“Beyond the lake, over the mountains, the clouds were illuminated from within by a brilliant stutter of lightning, and in that split second Elizabeth and I were etched against the sky.”

“What do you make of him?" I asked Elizabeth. "Apart from the fact he's clearly insane?""What can he learn from Konrad's blood?" I said. "Except that he needs it in his body to live!""There is something ghoulish about it.""He's like a vampyre,”

“If my heart were a compass, you'd be North.”

“I felt like I was seeing Shannon through a new lens, undistracted by Jennifer's nuclear glow. I could see how pretty she really was, how kind her eyes were.”

“You two were in a cave together?’ said Miss Simpkins in horror.‘Yes,’ said Kate, ‘and it was very, very dark.”

“If you were closer, I'd slap you," she said. "Let me help," I replied, and stepped closer. She promptly slapped me, which surprised me only a little. We glared at each other in the near dark, and then she looked away. "I'm sorry I slapped you," she said. "That's all right. I quite enjoyed it.”

“Traveling at night toward the stars, I thought yet again how very far away they were, and how you could travel your whole lifetime and never reach even the closest one. But even if you knew you couldn’t have something, it didn’t stop you wanting it. I wondered if Kate was to be my star, and I’d spend my life gazing upon her but never reaching her.”