“Marya and Dimitri had given Sasha and Lev the simplicity – the beautiful normality – that they themselves had been denied. Dimitri had given Lev freedom from a life he’d never wanted. He’d given him choices. Last words would have been paltry in comparison to this: the Antonova witch who kissed him goodbye with the words let me go, because she would be back. She would be back, and she would be his.”
