“In the middle of the light is the most exquisite boy I’ve ever seen. His face is both achingly perfect and terrifyingly severe".”

“That's the other thing I'll carry with me when I ascend, the experience of loving you with my whole being, beyond reason and measure. Beyond supernatural discipline. A once in eternity miracle... my miracle.”

“Without fear, we truly live.”

“As ever, his grief made my heart ache. "Ambition is a dangerous thing," I murmured. "One can harbor it unknowing, only to find it sparked into life when the opportunity presents itself.”

“I have seen the impossible. I have seen great and terrible wonders, and I tell you, the world is a vaster and stranger place than ever I had reckoned.”

“Why is there ever this perverse cruelty in humankind, that makes us hurt most those we love best?”

“The light of a hunter's moon bleached the unresisting pastels from the faces of the towers, so that they looked like titanic ribs of bone, and shadows accrued like crusted blood under the walkways.”