Empire of the Damned (Empire of the Vampire, #2)

by Jay Kristoff

‘A life without books is a life not lived, Dior. There’s a magik like no other to be found in them. To open a book is to open a door—to another place, another time, another mind. And usually, mademoiselle, it’s a mind far sharper than your own.’

‘I know you are a devil, wearing an angel’s guise. But though you may bend my mind, for all your power, you cannot touch my heart. So hear me now, monster, then do as you will. All you shall have from me will be stolen. Never surrendered. I shall die

“The folk I held dearest were always the ones I quarreled with hardest. Folk who weren’t afraid to slap me out of my bullshit, or tell me I was being an arse. There’s no friend under heaven like an honest one.”

“It’s a strange thing, to explain death to a child. The question they inevitably ask is why, and in truth, there’s no good answer. We settle for telling them about the God who loves them. The good place we go afterward, where there’s no hurt. No death. We raise our children to believe in that lie; that all will be wonderful once they die. But my Patience wasn’t content with that. And she looked at me with eyes full of tears, and she demanded to know if God loved us so much, why did he put us in a place like this at all? Why didn’t he start us in the good place, where there was no death to begin with?”