Damian had needed the audience; it was oxygen to him; a victory unwitnessed was, to him, not a victory at all.

That was his whole disease in a sentence, the thing that had driven him to take credit he had not earned and then, when the credit ran dry, to take money that was not his.

He performed power because he did not actually have any, and a performance must always have a crowd.

What my mother had, and what I was learning to have, was the other thing — the quiet kind, the kind that does not evaporate when no one is watching.

It had not needed the ballroom.