“His face almost looked the way it did when he was a teenager, when there was the subtle expression of both confidence and mischief in his darkly handsome eyes. When I think of him now, though, I don’t picture his face the way it is. What I see is from a memory, from a moment when he must have been eleven or twelve years old and we were both in our backyard and it was summertime and I was drawing in a coloring book and he was there in the green grass and he didn’t know I was watching him. He was crawling around on all fours; he was practicing being a lion or a tiger or more probably a leopard and he was growling to himself, stalking the shadow of a bird, and he didn’t see me staring at him and I think my mother was there, looking at us from an upstairs window, watching us both and gently smiling, and what I remember most is that all of us were happy then with who we were at that moment; at that moment, all of us were quietly happy.”

“Do you know what it was like kissing Holly and looking up to see you?""What?""You said to begin anywhere."But I hadn't expected that as a beginning, middle or end. I felt my cheeks getting warm. "I guess it was pretty embarrassing for both of us," I said, and walked ahead of him so he wouldn't see my face. "I know, I just kept staring at you.""What were you thinking?""I don't remember.""Don't you start using that line," he chided."Then don't ask me, Nick." Did he suspect how I felt.He caught me and turned me around to face him. I focused on his shirt. "Okay," he said quietly, "I'll tell you what I was thinking. I couldn't believe that I, who was never going to get hooked, had fallen in love with a girl who didn't want to date, and she was watching me kiss somebody else."I glanced up."Your turn, brave girl. What were you thinking?""That Holly looked beautiful in your arms and that you didn't pull away from her the way you had pulled away from me when I kissed you."He drew me to him. "I'm not pulling away again," he said holding me close.”

“You scan the cheering bleachers for the strange boy’s face: handsome, reserved, with the eye patch, a little dramatic, a little scary. You finally find him sitting there in the middle of the sixth row. He is wearing a dark green army jacket and is staring back at you. He looks sad and beautiful, like a watercolor in a hospital room.”

“He nodded. "I think you're good for him, Meghan," he said, smiling in a small, sad way that was completely different from the Puck I knew. "I see the way he looks at you, something I haven't seen in him since the day we lost Ariella. And...I know you love him in a way that you can't love me." He looked away, just for a moment, and took a deep breath. "Jealousy isn't something that we deal with well," he admitted. "But some of us have been around long enough to know when to let go, and what is most important. The happiness of my two best friends should be more important than some ancient feud.”

“He stares at me steadily, for a long moment before looking away, but I read his eyes clearly. He wants me tonight. And from what my eyes were saying back to him, I think I just said yes.”

“I see the way he looks at you, something I haven't seen in him since the day we lost Ariella. And...I know you love him in a way you can't love me.” He looked away, just for a moment, and took a deep breath. “Jealousy isn't something we deal with well,” he admitted. “But some of us have been around long enough to know when to let go, and what is most important. The happiness of my two best friends should be more important than some ancient feud.” Stepping close, he placed a palm on my cheek, brushing a strand of hair from my face. Glamour flared up around him, casting him in a halo of emerald light. In that moment, he was pure fey, unbound by shallow human fears and embarrassment, a being as natural and ancient as the forest. “I have always loved you, princess,” Robin Goodfellow promised, his green eyes shining in the darkness. “I always will. And I'll take whatever you can give me.”

“It is what we see when we imagine what the afterlife must be like: our happiest triumphs, our most sincere moments, stolen from the seam of our lives, a respite just before the onset of imminent tragedy.”