“Her mere proximity gave him the most peculiar sensation, like the kind of heat sent out when a log shatters to ash in a fire.”

“Being in his arms made her feel like the sea finding its shore, like a traveler returning after a long, hard, distant trip - finally returning home.”

“She had tried to forget him, realizing the inutility of remembering. But the thought of him was like an obsession, ever pressing itself upon her. It was not that she dwelt upon details of their acquaintance, or recalled in any special or peculiar way his personality; it was his being, his existence, which dominated her thought, fading sometimes as if it would melt into the mist of the forgotten, reviving again with an intensity which filled her with an incomprehensible longing.”

“She was still under the spell of her infatuation. She had tried to forget him, realizing the inutility of remembering. But the thought of him was like an obsession, ever pressing itself upon her. It was not that she dwelt upon details of their acquaintance, or recalled in any special or peculiar way his personality; it was his being, his existence, which dominated her thought, fading sometimes as if it would melt into the mist of the forgotten, reviving again with an intensity which filled her with an incomprehensible longing.”

“With a loud whoosh he stretched his wings out,and then deftly wrapped them tight around her, a cradle of soft white holding the two of them fast."You really believe it?" she whispered. "That someday I'll live through this?""With all my heart and soul," he said, cupping her face in his hands, pulling his wings tighter around them both. "I will wait for you as long as it takes. I will love you every moment across time."By then,Luce was broiling hot. She cried out from the pain,thrashing in Daniel's arms as the heat overwhelmed her. She was burning his skin, but he never let her go.The moment had come. The starshot was tucked inside her dress,and this-right now-was when she would have used it.But she was never going to give up.Not on Daniel. Not when she knew,no matter how hard it got,that he would never give up on her.Her skin began to blister.The heat was so brutal,she could do nothing but shiver.And then she could only scream.Layla combusted,and as the flames engulfed her body,Luce felt her own body and the soul they were sharing untwine,seeking the fastest escape from the unforgiving heat. The column of fire grew taller and wider until it filled the room and the world,until it was everything,and Layla was nothing at all.”

“When you chopped logs with the ax and they split open they smelled beautiful, like Christmas. But when you split someone's head open it smelled like abattoir and quite overpowered the scent of the wild lilacs you'd cut and brought into the house only this morning, which was already another life.”

“As Edna walked along the street she was thinking of Robert. She was still under the spell of her infatuation. She had tried to forget him, realizing the inutility of remembering. But the thought of him was like an obsession, ever pressing itself upon her. It was not that she dwelt upon details of their acquaintance, or recalled in any special or peculiar way his personality; it was his being, his existence, which dominated her thought, fading sometimes as if it would melt into the mist of the forgotten, reviving again with an intensity which filled her with an incomprehensible longing.”