“Raven has lost deeply, again and again, and she, too, has buried herself. There are pieces of her scattered all over. Her heart is nestled next to a small set of bones buried beside a frozen river, which will emerge with the spring thaw, a skeleton ship rising out of the water”.”

“I’m sorry,” he repeats again, too low for Raven and Tack to hear. “I’m sorry for everything.”

“That was what her parents did not understand—and had never understood—about stories. Liza told herself storied as though she was weaving and knotting an endless rope. Then, no matter how dark or terrible the pit she found herself in, she could pull herself out, inch by inch and hand over hand, on the long rope of stories.”

“The alchemist was dazed and dumbfounded, as the true meaning of the magic was revealed: *The dead will rise from glade to glen and ancient will be young again*. The dead had, after all, risen. From dead and dry things there was growth, and new life everywhere. And the endlessly long winter had at last turned to spring. From life to death and back again to life. It was indeed the greatest magic in the world.”

“Raven jerks and stiffens. For a second, I think she is only surprised: Her mouth goes round, her eyeswide.Then she begins teetering backward, and I know that she is dead. Falling, falling, falling . . .”

“This is not what I wantef. This is not why I came to the Wilds, why Alex wanted me to come: not to turn my back and bury the people I care about, and build myself hard and careless on top of their bodies, as Raven does. This is what Zombies do.”

“I close my eyes. An image flashes—emerging from the van with Julian after our escape from New York City; believing, in that moment, that we had escaped the worst, that life would begin again for us.Instead life has only grown harder.”