I always was going to be a writer. The other jobs were just to keep me in food. Though I enjoyed the archaeology.

Where are the leaders?' Sapphique asked. 'In the fortresses,' the swan replied. 'And the poets?' 'Lost in dreams of other worlds.' 'And the craftsmen?' 'Forging machines to challenge the darkness.' 'And the Wise, who made the world?' The swan lowered its black neck sadly. 'Dwindled to crones and sorcerers in towers.

The Art Magicke has rules. It means I have to teach you all my tricks. All the substitutions, the replications, the illusions. How to read minds and palms and leaves. How to disappear and reappear. How to saw people in half? That too. Nice.

I trust you, Jared, she whispered. I always did. I love you, Master.

If it means my death, I don't care, because even death will be a sort of freedom.

Nothing has changed, or will change. So we must change it.

He sang his last song. And the words of that have never been written down. But it was sweet and of great beauty, and those that heard it were changed utterly. Some say it was the song that moves the stars.

Only the man who has known freedom Can define his prison.

He had wanted so hard to Escape, to find the stars. And all he had found was a new prison.

Because I have dreams and in those dreams I see the stars

Even across the dark, even across the loss, even across the emptiness, soul will speak to soul

He worked night and day. He made a coat that would transform him he would be more than a man a winged creature, beautiful as light. All the birds brought him feathers. Even the eagle. Even the swan.

He was her enemy, and she hated him because she could not hate him enough.

All my life I have dreamed of you.

Despair is deep. An abyss that swallows dreams. A wall at the world's end. Behind it I await death. Because all our work has come to this.

It's safe to tell a secret to one, Risky to tell it to two. To tell it to three is thoughtless folly, Everyone else will know.

Freedom is a small price to pay for survival.