“… Looking at her, I think I know better what romantic love is.”… she asked, “What is it?”“It is parental love,” he answered thoughtfully. “Wanting to protect and keep the other person safe. As well as the love of friendship - esteeming the other person, even desiring each other’s company beyond all others. And it is lust,” he said, meeting her eyes, and was rewarded with seeing them darken, her breath becoming slightly unsteady, one little word jerking her out of her clinical assessment. He smiled, a predatory, seductive grin. “The physical needing of the other person, the quickened pulse, the sweaty heat.” His hand, which still rested on hers, began slowly moving, his fingers dancing over her skin. “Combining them makes the result greater than its individual parts. Because it produces something else. It creates … a steadiness. A strength. I can’t explain it well - being only an outside observer - but I only know that out of my friends' relationships, my sister‘s marriage is the epitome of grace.”

“Love…love is understanding. Love is knowing that other person so well, you can anticipate them. Like if someone knows you’re uncomfortable, and they loosen your boot strings. Or if he knows you’re deeply worried about something, and does his best to remedy it and soothe your fears.”

“You are burnt beyond recognition," he added, looking at his wife as one looks at a valuable piece of personal property which has suffered some damage. She held up her hands, strong, shapely hands, and surveyed them critically, drawing up her fawn sleeves above the wrists. Looking at them reminded her of her rings, which she had given to her husband before leaving for the beach. She silently reached out to him, and he, understanding, took the rings from his vest pocket and dropped them into her open palm. She slipped them upon her fingers; then clasping her knees, she looked across at Robert and began to laugh. The rings sparkled upon her fingers. He sent back an answering smile.”

“I mean, I’ve always loved her, we’ve been best mates for years. When I started this thing, I thought that maybe, maybe there was something else – the germ of something else that could happen between us. But I don’t think I was entirely serious. It was speculative, you know. But, bloody hell, it’s bitten me in the arse. And now I love her. I think about her all the time. When I’m not with her, I’m just waiting for the next time I can be, and when I am, I’m just really happy. She’s funny, and smart, and.. gorgeous. I love her. Never felt like this before. Want-to-marry-her-and-be-with-her-all-the-rest-of-my-life kind of love her.”

“Then Daniel stepped forward and a trumpet sounded, followed by a drum. The dance was beginning. He took her hand. When he spoke, he spoke to her, not to the audience,as the other players did."The fairest hand I ever touched," Daniel said. "O Beauty, till now I never knew thee." As if the lines had been written for the two of them.They began to dance,and Daniel locked eyes with her the whole time. His eyes were crystal clear and violet, and the way they never strayed from hers chipped away at Luce's heart. She knew he'd loved her always,but until this moment,dancing with him on the stage in front of all these people,she had never really thought about what it meant.It meant that when she saw him for the first time in every life,Daniel was already in love with her. Every time. And always had been. And every time, she had to fall in love with him from scratch.He could never pressure her or push her into loving him. He had to win her anew each time.Daniel's love for her was one long, uninterrupted stream.It was the purest form of love there was,purer even than the love Luce returned. His love flowed without breaking,without stopping. Whereas Luce's love was wiped clean with every death, Daniel's grew over time, across all eternity. How powerfully strong must it be by now? Hundreds of love stacked one on top of the other? It was almost too massive for Luce to comprehend.He loved her that much,and yet in every lifetime,over and over again,he had to wait for her to catch up.All this time,they had been dancing with the rest of the troupe, bounding in and out of the wings at breaks in the music,coming back onstage for more gallantry,for longer sets with more ornate steps,until the whole company was dancing.At the close of the scene,even though it wasn't in the script,even though Cam was standing right there watching,Luce held fast to Daniel's hand and pulled him to her,up against the potted orange trees.He looked at her like she was crazy and tried to tug her to the mark dictated by her stage directions. "What are you doing?" he murmured. He had doubted her before,backstage when she'd tried to speak freely about her feelings.She had to make him believe her.Especially if Lucinda died tonight,understanding the depth of her love would mean everything to him. It would help him to carry on,to keep loving her for hundreds more years, through all the pain and hardship she'd witnessed,right up to the present.Luce knew that it wasn't in the script, but she couldn't stop herself: She grabbed Daniel and she kissed him.She expected him to stop her,but instead he swooped her into his arms and kissed her back.Hard and passionately, responding with such intensity that she felt the way she did when they were flying,though she knew her feet were planted on the ground.For a moment, the audience was silent. Then they began to holler and jeer.Someone threw a shoe at Daniel, but he ignored it. His kisses told Luce that he believed her,that he understood the depth of her love,but she wanted to be absolutely sure."I will always love you,Daniel." Only, that didn't seem quite right-or not quite enough. She had to make him understand,and damn the consequences-if she changed history,so be it. "I'll always choose you." Yes, that was the word. "Every single lifetime, I'll choose you.Just as you have always chosen me.Forever."His lips parted.Did he believe her? Did he already know? It was a choice, a long-standing, deep-seated choice that reached beyond anything else Luce was capable of.Something powerful was behind it.Something beautiful and-Shadows began to swirl in the rigging overhead. Heat quaked through her body, making her convulse,desperate for the fiery release she knew was coming.Daniel's eyes flashed with pain. "No," he whispered. "Please don't go yet."Somehow,it always took both of them by surprise.”

