“There was no one color that could paint Lena Duchannes. She was a red sweater and a blue sky, a gray wind and a silver sparrow, a black curl escaping from behind her ear.”

“There was no one color that could paint Lena Duchannes. She was a red sweater and a blue sky, a gray wind and a silver sparrow, a black curl escaping from behind her ear.”

“What are you thinking?She smiled.I think you can figure it out. You can read the writing on the wall.And as she said it, there was writing on the wall. It appeared slowly, one word at a time.You'renottheonlyonefalling.It wrote itself out, in the same curling black script as the rest of the room. Lena's cheeks flushed a little, and she covered her face with her hands. "It's going to be really embarrassing if everything I think starts showing up on the walls.""You didn't mean to do that?""No."You don't need to be embarrassed, L.I pulled her hands away.Because I feel the same way about you.”

“She leaned into my shoulder. "Maybe you don't have to be a Caster to have power."I pushed her hair behind her ear. "Maybe you just have to fall for one.”

“A random crack in the old plaster in the corner behind her seemed to grow, until it curled its way across the ceiling, circled the frosted chandelier, and swirled its way back down. It looked like a heart. A giant, looping, girly heart had just appeared in the cracking plaster of her bedroom ceiling."Lena.""Yeah?""Is your ceiling about to fall in on our heads?"She turned and looked at the crack. When she saw it, she bit her lip, and her cheeks turned pink. "I don't think so. It's just a crack in the plaster.""Were you trying to do that?""No." A creeping pink spread across her nose and cheeks. She looked away.”

“I'm not falling anymore. That's what L says, and she's right.I guess you could say I'm flying. We both are.And I'm pretty sure somewhere up there in the real blue sky and carpenter bee greatness, Amma's flying, too.We all are, depending on how you look at it. Flying or falling, it's up to us.Because the sky isn't really made of blue paint, and there aren't just two kinds of people in this world, the stupid and the stuck. We only think there are. Don't waste your time with either-with anything. It's not worth it.”

“Even in the slippery blur of heat and arms and noise, Lena affected everything in her wake, a pull as powerful as the moon to the tides, or the planets to the sun. I was caught in her orbit, even as she pulled away from mine.”