"Snowballs are good practice." I said. "Nothing gets hurt but her pride." Charity nodded, frowning. "But you didn't learn with snowballs, did you?" The memory of my first shielding lesson under...sentimental one. "Baseballs." "Merciful god," Charity said, shaking her head. "How old were you?" "Thirteen." I shrugged a shoulder. "Pain's a good motivator. I learned fast." [pg. 4]

"I was an orphan," I told her. "A little while after my magic came to me, I got adopted by a man named DuMorne. He's the one who gave me most of my training. He adopted Elaine, too. We grew up together...serious victory I'd had over a spiritual entity when I was that young had been when my old master had sent an assassin demon after me. It hadn't turned out the way DuMorne had been hoping. [pg. 482]

Even with the Summer magic to protect us, it was a pretty good hike over unfriendly terrain. I’d done worse in the past, with both Justin DuMorne and Ebenezar, and there are times when having long...something small and silly. My first time…” I smiled. “Oh, man. I haven’t thought about that in a while.” I mused for a moment, thinking. “It was maybe two weeks before Justin adopted me,” [pg. 486]

"How did Justin get you, then?" "Justin DuMorne was a Warden, Harry, back at Kemmler's last stand. He pulled me out of the smoldering ruins of Kemmler's lab. Sort of like when you pulled me out...of them were apprentices when you were first tried after Justin DuMorne's death, like me. Alot of them are still apprentices. But there are people who think a lot of what you've done."  [pg. 573]

I’d stolen him from Justin DuMorne, my own personal childhood Darth Vader, Bob’s knowledge and skills had let me save lives. Mostly my own, maybe, but a lot of other lives, too. [pg. 49] Sometimes...Walker after me when we’d had our falling-out, and I’d barely managed to survive the encounter. I’d torn apart He Who Walks Behind, but even so he’d left me with some unnerving scars. [pg. 449]

Way back when, I’d been a stupid sixteen-year-old orphan who had killed his former teacher in what amounted to a magical duel. I’d gotten lucky, or it would have been me that had been burned to a...man about to die, I realized that it was a brittle spell, like a diamond that was simultaneously the hardest substance on earth and easily fractured if struck at the correct angle. [pg. 356]  

I dreamt of fire. Someone I had once loved like a father stood in the middle of it, screaming in agony. They were black screams, horrible screams, high-pitched and utterly without pride or dignity...out of my head. Children burning. Justin burning. Magic defines a man. It comes from down deep inside you. You can't accomplish anything with magic that isn't in you, somewhere, to do.  [pg. 333]

Exactly nothing about werewolves. My teacher never covered that with me. "Old Justin had a lousy sense of just about everything. He got what was coming to him, Harry, and don't let anyone on the...me quietly, "It isn't over. It isn't over yet, Harry. As long as you hold yourself responsible for Justin's death and Elaine's fall, it still colors everything you think and do."  [pg. 221]

That was when I'd started to learn magic, when my mentor had tried to seduce me into Black wizardry, and when he had attempted to kill me when he failed. I killed him instead, mostly by luck—but he was just as dead, and I'd done it with sorcery.  [p.82]