“I wish you luck,' she said, kissing him on the cheek. He still had the most beautiful eyes of any boy she'd ever seen. But now her heart beat so much faster for someone else.”

“She had found him and was bringing back his thanks. Nor did she forget to mention that he had assured her that she was indeed the most beautiful fairy he had ever set eyes on.”

“Her skin smelled of autumn and the wind.Don't Jacob...But it was too late. Clara didn't flinch as he pulled her close. He grabbed her hair, kissed her mouth, and he felt her heart beating as fast as his own....Let her go, Jacob. But he kissed her again, and it was his name she whispered, not Will's.”

“The tent in which she first met him had smelled of blood, of the death she did not understand, and still she had thought of it all as a game. She had promised him the world. His flesh in the flesh of his enemies. And much too late had she realized what he had sown in her. Love. Worst of all poisons.”

“And he will have a great aunt called Elinor who tells him there's a world not like this one. A world with neither fairies nor glass men, but with animals who carry their young in a pouch in front of their bellies, and birds with wings that beat so fast it sounds like the humming of a bumblebee, with carriages that drive along without any horses and pictures that move on their own accord... She will tell him that even the most powerful men don't carry swords in the other world, but there are much, much more terrible weapons there...She will even claim that the people there have built coaches that can fly...So the boy will think that perhaps he'll have to go alone one day, if he wants to see that world...Because it must be exciting in that other world, much more exciting than in his own...”

“What a coward she was after all! She tried to think of some hero out of one of her books,someone whose skin she could slip into, to make her feel stronger, bigger, braver. Why couldshe remember nothing but stories of frightened people when Capricorn looked at her? Sheusually found it so easy to escape somewhere else, to get right inside the minds of people andanimals who existed only on paper, so why not now? Because she was afraid. "Because fear killseverything," Mo had once told her. "Your mind, your heart, your imagination.”

“Why could she remember nothing but stories of frightened people when Capricorn looked at her? She usually found it so easy to escape somewhere else, to get right inside the minds of people and animals who existed only on paper, so why not now? Because she was afraid. "Because fear kills everything," Mo had once told her. "Your mind, your heart, your imagination.”