“Who am I?" My first spoken words."No one," she said. "Nosoul.”

“maybe not insane, just stupid. "Eighteen. She moved us when I was still and infant. I thought everyone knew all about the nosoul."He winced. "You shouldn't call yourself a nosoul. New doesn't mean you don't have a soul. The Soul Teller would have know the day you were born.”

“Sam hauled open the library door."There you are!" Whit pushed up from the desk he'd been hunched over. "We thought you two had given up on us.""Unlike some people I know," I said, removing my mittens and scarf, "we don't live here.""She says that now." Sam followed me toward Whit's and Orrin's desks, where they worked over flat electronic screens. "But the first thing she said when I showed her the library was that we should move in."Orrin lifted an eyebrow, oddly delicate for someone so large. "The acoustics would be terrible.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“It wasn’t an easy, sweet kiss like I’d imagined my first would be, but frustrated and hungry. That was good, better than easy and sweet, because after everything, I was frustrated and hungry for him, too.”