“In the middle of the room was the bed where he had lain after that bullet found his neck near the Piave River front. It was a stupid attack; they had walked right into it.But Daniel had only enlisted in the war because Lucia was a nurse, so it was just as well. He rubbed at the place where he'd been hit. He could feel the pain almost as if it had happened yesterday.If Daniel had stuck around long enough to let the wound heal, the doctors would have been amazed by the absence of a scar. Today,his neck was smooth and flawless,as if he had never been shot.Over the years,Daniel had been beaten, battered, flung over balconies, shot in the neck and the gut and the leg,tortured over hot coals, and dragged through a dozen city streets. But a close study of every inch of his skin would reveal only two small scars: two fine white lines above his shoulder blades where his wings unfurled.All of the fallen angels acquired these scars when they took their human bodies. In a way,the scars were all any of them had to show for themselves.”

“Some scars never heal. And he sounds like he has a lot of them.''But Christ had scars too, even on His risen Body. Wounds in this life become glory in the next.”

“Daniel took Luce’s hands in his. He closed his eyes, inhaled, and let his massive white wings unfurl. Fully extended , they would have filled the entire kitchen , but Daniel reined them in, close to his body. They shimmered and glowed and looked altogether too beautiful. Luce reached out and touched them with both hands. Warm and satin smooth on the outside, but inside, full of power. She could feel it coursing through Daniel, into her. She felt so close to him, understood him completely—As If they had become one.”

“The damage was permanent; there would always be scars. But even the angriest scars faded over time until it was difficult to see them written on the skin at all, and the only thing that remained was the memory of how painful it had been.”

“His wings burned and he felt ashamed. This life in Italy had been a dark and ugly death for her. One of the worst. He would never stop blaming himself for the horrible way she had passed out of this life.But that was years after where Daniel stood today. This was the hospital where they'd first met, when Lucia was so young and lovely, innocent and saucy in the same breath. Here she had loved him instantly and completely. Though she was too young for Daniel to show he loved her back,he had never discouraged her affection. She used to slip her hand inside his when they strolled under the orange trees on the Piazza della Repubblica,but when he squeezed her hand,she would blush.It always made him laugh,the way she could be so bold, then suddenly turn shy.She used to tell him that she wanted to marry him someday."You're back!"Daniel spun around. He hadn't heard the door behind him opening. Lucia jumped when she saw him. She was beaming, showing a perfect row of tiny white teeth. Her beauty took his breath away.What did she mean,he was back? Ah, this was when he'd hidden from Luce,frightened of killing her by accident. He was not allowed to reveal anything to her; she had to discover the details for herself. Was he even to hint broadly,she would simply combust. Had he stayed,she might have grilled him and perhaps forced the truth out of him...He didn't dare.”

“He was about to go home, about to return to the place where he had had a family. It was in Godric’s Hollow that, but for Voldemort, he would have grown up and spent every school holiday. He could have invited friends to his house. . . . He might even have had brothers and sisters. . . . It would have been his mother who had made his seventeenth birthday cake. The life he had lost had hardly ever seemed so real to him as at this moment, when he knew he was about to see the place where it had been taken from him.”