How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"Your body is nothing but an envelope, Karou. Your soul is another matter, and is not, as far as I know, in any immediate danger." (6.13)
Reading this for the first time, you might think it's a little bit of New Age-y wisdom from Brimstone, informing Karou to take care of her soul over her body. However, by the end of the book, we realize that this moment is foreshadowing the fact that Karou's soul has been inside another body before.
Quote #2
This was [Karou's] life: magic and shame and secrets and teeth and a deep, nagging hollow at the center of herself where something was most certainly missing. (6.22)
You might think this nagging something is Karou's loneliness. But we think it's more likely her lack of a solid identity. All she does is go on errands for Brimstone and try to hide what she's doing for others. She has no idea why, and without that why, she has no idea who she is.
Quote #3
The blue-haired girl moved through it all like a fairy through a story, the light treating her differently than it did others, the air seeming to gather around her like held breath. As if this whole place were a story about her. Who was she? (12.8, 12.9)
These lines have a bit of double meaning. Karou is glowing to Akiva because she is his long-dead love, Madrigal, resurrected. However, this book that Karou is moving through is also pretty much a story about her. That's the whole conflict, the driving force: finding out who Karou is, really.