“The audience keeps singing, keeps making my case, and I just keep strumming until I get close enough to see her eyes. And then I start singing the chorus. Right to her. And she smiles at me, and it’s like we’re the only two people out here, the only ones who know what’s happening. Which is that this song we’re all singing together is being rewritten. It’s no longer an angry plea shouted to the void. Right here, on this stage, in front of eighty thousand people, it’s becoming something else. This is our new vow.”

“There’s something happening here, I know it. It’s right in front of my face, but I just can’t see it.”

“We’re here because I think all that time ago you fell off the horse. I think you had the breath knocked out of you, but no one made you get back on the horse. No one was there to tell you to keep trying, that it’s not okay to be afraid of the sun. But it’s not okay. I’m here to tell you to try again.”Livia paused to assess the impact of her words, but the mask hid Blake’s expression. “Running won’t stop me,” she continued. “I’ll keep finding you. I’ll keep dragging you back here—right to this spot—until you can stand in the sun. With me.”

“Every time, it’s the same thing, I feel like crying, my throat goes all tight and I do the best I can to control myself but sometimes it gets close: I can hardly keep myself from sobbing. So when they sing a canon I look down at the ground because it’s just too much emotion at once: it’s too beautiful, and everyone singing together, this marvelous sharing. I’m no longer myself. I am just one part of a sublime whole, to which the others also belong, and I always wonder at such moments why this cannot be the rule of everyday life, instead of being an exceptional moment, during a choir.”

“When you’re singing you can hear the echo of people in the audience singing every single word with you, and that was that big dream that I had for myself. It’s happening.”

“This ain’t right, you know. She’s the one who ought to rule, fair enough. And you used magic to help her this far, and that’s all right. But it stops right here. It’s up to her what happens next. You can’t make things right by magic. You can only stop making them wrong.”Mrs. Gogol pulled herself up to her full, impressive height. “Who’s you to say what I can and can’t do here?”“We’re her godmothers,” said Granny.“That’s right,” said Nanny Ogg.“We’ve got a wand, too,” said Magrat.“But you hate godmothers, Mistress Weatherwax,” said Mrs. Gogol.“We’re the other kind,” said Granny. “We’re the kind that gives people what they know they really need, not what we think they ought to want.”