“Terror is the instinct that tells you to run, dear God, run, she murmured. Run for your life. But it just makes you into meat. Predators take the ones who run. Horror is the mind-thing, the worm of knowledge you can't stop turning over no matter how awful it is. It grows in your mind and destroys you by your own intelligence.”

“I threw my arms around him. “I yearn only for you.” Quinton gave a self-conscious shrug and an embarrassed laugh. “I feel the same way about you and I’m sorry I’m  .  .  . being an ass. Also, I suspect you just wanted to use ‘yearn’ in a sentence.”

“You must be careful, Harper. You're stubborn, hardheaded, scientific practicalist, and all of this seems like a nightmare to you that you hope will simply evaporate when you wake up. But you don't wake up from this.”

“You! You are so lucky you're dead.”

“Are you at work?" I asked. Not precisely, but that's a good suggestion....”

“Twas the night before Christmas—well, the late afternoon, in fact, but who could tell at the North Pole in the middle of winter—and Matthias the werewolf was knee-deep in reindeer guts. Really, it was the deer’s own fault for having that glowing red nose that had made it ever so easy to pick him out in the gloom. There it had been, like a neon sign saying FAST FOOD and Matt being like Yellow Dog Dingo—always hungry—had taken the opportunity for a quick snack.”

“Fall?” he repeated. “Say more like flying, as if someone threw you. What  .  .  . was that?” I chewed on my words before I let them out. “I  .  .  . sometimes have little disagreements with  .  .  . um, with reality. And physics.”