“[W]hat hue my thoughts as I open the Book of the Fallen and breathe deep the scent of history? Listen, then, to these words carried on that breath. These tales are the tales of us all, again yet again. We are history relived and that is all, without end that is all.”

Each chapter and book in Gardens of the Moon opens with an epigraph: a passage of poetry, written history, or piece of dialogue. This excerpt from the opening epigraph introduces the concept of the “Book of the Fallen,” a record of people who have died in war. It also speaks to the cyclical nature of history, a meditation on human nature in keeping with the novel’s theme of The Positive and Negative Aspects of the Human Condition.

“They’ll put a sword in your hand, they’ll give you a fine horse, and they’ll send you across the sea. But a shadow will embrace your soul. Now, listen! Bury this deep! Rigga will preserve you because we are linked, you and I.”

This is a piece of prophecy, a recurring motif in the novel. Here, Rigga the Seer is divining the future of the girl who will soon become Sorry, possessed by Cotillion. Later, the Bridgeburners’ healer surmises that some force was protecting Sorry’s spirit from the full memory of her possession to protect her innocence. Rigga is likely that protective force.

“I am anathema to sorcery. That means, Lieutenant, that, even though I'm not a practitioner, I have a relationship with magic. Of sorts. We know each other, if you will. I know the patterns of sorcery and I know the patterns of the minds that use it.”

Adjunct Lorn speaks with Paran about her Otataral sword and the effects it has had on her. Adjunct Lorn is a foil to the sorceress Tattersail; where Tattersail is defined by magic, Adjunct Lorn is defined by her magic-negating abilities. As is often the case with character foils, the two understand each other well and define each other in opposition.