“You saw too late. Now you are as she is, bewteen two worlds, warmth bleeding into cold.”

“You may hold my tears and live as you did before, trusting your soul to no one. Or you may release my tears and accept what comes.”

“I'm not perfect. Remember that, and try to forgive me when I fail you.”

“t's okay to let yourself go, as long as you can get yourself back. -”

“Some of us aren't meant to belong. Some of us have to turn the world upside down and shake the hell out of it until we make our own place in it.”

“The sacred rowan is a woman born long, long ago, a woman whose refusal to see love cost first her lover's life, then the lives of her family, her clan, her people.But not her own life. Not quite.In pity and punishment she was turned into an undying tree, a rowan that weeps only in the presence of transcendent love; and the tears of the rowan are blossoms that confer extraordinary grace upon those who can see them.When enough tears are wept, the rowan will be free. She waits inside a sacred ring that can be neither weighed or measured nor touched. She waits for love that is worth her tears.The rowan is waiting still.”

“Yes," Shannon said calmly. "I could have died. But so what? The stars would have come out tonight and the sun would have risen tomorrow morning. The only difference would be that I wouldn't see it." Shannon to Whip.”