“She looked at him, watched the lights from the stage flicker over his expression, in the dark depths of his eyes. There was a whole other world in there, she thought and it was hers to explore forever if she would stop being so afraid.”

“You are so beautiful,” he breathed. Standing over her, rampant in the moonlight, he gazed down at her body. “You are as lovely and as perfect as I imagined you would be.”Afraid to believe, afraid to trust, she dared a look at him and felt her heart wrench when she read his expression and understood that she truly was whole and beautiful in his eyes. She was a magnificent to him as he was to her.”

“Please stop looking at me, she thought, afraid of his eyes and terrified of her own heart.”

“She danced with complete abandon. She never felt so light and free. She could stretch her arms forever, touch the heavens and pull down the stars. She would give him the stars to keep in his pocket, she thought. They would bring him good luck. She jumped and laughed and drew giggles from some of the other girls. She felt high, though she never before experienced a drug high. But then what was she thinking? He was her drug, and she felt high on the dark, rich honey. Honey that matched the color of his eyes. She could drink him to overflowing and never be satisfied. She was filled with the honey even now; it coursed through her limbs—a powerful, exotic, demanding potion that ordered her to dance. And so she did. She danced.”

“She was looking into my eyes with that way she had of looking that made you wonder whether she really saw out of her own eyes. They would look on and on after every one else's eyes in the world would have stopped looking. She looked as though there were nothing on earth she would not look at like that, and really she was afraid of so many things.”

“His hands lay flat on either side of him, his arms at his sides. He seemed barely to be breathing; she wasn't sure she was breathing herself. She slid her own hand across the bedsheet, just far enough that their fingers touched-so lightly that she would have probably hardly been aware of it had she been touching anyone but Jace; as it was, the nerve endings in her fingertips pricked softly, as if she were holding them over a low flame. She felt him tense beside her and then relax. He had shut his eyes, and his lashes cast fine shadows against the curve of his cheekbones. His mouth curled into a smile as if he sensed her watching him, and she wondered how he would look in the morning, with his hair messed and sleep circles under his eyes. Despite everything, the thought gave her a jolt of happiness.She laced her fingers through his. "Good night," she whispered. With their hands clasped like children in a fairy tale, she fell asleep beside him in the dark.”