“I stared at him, unable to believe this was happening. That he could justdisappear, along with everything rich and strange he’d brought into my life.Vanished, like magic.”

“At first Silas liked the subjects simply because of their strangeness, but slowly he began to believe in the possibilities of what he was reading, in a world filled with secrets and magic. When he was younger, he’d suspected his father believed in many of these things too, so that made it easy for them to talk. As he grew older, Silas began to see the glimmers of hieroglyphic logic behind the occult. There was a reason for these oddities to exist, perhaps as strange connections between the mind and the things people feared or desired. Magic was a conversation. Ghosts were real, and they were watching because something had happened that necessitated their presence.”

“Oh my God. Party punch. He’d brought a woman with the social age of twelve to the Citadel. He deserved everything he got.”

“Was it only because he happened to be the one who came along when he did? Could it have been anyone? Or was there something about him, that I liked and cared at?”

“He’d never been shy, but he’d always been a little uncertain around girls. He just couldn’t believe they liked him.”

“I don't believe in the kind of magic in my books. But I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book.”