I’ve always felt comfortable amongst the horrors. I married your uncle Gerard, after all.

Draw the curtains.“Whatever for?”Prying eyes and itchy ears.“Are you naturally cryptic, or is it something you picked up at Guardian training academy?

I’m not bound by any God-ordained rules. I’m a rebel. I follow my own path.”“Then follow it out into the marshes and drown yourself, why don’t you?”“The marshes dried up” was Carver’s matter-of-fact answer.

I used to ask myself, ‘Sergei, would you rather spend your money on drink or women?’ and thanks to the club, I spend it on both and am called a patron of the arts.

And I swore it to myself the night Maurice ran away,” Ilyse screamed, terror and fury coursing through her veins, “and I’ll swear it again; no matter what you do, you will never conquer me.

I know the consequences, Manon,” Ilyse conceded. “I know the fate you endured might one day be my own. But I refuse to be a prisoner for the rest of my life.

Why should I not know what he's really called?""Tell a man your name and he will have power over you forever," Carver muttered.

Do you often wonder,” she continued, desperately hoping her questions would win Vasily over, “what might have been had his gaze fallen upon some other miserable wretch? Yes, you would have been destitute, starving in the streets, scraping for your next meal…but even beggars are free.

There was something in her eyes that made me trust her. Maybe it was because they held the same cynicism, the same world-weariness I saw in my own every morning when I looked at myself in the mirror.

Oh, come now, Manon,” Ilyse laughed, “It’s my job to liven things up a bit, too. I can’t let you and your dimples have all the fun.