“But you are crazy.”“I know.” She lifted a small box from the basket. “Do you know how I know?”Scarlet didn't answer.“Because the palace walls have been bleeding for years, and no one else sees it.” She shrugged, as if this were a perfectly normal thing to say. “No one believes me, but in some corridors, the blood has gotten so thick there's nowhere safe to step. When I have to pass through those places, I leave a trail of bloody footprints for the rest of the day, and then I worry that the queen's soldiers will follow the scent and eat me up while I'm sleeping. Some nights I don't sleep very well.” Her voice dropped to a haunted whisper, her eyes taking on a brittle luminescence. “But if the blood was real, the servants would clean it up. Don't you think?”

“Even if I believed I was doing good- for who I am to presume what is good for others?”

“Some say it is better to have eaten and lost than never to have eaten at all.”

“It is a dangerous thing to unbelieve something only because it frightens you.”

“Love is a conquest! Love is war!”

“But her grandmother had never suggested she could think the same of Scarlet. You'll be fine, she always said, after a skinned knee, after a broken arm, after her first youthfull heartbreak. You'll be fine, because you're strong, like me.”

“Do you think she is?" Her voice trembled. Her heart throbbed as she waited for him to answer. "You think they've killed her?"Every moment wrapped around Scarlet's neck, strangling her, until the only possiblbe word from Wolf's mouth had to be yes. Yes, she was dead. Yes, she was gone. They'd murdered her. These monsters had murdered her.Scarlet pressed her palms into the crate, trying to push through the plastic. "Say it.""No," he murmured, shoulder sinking, "No, I don't think they've killed her. Not yet."Scarlet shivered with relief. She covered her face with both hands, dizzy with the hurricane of emotions. "Thank the stars," she whispered. "Thank you.”

“I'm sure I'll feel much more grateful when I find a guy who thinks complex wiring in a girl is a turn-on.”

“But was the woman's death the tragedy, or her life?”

“And they all lived happily to the end of their days.”

“Iko held up a hand. "You need a system debug if you're suggesting that I would abandon you know.”