“I opened the door as quickly as I could—speedy as a snail in glue. My fine-motor coordination was set on suck mode.”

“Dad hit lecture mode from word one.”

“Dad pressed against my mind. Please, Allison. Let me, just this once, hold my son. I shouldn't. Nothing good ever came from letting my father have his way. But I could feel his love for this baby. And even if he couldn't love me, I knew that at this moment, before the baby could grow up and become a disappointment to him, he truly loved him. I slowly stepped away from the front of my mind, letting him fill that space, letting him feel through my hands, see through my eyes. "He's amazing," Dad said through me. "You're amazing." He looked up at Violet, and she smiled.”

“Zayvion and I had an agreement that we were going to give this relationship everything we could. And that included trust, faith, and honesty. Not a single one of which was among my strong points.”

“The three women laughing over there? Dark wavy hair, coffee skin, and beautiful matching sets of big, lovely—” I slapped him on the arm. “Hey. Eyes. I was going to say eyes. What were you thinking?”

“…I noticed you don’t have any self-defense training…”“…I can handle myself just fine.”She stared at me for a long, uncomfortable moment. Finally, “In the very short time I’ve known you, you have been chased, shot, robbed, stabbed, drugged, and attacked by magic.”“I’m still breathing, aren’t I?”

“If this was what Mikhail called opening the gate close to Zayvion’s body, I was going to kill a compass and a slide rule and send them through the gates of death to him.”