“You must have loved her awfully," I said, realizing even as I spoke that I made it sound as if Fenella were already dead. "Yes, sometimes very much," Porcelain said reflectively, "-and sometimes not at all." She must have seen my startled reaction. "Love's not some big river that flows on and on forever, and if you believe it is, you're a bloody fool. It can be dammed up until nothing's left but a trickle..." "Or stopped completely, I added.”

“The boy is destined for greatness, but with you, he is in danger...You must leave him. This is what I have seen.""I can't," was all I said to her, and quietly."Then you will love him to ruins," she said, and let my hands go.”

“I thought how lovely and how strange a river is. A river is a river, always there, and yet the water flowing through it is never the same water and is never still. It’s always changing and is always on the move. And over time the river itself changes too. It widens and deepens as it rubs and scours, gnaws and kneads, eats and bores its way through the land. Even the greatest rivers- the Nile and the Ganges, the Yangtze and he Mississippi, the Amazon and the great grey-green greasy Limpopo all set about with fever trees-must have been no more than trickles and flickering streams before they grew into mighty rivers.Are people like that? I wondered. Am I like that? Always me, like the river itself, always flowing but always different, like the water flowing in the river, sometimes walking steadily along andante, sometimes surging over rapids furioso, sometimes meandering wit hardly any visible movement tranquilo, lento, ppp pianissimo, sometimes gurgling giacoso with pleasure, sometimes sparkling brillante in the sun, sometimes lacrimoso, sometimes appassionato, sometimes misterioso, sometimes pesante, sometimes legato, sometimes staccato, sometimes sospirando, sometimes vivace, and always, I hope, amoroso.Do I change like a river, widening and deepening, eddying back on myself sometimes, bursting my banks sometimes when there’s too much water, too much life in me, and sometimes dried up from lack of rain? Will the I that is me grow and widen and deepen? Or will I stagnate and become an arid riverbed? Will I allow people to dam me up and confine me to wall so that I flow only where they want? Will I allow them to turn me into a canal to use for they own purposes? Or will I make sure I flow freely, coursing my way through the land and ploughing a valley of my own?”

“but my dad said it was no excuse."But I love him!" I had never seen my sister cry that much."No, you don't.""I hate you!""No, you don't." My dad can be very calm sometimes."He's my whole world.""Don't ever say that about anyone again. Not even me." That was my mom.”

“There was some faint coughing, a moan, and then a man spoke. "Are you all right, darling?" he asked. "Yes," a woman said wearily. "Yes, I'm all right, I guess," and then she added with great feeling, "But you know, Charlie, I don't feel like myself anymore. Sometimes there are about fifteen or twenty minutes in the week when I feel like myself. I don't like to go to another doctor, because the doctor's bills are so awful already, but I just don't feel like myself, Charlie. I just never feel like myself.”

“Why do you want to do this?" he asked curiously. "Why is this woman so important to you?"Saint-Germain blinked in surprise. "Have you ever loved anyone?" he asked."Yes," Tamnuz said cautiously, "I had a consort once, Inanna...""But did you love her? Truly love her?"The Green Man remained silent."Did she mean more to you than life itself?" Saint-Germain persisted."They do not love that do not show their love," Shakespeare murmured very softly.The French immortal stepped closer to the Elder. "I love my Jeanne," he said simply. "I must go to her.""Even though it will cost you everything?" Tamnuz persisted, as if the idea was incomprehensible."Yes. Without Joan, everything I have is worthless.""Even your immortality?""Especially my immortality." Gone were the banter and the jokes. This was a Saint-Germain whom neither Shakespeare nor Palamedes had ever seen before. "I love her," he said,”