- You’d do better to think of yourself

- You’d do better to think of yourself. Without me to help protect you, you are likely to end up dead, Claire. I should regret that. You’ve been the least useless apprentice I’ve ever had. - That’s it? That’s all you’re going to say? I’m the least useless? It burst out of him in a furious, low-voice rush. “Yes, of course that’s all I’m going to say, because there’s no point in it, no point at all in telling you that I’m lonely, that it’s been so long since I could discuss books and theories and science and metaphor and alchemy and philosophy, and that is a desperately lonely thing, Claire.

Rachel Caine, Bitter Blood (The Morganville Vampires #13)