“It doesn’t hurt much. I don’t know how it looks” – he lowered his hand and turned his face to the side – “but it can’t be that bad. What do you think? You’d date me, right?”Alex pushed him away, grinning. “You’re an idiot.”

“Even if that is the truth,” Derkein said, “what does it have to do with my father suddenly thinking he can raise the dead?”

“This will be the greatest discovery since the extinction of dinosaurs.”“Assuming dinosaurs did exist, that is,” Derkein said.Alex shook her head. “Couldn’t just let me have this moment, could you?”

“Mortals cannot perceive me with the physical eye whilst in my pure form unless it is of my choosing, for it would result in fatality, which begs the question of why you are an exception.”

“For me, writing is immortality. It is wisdom. It is never-ending.”

“Creativity sparks originality, which then manifests itself into what we call evolution. To depreciate imagination is to depreciate life.”

“I don’t stay anywhere. I visit. I observe. I leave. I don’t ever stay.”I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with this information. Tell him to leave? Tell him to stay? But I don’t have time to consider any other alternatives, because he scoots in closer and brings his hands to my face, and I fall back into the bookcase as he kisses me with this intensity—like he wants to be here, and if he kisses me just long enough, deeply enough, none of what he just said will actually be true.”