I don't despise you for what you allowed to happen to me. I despise you because when I was released, you refused to be found and I needed you more than anything in my life. Not to mend my broken bones, Arjuro. I needed my brother to mend my broken spirit.

Our spirit is mightier than the filth of our memories.

Play me something that makes me feel;
This soul inside me is made of steel.
Brain is breathing, but heart’s not beating
And, babe, I need you to make things real.
Walk inside me without silence,
Kill the past and change the tense.
Empty gnawing and the ache is soaring;
Take me places that make more sense.

Finnikin had learned over the years not to think of anything beyond the practicalities of getting from one point to another. To focus on the achievable.

I'd run you know. It's like when you're really busy doing something and you don't have time to think about things. Well, I'd run and run and run so I couldn't think.

This is the best night of my life," Raffy says, crying.
"Raffy, half our House has burnt down," I say wearily. "We don't have a kitchen."
"Why do you always have to be so pessimistic?" she asks. "We can double up in our rooms and have a barbecue every night like the Cadets."
Silently I vow to keep Raffy around for the rest of my life.