“his wartime experience had taught him to trust his instincts, even though he'd never been sure where they'd come from.”

“He had a smug smile on his lips like he knew, even in his sleep, that women all around him were dying from love because he'd taken their hearts and hidden them where they'd never find them.”

“They'd manage. Her ghost from the future had said so. He'd been right about the bad coming. Now she had to trust good would come as well.”

“I started to kiss him back, slower and clumsy where his had been sure, practiced. I was worried I was doing it wrong, but then a deep sound came from him, almost a growl and instinctively Iknew it was a sound of approval.”

“His instincts should have warned him sooner than they had, but thanks to his agimortus, he'd been hobbled like a brood mare waiting to be mounted by a randy stallion”

“But even in the schoolyard I'd been aware of that silence, that reserve in him, as though he'd been raised by foxes and language was his second language.”