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“But remembering the past is not the same as timewalking through it,” Matthew observed. “No. They’re entirely different kinds of magic,”
I wish I could freeze this moment and keep it forever,” I said, staring up at the white clouds scudding across a sky that was brightly blue with possibilities. “Maybe you have—in their memories, at least,” Matthew said.
“Rules may teach you to be blindly obedient, but they’re no real protection against the world,”
Marcus continued. “Because one day you will knock so hard against a rule you’ll break it—and you’ll have nothing standing between yourself and disaster then.
Nobody should be able to take it from us, and we shouldn’t have to fight for it.” “Or die for it,” Zeb muttered. Marcus frowned. “Don’t you mean kill for it?” “I said what I meant” was Zeb’s quick answer. “If a man drinks enough rum, or someone stirs up enough fear and hate in his heart, he’ll kill quick enough. But that same man will run from the battlefield the first chance he gets if he doesn’t believe what he’s fighting for, body and soul.”
“It took me eighteen hours to bring that boy into the world, and no time at all for some idiot with a gun to steal him away.” Mistress Bishop pulled a small bottle out of her pocket. “War is such a waste of women’s time.”
“Folks are always in favor of fairness, until they have to give up something they have to someone else.”
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“Part of growing older and wiser is learning which advice to follow and which to ignore.”
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A true father is the man who teaches what you need to know about the world and how to survive in it.
equality and the fact that the Brethren owned slaves. It had bothered him in Hadley, too, and in the army, that men could espouse the ideals of liberty and equality in Common Sense and yet still treat Zeb Pruitt or Mrs. Dolly like they were lesser beings.
“John Russell always said you were too sincere to be a de Clermont.” Matthew gave a humorless laugh. “He said I was mad to make you a vampire.” “Why did you do it, then?” Marcus asked his father. “You fascinated me,” Matthew replied. “I knew you had secrets, but you were honest and true in so many other ways. I couldn’t figure out how you managed it.” “So it wasn’t my gift for healing,” Marcus said sardonically. “That was part of it.” Matthew’s blood rage was being carried away on a tide of recollection. He settled more easily against the tree. “But the question really shouldn’t be why I
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“Not yet sixty and already angry with his sire,” Davy said, wheezing and coughing some more. “I know,” Gallowglass said fondly. “The lad has real potential.”
“Oh, humanity is marvelously creative when it comes to death and suffering,”
Marcus wanted someone to belong to again. Someone who would restore his faith in family after Obadiah and the de Clermonts had made him doubt the bonds of blood and loyalty.
don’t see the point of doing something ordinary, when it could be extraordinary,”
Ysabeau arrived with a wicker hamper filled with bottles. She surveyed the scene and smiled. “How I’ve missed family gatherings,” she said. “What have you done this time, Baldwin?”
“Becca is a baby,” Jack said. “She couldn’t hurt anybody. She’s soft, and sweet, and trusting. How could you think Becca needs to be punished for being who she is?”
“Mum and Dad trust me,” Jack said. “Which means for the first time in my life, I feel like I can trust myself. That’s what families are supposed to do—not order each other around and make promises nobody should have to keep.”
Saying no takes courage—far more courage than saying yes.”
“To be a vampire you must choose life—your life, not someone else’s—over and over again, day after day,” Ysabeau said. “You must choose it over sleep, over peace, over grief, over death. In the end, it is our relentless drive to live that defines us. Without that, we are nothing but a nightmare or a ghost: a shadow of the humans we once were.”
