“She smiled. Her skin looked whiter than he recalled, and dark spidery veins were beginning to show beneath its surface. Her hair was still the color of spun silver and her eyes were still green as a cat’s. She was still beautiful. Looking at her, he was in London again. He saw the gaslight and smelled the smoke and dirt and horses, the metallic tang of fog, the flowers in Kew Gardens. He saw a boy with black hair and blue eyes like Alec’s, heard violin music like the sound of silver water. He saw a girl with long brown hair and a serious face. In a world where everything went away from him eventually, she was one of the few remaining constants.And then there was Camille.”

“Looking at her, he was in London again. He saw the gaslight and smelled the smoke and dirt and horses, the metallic tang of fog, the flowers in Kew Gardens. He saw a boy with black hair and blue eyes like Alec's. A girl with long brown curls and a serious face. In a world where everything went away from him eventually, she was one of the few remaining constants.”

“When he finally opened his eyes he saw her sit upand smile at him. She was beautiful, her dark hair wastousled, and her green eyes glimmered. God have mercy.He’d died and gone to heaven.”

“But her name was Esmé. She was a girl with long, long, red, red hair. Her mother braided it. The flower shop boy stood behind her and held it in his hand. Her mother cut it off and hung it from a chandelier. She was Queen. Mazishta. Her hair was black and her handmaidens dressed it with pearls and silver pins. Her flesh was golden like the desert. Her flesh was pale like cream. Her eyes were blue. Brown.”

“It was a woman's voice, high and sweet, with a strange music in it like none that he had ever heard and a sadness that he thought might break his heart. Bran squinted, to see her better. It was a girl, but smaller than Arya, her skin dappled like a doe's beneath a cloak of leaves. Her eyes were queer--large and liquid, gold and green, slitted like a cat's eyes. No one has eyes like that. Her hair was a tangle of brown and red and gold, autumn colors, with vines and twigs and withered flowers woven through it. "Who are you?" Meera Reed was asking.Bran knew. "She's a child. A child of the forest.”

“Shy burst out laughing. When he quit, he saw she was smiling up at him.and it hit him.All of it.Waking up to her. Going to bed with her. Making love to her. Eating with her. Laughing with her. Kissing her. Going shopping with her, and when she was in a store and wandering away, he saw her looking over the racks, looking for him, and when he came to her at her back, she'd turned to him, looking lost, and leaned into him the second he got there, suddenly found.Jesus, he had it.All of it."I never dreamed any fuckin' dream," he whispered, and the smile faded from her face as tears filled her eyes.She understood him."Shy-""Didn't dream it, saw it, waited my time, and then you gave it to me.""Shy," her voice broke on his name.He looked into her blue eyes swimming with tears, feeling her fingers digging into his shoulders, her weight in his lap, the smell of her hair, the taste of her still on his tongue.Yes, he fucking had it.When he was twelve he lost it.Now he had it again.All of it.Everything.”