“Nox didn’t say a word. He waited, counting the seconds in his mind. Sometimes you counted bullets and sometimes you counted time. Either one could kill you.”

“She is a beautiful, powerful badass woman who sometimes falls apart inside after she drops her bags by the door and tosses her stilettos. Her vulnerability at night helps her to rise stronger in the morning.”

“She looked at her right hand, where the index finger was cut to a stump. Some said she lost it in an accident, when she was playing soldier with a live grenade. Others said she was taught a lesson by the law, and they took her trigger finger to make her keep on learning. Those were the lessons the Coilhunter liked. Why, he was quite the teacher himself.”

“How long have you been with Raphael?”“You ask a lot of questions for a dead woman.”“What can I say? I prefer to die well-informed.”

“You won’t even take your bow? Are you planning to throttle a moose with your bare hands, then?””I’ve a knife in my boot,” she said, and then wondered, for a moment, if she could throttle a moose with her bare hands.”

“Perhaps I can stay by the fire and mend your socks and scream if I hear any strange noises.”