“She strokes my cheeks with the side of her hand – a repetitive, wispy motion. Like little ghost kisses.”

“I wipe at her cheeks with the cuff of my green sweater because it’s the softest thing I can think of. It catches her tears without absorbing them, and they hang between the fibers like stars.”

“Times like this, when she slips her hand into mine and holds on tight, and our husband becomes just a shadow in the doorway.”

“I draw back,gently step out of his hands that gripped my shoulders and were just edging their way to either side of my throat”

“As I go, I hear her screaming my name, in a brutal, bloody way, like she's being murdered, which maybe she is. But slowly. It will take her six years to die.”

“He kissed back, all the pages spread out around us like riddles waiting to be solved. Let them wait. Let my genes unravel, my hinges come loose. If my fate rests in the hands of a madman, let death come and bring its worse. I'll take the ruined craters of laboratories, the dead trees, this city with ashes in the oxygen, if it means freedom. I'd sooner die here than live a hundred years with wires in my veins.”

“Before I can process what’s happening, Deirdre has opened her hands and Linden has taken the ring from her and slipped it onto my finger.“Rhine Ashby,” he says.“My wife.”