“I watched in silence as the parts of Matthew I knew and loved – the poet and the scientist, the warrior and the spy, the Renaissance prince and the father – fell away until only the darkest, most forbidding part of him remained. He was only the assassin now. But he was still the man I loved.”

“I watched in silence as the parts of Matthew I knew and loved – the poet and the scientist, the warrior and the spy, the Renaissance prince and the father – fell away until only the darkest, most forbidding part of him remained. He was only the assassin now. But he was still the man I loved.”

— Deborah Harkness