“Who are they?” I whispered, as we took seats opposite each other.Scout glanced up as she pulled notebooks and books from her bag. “The dragon ladies. They monitor lights-out, watch us while we study, and generally make sure that nothing fun occurs on their watch.”“Awesome,” I said, flipping open my trig book. “I’m a fun hater myself.”

“The moment we pulled up in front of her apartment she had the door open. She turned to me with the long, elegant, mournful face of her Puritan ancestors and held out her hand.'It's been fun,' she said.'Yes,' I said, taking her hand.She was wearing gloves.”

“I love watching her, watching her uncertainty and her hesitation. And her attempts at denying what we both know she’s feeling. Teasing her is going to be so much fun. Hot, sweet, sexy, delicious fun.”

“It's that the silence hanging between us, the awkward and painful glance we share, acknowledges that I'm sitting in his seat. I start to stand up, but Ely shakes his head and gestures for me to stay seated. "It's cool," he whispers. I watch him stride away to the elevator.”

“Look under the passenger seat in a black plastic bin. There should be a book.” Raphael hopped out, dug under the seat, and pulled out a dog-eared copy of The Almanac of Mystical Creatures. “Got it,” I said into the phone. “Page seventy-six.” Raphael flipped the book open and held it up. On the left page a lithograph showed a three-headed dog with a serpent for a tail. The caption under the picture said CERBERUS. “Is that your dog?” Kate asked. “Could be. How the heck did you know the exact page?” “I have perfect memory!” I snorted. She sighed into the phone.“I spilled coffee on that page and had to leave the book open to dry it out. It always opens to that entry now.”

“We all know what fun it can be to get right into a book and live there for a while, but falling out of a story and suddenly finding yourself in this world doesn't seem to be much fun at all.”