“You better get over here with my car,” Grandad says. “Before I call the cops and tell them you stole it.”“Sorry,” I say contritely. Then the rest of what he said sinks in and I laugh.“Wait, did you just threaten me with calling the police? Because that I’d like tosee.”

“Magic gives you a lot of choices," Grandad says. "Most of them are bad.”

“Sam frowns at me, suddenly serious. "You know, I thought--for most of the first year we lived together--that you were going to kill me."That makes me nearly spit out beer, I laugh so hard."No, look--living with you, it's like knowing there's a loaded gun on the other side of the room. You're like this leopard who's pretending to be a house cat."That only makes me laugh harder."Shut up," he says. "You might do normal stuff, but a leopard can drink milk or fall off things like a house cat. It's obvious you're not--not like the rest of us. I'll look over at you, and you'll be flexing your claws, or I don't know, eating a freshly killed antelope.""Oh," I say. It's a ridiculous metaphor, but the hilarity has gone out of me. I thought I did a good job of fitting in--maybe not perfect, but not as bad as Sam makes it sound."It's like Audrey," he says, stabbing the air with a finger clearly well on his way to inebriated and full of determination to make me understand his theory. "You acted like she went out with you because you did this good job of being a nice guy.""I am a nice guy."I try to be.Sam snorts. "She liked you because you scared her. And then you scared her too much.”

“You in trouble?” Sam asks. The way he says it, I wonder if he’s thinking about how to get out of here if I am.”

“I'd get out of here," he said. "Go someplace where no one knew me. Start over. Go to Paris like you did or go to — I don't know — Prague. Somewhere." He looked toward the window, like he could already see himself gone."Oh," she said, because it hurt that he was thinking about that when she was thinking about him. She narrowed her eyes. "What's stopping you?"The boy looked down at the book of fairy tales. "Nothing," he said.Lila wanted to be the one to stop him.”

“You really dug your own grave,” he mutters. “And I’m going to bury you in it.” “Say that louder,” I tell him, under my breath. “I dare you.”

“She says that what you did was a cry for help." "It was," I say. "That's why I was yelling 'Heeeelp!' I don't really go in for subtlety.”