“Helen?’ Lucas asked, his voice faint and breathy.‘Make sound. If alive,’ he barley managed to say.”

“Lucas Delos,” he said, holding out his hand.“Don’t you hate this kid?” Jerry asked Helen candidly as he shook the offered hand.”

“Lucas Delos stood over her, his body tense, his eyes scanning the distance for something that Helen couldn’'t see from her position on the ground.“'Are you injured?'” he asked in a low, unsteady voice, still looking out over her head. There was blood on his lip and his shirt was torn. Helen had a bare moment to say she was fine before she heard the sobbing sisters start to whisper.”

“Helen's modest. She wanted to dress herself," Ariadne said, drizzling honey over a bowl of oatmeal and putting it down in front of Helen."Modest? Sure she is," Hector said sarcastically as he passed Lucas the bacon."That was YOUR SISTER'S nightgown, wasn't it?" Lucas asked without skipping a beat as he served Helen and himself.Hector wisely shut his mouth."Yeah," Ariadne replied for him, not getting it. "So comfortable! What? What are you all laughing at?”

“They dragged the air mattress up to the widow's walk and eventually figured out how it was supposed to inflate, but Lucas had to read the instructions in Spanish because the English ones were nearly incomprehensible. Hilariously so. "Insert mouth to the purpose inflation," Helen whispered. ... "Expel lung into inflator tube," Lucas whispered back. "That sounds like it would hurt.”

“Remember there's always a grain of truth in the prophecies, no matter how much poetry has been frosted on top." ~ Lucas to Helen”

“Helen, beloved of the goddess of love, went downstairs to crawl into her empty bed as Lucas, the son of the sun, leaned back on his elbows and watched his father-god brighten the bare wooden planks of her widow's walk.”