“You mind your tongue!” “Oh, I do,” I said. “I sharpen it every evening on your name.”

“A toast at your wedding, perhaps?” said Eldric. “I shall never get married,” I said. “But I do like champagne.”

“The sea up close is enormous. I squeezed my eyes against it for a moment, which is ridiculous, like fighting a giant with a pin. It comes to you anyway, through your ears and nose and skin and tongue. It is a savage, muscular thing, a vast dim wetness battering at the land and the air and all your senses.”

“I hope you don’t mind my joining you,” said Leanne. I minded. After all, she’d tried to kill me. A girl in a novel would say it was hard to believe, but it wasn’t.”

“Perhaps you should put your head down.” I knew this was the thing to do, although I’ve never fainted and I don’t intend to.”

“You don’t mind when he stares at you.” Cecil jerked his head toward Eldric. "He doesn’t stare,” I said. “He looks.”

“I was going to ask him, yes I was. “You remember Blackberry Night?”The torches were alive with yellow butterfly-flames. “I can’t forget it.” His eyes were whiter than white.“You remember the thing we might have done that night, but it turned out to be a thing we didn’t do?” It was late and my tongue had gone bleary. “The thing you stopped us from doing?”“I especially can’t forget that.”I was asking about lust, wasn’t I? I was fairly certain of it. But isn’t love supposed to come before lust? It does in the dictionary.”