I do not have the money anymore. It was all yours, after all. I slipped the check into the silk lining of the coffin when I kissed you good-bye for the last time.

...This is Detective Miller. He died when Eros hit Venus and now he's a puppet of the protomolecule."
"Semi-autonomous," the alien said.
"Pleased to meet you."
"Likewise.

What if one of the times I Changed, when I turned back into myself, I didn't do it quite right? What if this isn't even my true face?

And he had just sent her into the arms of her strongest potential allies: to the homeland of her mother, the kingdom of her cousin, and the domain of her aunt, Queen Maeve of the Fae. Celaena was the lost Queen of Terrasen.
Chaol sank to his knees

Crow shrugged. "What is death? The loss of a body? The loss of the animating spark? If that's the case, I am dead.
"Or is life the persistence of memory and emotion, volition and desire?" Crow went on, as if in a debate with himself. "If that's the case, I am very much alive.

The next day you look at the new pages. For once you don't want to burn them or give up writing forever.
It's a start, you say to the room.
...In the months that follow you bend to the work, because it feels like hope, like grace-- and because you know in your lying cheater's heart that sometimes a start is all we ever get.