“Silvia was tough, smart, and could survive on herown - she didn't need a handsome prince to ride up and rescue her. But that didn't mean such a man might not want to protect her from everything he could, anyway.”

“Grandfather used to say that when a woman got ready to fall in love the man didn't matter, because she could drape her feeling over a scarecrow and pretend he was handsome...”

“but she realized that she wanted him to know her. She wanted him to understand her, if only because she had strange sense that he was the kind of man she could fall in love with, even if she didn't want to.”

“An unspoken rivalry threaded their relationship, in which Tiger Lily thought that if she could keep up with him, she could hold tighter to him. It didn't occur to her there was anything in which Peter would want her to fail. But sometimes, I could see that, even for him, she was too fast, too sure-footed, and didn't seem to need him quite enough.”

“It wasn't okay. I didn't want her to leave. I didn't care if Jesus wanted her or not. She was my mommy. He could take an old mommy. One that didn't have little boys to take care of.”

“She saw Valentine's eyes as the sword hurtled toward her; it seemedlike eons, though it could only have been a split second. She saw that hecould stop the blow if he wanted. Saw that he knew it might well strike herif he didn't. Saw that he was going to do it anyway.”