“Here's the other thing I think about. It makes little sense to try to control what happens to your remains when you are no longer around to reap the joys or benefits of that control. People who make elaborate requests concerning disposition of their bodies are probably people who have trouble with the concept of not existing. [...] I imagine it is a symptom of the fear, the dread, of being gone, of the refusal to accept that you no longer control, or even participate in, anything that happens on earth. I spoke about this with funeral director Kevin McCabe, who believes that decisions concerning the disposition of a body should be mad by the survivors, not the dead. "It's non of their business what happens to them whey the die," he said to me. While I wouldn't go that far, I do understand what he was getting at: that the survivors shouldn't have to do something they're uncomfortable with or ethically opposed to. Mourning and moving on are hard enough. Why add to the burden? If someone wants to arrange a balloon launch of the deceased's ashes into inner space, that's fine. But if it is burdensome or troubling for any reason, then perhaps they shouldn't have to.”

“Storm happens to be a very argumentative young woman,' Jason said drily, and Storm's eyes flashed. He smiled at her icily. 'People who are cursed with a quarrelsome disposition shouldn't start a fight without getting their facts right. It's a bad mistake, don't you think?' 'Certainly,' she retorted with frigid politeness. All her resolutions about starting afresh with Jason flew to the winds. 'But people who have a lot of control over other people's lives should have some sense of responsibility, don't you think?”

“Why shouldn't Mom trust me, Dad" Why are you so determined to make me out to be the bad guy all the time?" I stared at the side of his face, willing him to make eye contact. He didn't. "I've been doing really good late and you don't even care.""Yet you still managed to get into trouble tonight," he said."You have no idea what happened tonight," I said, my voice ratcheting up a notch. "All you know is that, because I was involved, I'm somehow guilty of something. You could at least pretend to care, you know. You could at least try to understand."Dad gave a sardonic little laugh. "I'll tell you what I understand," he said. "I understand that when you're left to your own devices you get into trouble, that's what I understand. I understand I was trying to have a happy, restful evening with Briley and once again you screwed it up.”

“Because I want to see. I've got to know what's going to happen while I'm still enough in control to be able to do something about it.”

“You either fainted or you wanted a much closer look at the cracks in the tile. Either way, you hit hard.""Seriously?"He nodded. "Maybe you shouldn't have been trying to make out with him," he suggested.How did he know that? "I was kissing him good-bye."He snorted and exchanged glances with the nurse. "That's not what it looked like to me."Probably not. But what happened? Could Reyes Farrow take control over me even from a freaking coma? I was doomed.”

“I love you, Roza." He kissed me again. "I'll always be here for you. I'm not going to let anything happen to you." The words were wonderful and dangerous. He shouldn't have said anything like that to me. He shouldn't have been promising he'd protect me, not when he was supposed to dedicate his life to protecting Moroi like Lissa. I couldn't be first in his heart, just like he couldn't be first in mine. That was why I shouldn't have said what I said next-but I did anyway. "And I won't let anything happen to you," I promised. "I love you." He kissed me again, swallowing off any other words I might have added.”