other people are just going to keep trying to make you into something useful for them.”

“Nobody really knows what I am,” Nyx said. “Not until I put a bullet in their head.”

“It all came apart once you started caring for something outside yourself.”

“You started caring about somebody, you did stupid things.”

“It was the secret to winning any contest, he said, in life or in the boxing ring – you just had to get up more than you fell down.”

“There was a fine line between madness and intelligence.”

“It was strange how you didn’t realise how much you loved a place until you had lost it completely.”

“What were all of them, really, but bits of something else? Bits of stars?”

“We worship the same God and we carry the same sins.”