“There was no telling if I’d be reborn when I died, but the waltz began and ended with my four notes. He’d built the music around things that reminded him of me. And now this name. My name.”

“I think I died to be reborn with you”

“A thousand years from now, even if I was never reborn, people would remember me: Ana Incarnate”

“I had to drop my head back to meet his eyes, and the way he said my name--it was the same reverence people used in their prayers to Janan.”

“Music overwhelmed me, soaked into my skin like water. I didn’t have words for the squiggles and dashes across the pages, or the way his fingers stretched across the keys to make my heart race. If I could hear only one thing for the rest of my life, this was what I wanted.”

“Breathing in the scent of his hair, I realized I'd needed him my whole life, before we even met. First, his music and the way he taught me through books and recordings. Then, he saved my life and refused to abandon me no matter how much I deserved it.”

“My courage was as thin as silk, but I held it around me like armor and urged myself up the stairs, dragging the remains of my dignity.”