Norah

“Little girls don’t kill people. They’re just silly little girls. But almost no one understands a little girl. We begin hard as marbles.”
― Lisa Taddeo, Animal

“Men were always putting their coats around my shoulders. They mark their territory that way. It’s better to freeze to death.”
― Lisa Taddeo, Animal

“Saedii’s eyes flash, and she pushes herself out of my arms with a snarl. I watch her turn back to her reflection, seething, busying herself with her braids with shaking hands. But I can see the truth behind the ice of her eyes, feel it inside her head, flooding through her despite her best attempts to keep it dammed in. The Syldrathi mating instinct. The almost-irresistible attraction they feel to people their souls are fated to be with. Kal feels it for Aurora. He once told me that love was a drop in the ocean of what he felt for her. And looking into Saedii’s eyes now, thinking about all the times she could have killed me, should’ve killed me … Maker, what an idiot I’ve been… . “How long?” I ask.

She says nothing. I step up behind her, searching her reflection. “Saedii, how long?” She holds my stare, fury and sorrow and hateful, defiant adoration washing through her thoughts. In her mind’s eye, I see an image of me aboard the Andarael, in the depths of the Unbroken fighting pit with a dead drakkan behind me, staring up at her, bloodied but victorious. “Yeah,” I murmur. “I mean, that would’ve gotten a nun’s motor running, so I can’t really blame you.”
― Amie Kaufman , Aurora's End

“Pea was aware suddenly of how fragile her heart was, how much darkness was inside it, fighting, always, with the light.”
― Kate DiCamillo, The Tale of Despereaux