“He raised an eyebrow. "Where did you get this? Is our Anne Boleyn suddenly from Mars?" He chuckled. "I always thought she hailed from Wiltshire."Luce's mind raced to catch up. She was playing Anne Boleyn? She'd never read this play, but Daniel's costume suggested he was playing the king, Henry VIII."Mr. Shakespeare-ah,Will-thought it would look good-""Oh,Will did?" Daniel smirked, bot believing her at all but seeming not to care. It was strange to feel that she could do or say almost anything and Daniel would still find it charming. "You're a little bit mad, aren't you, Lucinda?""I-well-"He brushed her cheek with the back of his finger. "I adore you.""I adore you,too." The words tumbled from her mouth,feeling so real and so true after the last few stammering lies. It was like letting out a long-held breath. "I've been thinking, thinking a lot,and I wanted to tell you that-that-""Yes?""The truth is that what I feel for you is...deeper than adoration." She pressed her hands over his heart. "I trust you. I trust your love. I know how strong it is,and how beautiful." Luce knew that she couldn't come right out and say what she really meant-she was supposed to be a different version of herself,and the other times,when Daniel had figured out who she was, where she'd come from,he'd clammed up immediately and told her to leave. But maybe if she chose her words carefully, Daniel would understand. "It may seem like sometimes I-I forgot what you mean to me and what I mean to you,but deep down...I know.I know because we are meant to be together.I love you, Daniel."Daniel looked shocked. "You-you love me?""Of course." Luce almost laughed at how obvious it was-but then she remembered: She had no idea which moment from her past she'd walked into.Maybe in this lifetime they'd only exchanged coy glances.Daniel's chest rose and fell violently and his lower lip began to quiver. "I want you to come away with me," he said quickly.There was a desperate edge to his voice.Luce wanted to cry out Yes!, but something held her back.It was so easy to get lost in Daniel when his body was pressed so close to hers and she could feel the heat coming off his skin and the beating of his heart through his shirt.She felt she could tell him anything now-from how glorious it had felt to die in his arms in Versailles to how devastated she was now that she knew the scope of his suffering. But she held back: The girl he thought she was in this lifetime wouldn't talk about those things, wouldn't know them. Neither would Daniel. So when she finally opened her mouth,her voice faltered.Daniel put a finger over her lips. "Wait. Don't protest yet. Let me ask you properly.By and by, my love."He peeked out the cracked wardrobe door, toward the curtain.A cheer came from the stage.The audience roared with laughter and applause. Luce hadn't even realized the play had begun."That's my entrance.I'll see you soon." He kissed her forehead,then dashed out and onto the stage.”

“She saw Daniel hovering over her in his simple peasant's clothes...but then, a moment later, he was bare-chested, with long blond hair...and suddenly he wore a knight's helmet, whose visor he lifted to kiss her lips...but before he did,he shifted into his present self, the Daniel she'd left in her parents' backyard in Thunderbolt when she stepped through into time.This was the Daniel, she realized, she'd been looking for all along. She reached for him,she called his name, but then he changed again. And again. She saw more Daniels than she'd ever thought possible,each one more gorgeous than the last.They folded into each other like a vast accordion, each image of him tilting and altering in the light of the sky behind him.The cut of his nose,the line of his jawbone, the tone of his skin,the shape of his lips, all whirled in and out of focus,morphing all the time. Everything changed except his eyes.His violet eyes always stayed the same. They haunted her,hiding something terrible,something she didn't understand. Something she didn't want to understand.Fear?In the visions,the terror in Daniel's eyes was so intense Luce actually wanted to look away from their beauty. What could someone as powerful as Daniel fear?There was only one thing: Luce's dying.She was experiencing a montage of her death over and over and over again. This was what Daniel's eyes looked like, throughout time,just before her life went up in flames. She had seen this fear in him before.She hated it because it always meant their time was over.She saw it now in every one of his faces. The fear flashed from infinite times and places. Suddenly,she knew there was more:He wasn't afraid for her,not because she was walking into the darkness of another death.He didn't fear that it might cause her pain.Daniel was afraid of her."Lu Xin!" his voice cried out to her from the battlefield. She could see him through the haze of visions.He was the only thing coming in clearly-because everything else around her was lit up startingly white.Everything inside her was,too.Was her love of Daniel burning her up? Was it her own passion,not his,that destroyed her every time?"No!" His hand reached out for hers. But it was too late.”