So like a man, to think there’s safety among yet more men.

She was ugly, was all they’d told her. But she didn’t find them beautiful, so what did it matter?

Could a mare only like mares or stallions, or could a mare like whatever she damn pleased? Maybe she just didn't know enough yet to understand what she was or what she wanted. Or maybe she was lots of things, just as her skin was a mixture of browns. Maybe she didn't have to like anything.

So not every person fits into the little rooms we build to hold them. There are infinite combinations of human and inhuman, male and female, brown and white.

Because you were raised by ignorant people. They taught you to use things before you understood them. To kill things before you recognized them. To hate things before you knew them. But you'll appreciate a thing better when you know where it comes from, when your hands know the shape of it.

Because a shadow was a thing that defined itself, and Nettie didn't have to fit anyone else's shape.