“Dearest Reece,I know you think it improper, or at the very least imprudent, for us to write to one another, but I don't care.There are too many rules as it is and they would choke me if I let them. Between corsets and lessons and curtsies and etiquette, I am hardly myself, and that is how they want it. They would prefer we all dress and talk and think (or not think) alike, like paper dolls.I do not wish to be a paper doll.Surely you can see that I am stronger than that.I don't give a fig for the scandalbroth or the gossipmongers. Let us remove to Paris, where no one knows us to care and where they dine on scandal with eclairs every morning.You will say again that it is impossible but I refuse to believe it. I know with every touch of your hand on mine, with every stolen kiss, that nothing is impossible.Perhaps love isn't meant to be simple. Perhaps this is merely a test, such as Psyche went through to prove herself to Cupid. Would you have me count lentils, beloved?And as you claim I have the most to lose, I pray you will let me decide for myself what it is I want and need.Which is you.Not silks or lobster soup in crystal bowls or diamonds around my neck.Just you.You say again and again that you love me.Prove it.”

“Let us begin this letter, this prelude to an encounter, formally, as a declaration, in the old-fashioned way: I love you. You do not know me (although you have seen me, smiled at me). I know you (although not so well as I would like. I want to be there when your eyes flutter open in the morning, and you see me, and you smile. Surely this would be paradise enough?). So I do declare myself to you now, with pen set to paper. I declare it again: I love you.”

“Reed, I know that you think that it's better to wait until I evolve fully, but I don't think I can wait any longer..... You are my blood now and I'm yours. We are bound to each other in every way possible but one and I.. I don't know where I'm going, I don't even know what I've become, but I know that if I am with you, then I'm free...I'm home. Let me show you what you mean to me. Let me pull you into my world, as you have pulled me into yours.”

“I'm writing this down, because it is going to be hard for me to say it. Because this is probably our last time just us. See, I can write that down, but I don't think I can say it. I'm not doing this to say goodbye, though I know that has to be part of it. I'm doing it to thank you for all we have had and done and been for one another, to say I love you for making this life of mine what it is. Leaving you is the hardest thing I have to do. But the thing is, the best parts of me are in you, all three of you. You are who I am, and what I cherish in myself stays on in you.”

“Come home with me tonight,Gypsy," he said huskily. "You won't regret it.""You have a Gajo priest in residence,then,to give his blessing?"His hand dropped from her. Frustration filled his eyes. "You are saying you would me?""I am saying I want you,too,Lord Englishman, but without the prist's words, I can't have you.It does not get more simple than that.""Simple?" he all but snorted. "You must know that is impossible,that people from my social stature only marry within their class.""Yes,I know very well how nobles are goverened by the opinions of their peers, which does not leave them free to do as they please. A shame you aren't a common man, Lord Englishman. They have more freedom than you.""And how free are you,to do as you want?" he shot back in a frustrated tone. "Or did you not just tell me that you want me?""I can't deny that.Yet I am restricted by my own morals, rather than the opinions of others. If you must know,my own people would be scandalized if I were to marry you.Ironically, you would not be an acceptable mate for me, for you are not one of us. Would I let that influence me? No.Only one's heart should matter in these things.Yet mine will not let me go to a man who will not be mine to keep.I do not hold myself that cheaply.”

“I told her, "We have both lost ourselves, but sometimes we reveal the most when we are least like ourselves. I am not trying to think any more. I can't think when I am with you. You are like me, wishing for a perfect moment, but nothing too long imagined can be perfect in a worldly way. Neither one of us can say just the right thing. We are overwhelmed. Let us be overwhelmed. It is so lovely, so lovely. I love you June.”