“There is a silence so great that I can hear the ice crystals cracking and falling from eyelashes of girls who will never blink again.”

“It's the silence I imagine in the rest of the world, the silence of an endless ocean and uninhabitable island, a silence that can be seen from space.”

“And everywhere girls, tumbling from trees like orange blossoms and hitting the earth with sickening thuds. They crack open.”

“When I call his name, it’s a sound almost entirely out of my control. It soars over the crowd and hits him. Even from where I’m standing, I can tell that he recognized my voice. Hastily he unwinds himself from the girl, stands to attention like an animal sensing danger. And I try to call him again, but that word, that name, was all I had the energy for. I barely have the strength left to stand.I wait helplessly for him to find the sound, and when he does, when his heterochromatic eyes meet mine, my mouth forms the word again, but just barely. The girl at his side disappears. The crowd blurs into senseless shapes and colors. I can’t feel my heart or my body or the heat of the flames.I can only see his face—his bewildered, beautifully familiar face.”

“I nod like I'm not at all unnerved by this new cold side to him. Not cruel like his father. Not warm like the husband who sought me out on quiet nights. Something in between. This Linden has never woven his fingers through mine, never chosen me from a line of weary Gathered girls, never said he loved me in a myriad of coloured lights. We are nothing to each other.”

“I can hear my brother's voice in my head. Your problem is that you're too emotional.But how can I not be emotional, Rowan? How can I not care?”

“Helplessly I look at him. He will never be just Rowan again. I will never be just Rhine. Everything has been tampered with.”