“I was coming up on a cross street when a man wearing a filthy suit stepped out from around the corner of the building ahead and directly into my path. Bent with age, he turned bleak red eyes to me and stared. Pressed with his chest to both hands he carried a paperback book as soiled and bereft as his suit. Are you one of the real ones or not? he demanded. And after a moment, when I failed to answer, he walked on, resuming his sotto voce conversation. A chill passed through me. Somehow, indefinably, I felt, felt with the kind of baffled, tacit understanding that we have in dreams , that I had just glimpsed one possible future self. ”

“No one else should see him like that, ever. Not my Rue. And he was mine, as much as I was his. I knew that now, just from the way he looked at me after I kissed him. Everything I felt for him, every ounce of yearning and desire and need, had shone out of his eyes as he stared up at me. And I knew right then, I knew… he belonged to me.”

“Now he looked at the classic parked on the street and admitted, “I bought it soon after we met. I… had hoped someday I might have this chance.”I pointed to the Galaxie. “You can’t possibly have felt like that for me then!”He turned to gaze into my eyes, laying his chin on my shoulder as he said softly, “I have loved you with everything in me from the moment I saw you.”

“Will rose slowly to his feet. He could not believe he was doing what he was doing, but it was clear that he was, clear as the silver rim around the black of Jem’s eyes. “If there is a life after this one,” he said, “let me meet you in it, James Carstairs.”“There will be other lives.” Jem held his hand out, and for a moment, they clasped hands, as they had done during their parabatai ritual, reaching across twin rings of fire to interlace their fingers with each other. “The world is a wheel,” he said. “When we rise or fall, we do it together.”Will tightened his grip on Jem’s hand, which felt thin as twigs in his. “Well, then,” he said, through a tight throat, “since you say there will be another life for me, let us both pray I do not make as colossal a mess of it as I have this one.”

“Quantin crept closer to the knoll. A pungent smell passed through his nostrils up into his brain. Attracted by the poppies' scarlet smears, he was about to take another step when he felt a hand on his elbow. A man in a poppy-red jacket, his pupils dilated, smiled warningly. "No strangers allowed. Go away." "I don't understand..." "Understanding is strictly forbidden. Even dreams have the right to dream. Isn't that so? Now go away.”

“They resumed walking. Alex felt an ache in his eyes and throat. "I don't know what happened to me," he said, shaking his head. "I honestly don't."Bennie glanced at him, a middle-aged man with chaotic silver hair and thoughtful eyes. "You grew up, Alex," he said, "just like the rest of us.”