“Now there are permanent gray smudges in Scotty's vision. He says he likes them--actually, what he says is: "I consider them a visual enhancement." We think they remind him of his mom.”

“I could not fail myself and die on a fish like this," he said. "Now that I have him coming so beautifully, God help me endure. I'll say a hundred Our Fathers and a hundred Hail Marys. But I cannot say them now."Consider them said, he thought. I'll say them later.”

“Before I merely daydreamed about Ralston. Now I find myself actually with him. Actually talking to him. Actually discovering the real Ralston. He is no longer a creature I invented. He is flesh and blood and…now I can’t help wondering…” She trailed off, unwilling to say what she was thinking. What if he were mine?She did not have to say the words aloud; Anne heard them anyway. When Callie opened her eyes and met Anne’s gaze in the looking glass, she saw Anne’s response there. Ralston is not for you, Callie.“I know, Anne,” Callie said quietly, as much to remind herself as to reassure her friend.”

“You have to be gentle with the young, W. says. They're a gentle generation, like fauns, he says, and require a special tenderness. Their lives are going to be bad--very bad--and, at the very least, we should be tender with them, and not remind them of what is to come.”

“I’ll be your family now,” he says.“I love you,” I say.I said that once, before I went to Erudite headquarters, but he was asleep then. I don’t know why I didn’t say it when he could hear it. Maybe I was afraid to trust him with something so personal as my devotion. Or afraid that I did not know what it was to love someone. But now I think the scary thing was not saying it before it was almost too late. Not saying it before it was almost too late for me.I am his, and he is mine, and it has been that way all along.He stares at me. I wait with my hands clutching his arms for stability as he considers his response.He frowns at me. “Say it again.”“Tobias,” I say, “I love you.”His skin is slippery with water and he smells like sweat and my shirt sticks to his arms when he slides them around me. He presses his face to my neck and kisses me right above the collarbone, kisses my cheek, kisses my lips.“I love you, too,” he says.”

“I'll be your family now," he says. "I love you," I say. (....)He stares at me. I wait with my hands clutching his arms for stability as he considers his response. He frowns at me. "Say it again.""Tobias," I say, "I love you.”