“Smile with instinct, then lick your wounds in the darkest of dark corners. Trace the scars back to your own fingers and remember them.”

“She was battered and beaten up, and not smiling this time. Liesel could see it on her face. Blood leaked from her nose and licked at her lips. Her eyes had blackened. Cuts had opened up and a series of wounds were rising to the surface of her skin. All from the words. From Liesel's words.”

“Snowflakes of ash fell so lovelily you were tempted to stretch out your tongue to catch them, taste them. Only, they would have scorched your lips. They would have cooked your mouth.”

“What would you do if you were me? Tell me. Please tell me!But you're far from this. Your fingers turn the strangeness of these pages that somehow connect my life to yours. Your eyes are safe. The story is just another few hundred pages of your mind. For me, it's here. It's now. I have to go through with this, considering the cost at every turn. Nothing will be the same.”

“Her nerves licked her palms.”

“Yes, the sky was now a devastating, home-cooked red. The small German town had been flung apart one more time. Snowflakes of ash fell so lovelily you were tempted to stretch out your tongue to catch them, taste them. Only, they would have scorched your lips. They would have cooked your mouth.”

“The pages and the words are my world, spread out before your eyes and for your hand to touch. Vaguely, I can see you face looking down into me, as I look back. Do you see my eyes?”