“You must learn to know the difference between tales and the truth, my Liza, she would say. Fairy tales have a habit of ending too soon. They never show what happens afterwards when the prince and princess ride off the page.”

“Fairy tales have a habit of ending too soon. They never show what happens afterwards when the prince and princess ride off the page.”

“...which fairy-tale princess ever chose her maid over her prince?”

“A plot that had filled her with glee when she began, was now revealed as flimsy and transparent. Eliza scratched out what she'd written. It would not do. And yet, whichever way she twisted the plot, she couldn't make it work. For which fairy tale princess ever chose her maid over her prince?”

“Ever since Eliza had discovered the book of fairy tales . . . had disappeared inside its faded pages, she'd understood the power of stories. Their magical ability to refill the wounded part of people.”

“Cassandra always hid when she read, though she never quite knew why. It was as if she couldn't shake the guilty suspicion that she was being lazy, that surrendering herself so completely to something so enjoyable must surely be wrong. But surrender she did. Let herself drop through the rabbit hole and into a tale of magic and mystery ...”

“Mother didn't understand that children aren't frightened by stories; that their lives are full of far more frightening things than those contained in fairy tales.”