“And then he tells her stories. Myths he learned from his instructor. Fantasies he created himself, inspired by bits and pieces of others read in archaic books with crackling spines.”

“He reads histories and mythologies and fairy tales, wondering why it seems that only girls are ever swept away from their mundane lives on farms by knights or princes or wolves. It strikes him as unfair to not have the same fanciful opportunity himself. And he is not in the position to do any rescuing of his own.”

“Trapped in silence, Marco traces apologies and adorations across Celia's body with his tongue. Mutely expressing all the things he cannot speak aloud.He finds other ways to tell her, his fingers leaving faint trails of ink in their wake. He savors every sound he elicits from her.The entire room trembles as they come together.And though there are a great many fragile objects contained within it, nothing breaks.”

“Marco knows he does not have the time to push her away, so he pulls her close, burying his face in her hair, his bowler hat torn from his head by the wind...."Trust me," Celia whispers in his ear, and he stops fighting it, forgetting everything but her.”

“The boy spends most of his time reading. And writing, of course. He copies out sections of books, writes out words and symbols he does not understand at first but that become intimately familiar beneath his ink-stained fingers, formed again and again in increasingly steady lines.”

“And before he can tell her to tell Widget goodbye for him if need be, she leans forward and kisses him, not on the cheek, as she has a handful of times before, but on the lips, and Bailey knows in that moment that he will follow her anywhere.”

“He forgets that he was someone's dream once, himself.”