“When I was 5, he said, my family forgot & left me at the fair. I wandered around in the bright sounds & smells of hot sawdust & cotton candy for hours. It was already too late by the time my parents found me.I haven't been fit for decent society since.”

“I’ll be your family now,” he says.“I love you,” I say.I said that once, before I went to Erudite headquarters, but he was asleep then. I don’t know why I didn’t say it when he could hear it. Maybe I was afraid to trust him with something so personal as my devotion. Or afraid that I did not know what it was to love someone. But now I think the scary thing was not saying it before it was almost too late. Not saying it before it was almost too late for me.I am his, and he is mine, and it has been that way all along.He stares at me. I wait with my hands clutching his arms for stability as he considers his response.He frowns at me. “Say it again.”“Tobias,” I say, “I love you.”His skin is slippery with water and he smells like sweat and my shirt sticks to his arms when he slides them around me. He presses his face to my neck and kisses me right above the collarbone, kisses my cheek, kisses my lips.“I love you, too,” he says.”

“Dear Beloved woman,Time… so much time has passed since my love wrote his last words for me.And yet I remember it as if it were yesterday. I remember writing back and for the first time since I had left home I told my love what kind of darkness surrounded me here. I forgot all the sweet things my father had said to my mother when he was away. I forgot how they got her through all those long and lonely nights.”

“I don’t …” I sound like I am being strangled. “My family is all dead, or traitors; how can I …”I am not making any sense. The sobs take over my body, my mind, everything. He gathers me to him, and bathwater soaks my legs. Hishold is tight. I listen to his heartbeat and, after a while, find a way to let the rhythm calm me.“I’ll be your family now,” he says.“I love you,” I say.I said that once, before I went to Erudite headquarters, but he was asleep then. I don’t know why I didn’t say it when he could hear it.Maybe I was afraid to trust him with something so personal as my devotion. Or afraid that I did not know what it was to love someone. But now Ithink the scary thing was not saying it before it was almost too late. Not saying it before it was almost too late for me.I am his, and he is mine, and it has been that way all along.He stares at me. I wait with my hands clutching his arms for stability as he considers his response.He frowns at me. “Say it again.”“Tobias,” I say, “I love you.”His skin is slippery with water and he smells like sweat and my shirt sticks to his arms when he slides them around me. He presses hisface to my neck and kisses me right above the collarbone, kisses my cheek, kisses my lips.“I love you, too,” he says.”

“An owl sound wandered along the road with me.I didn't hear it--I breathed it into my ears.”

“I ate fiberglass insulation. It wasn’t cotton candy like the guy said… my tummy itches.”