“Look there.” Regina pointed toward the northern sky. “Polaris.”Viktor looked up. “The constant north star, one of man’s most dependable guides.”“Polaris will be waiting for us there when we are old and have experienced a lifetime of joys and regrets,” Regina said, a wistful note in her voice. “That fact makes me feel like one of God’s most insignificant creatures.”

“I enter. I’m not scared of Master Ez.I lean against the door with my eyes shut and breathe. Why did he ask me here if he wasn’t going to be waiting?“You look gorgeous,” a silky voice purrs and I jump again.“I thought you weren’t here. Why did Aaron let me in?” My voice quivers in fear- hell, yeah… I’m afraid of Master Ez.The office doesn’t get a second of my notice. Master Ez sits at his desk. He doesn’t get up. He smirks at me lasciviously. His steel eyes glow in the dim room. He commands me to look at him and I can’t stop.“I ask the questions, Regina.” The cadence is smooth, but there is an undercurrent of threat.He called me Regina, only Ezra calls me Regina. The one that was upset when I fled to the bathroom is the childlike Ezra- he probably would call me Regina, too. Master Ez calls me Queen. The true Ezra is a combination of both- an integrated personality. He’s the one talking to me. Why is HE looking at me like that?“I don’t understand that look, Ezra,” I mumble.“As I’ve said over and over, we are one in the same- Master Ez and I.” He sighs like he gets sick of pointing out that fact.“Um- yeah… but Master Ez loves ladies and they’re missing an appendage for you to enjoy,” I tease because anything else would scare the shit out of me.“Regina, Regina,” he laughs. “The Ezra I used to be liked boys. That changed- quickly and against my will. Master Ez only likes girls. Doesn’t it seem likely that if who I used to be liked boys and who manifested liked woman, that perhaps I enjoy both now? If we are to cohabitate in peace, we have certain concessions to make.”

“Jem, Cecily thought, with a pang in her heart. Her brother had always looked to him as a kind of North Star, a compass that would ever point him toward the right decision. She had never quite thought of her brother as lucky before, and certainly would not have expected to do so today, and yet-and yet in a way he had been. To always have someone to turn to like that, and not to worry constantly that one was looking to the wrong stars.”

“Welcome back to Personal Demons." Megan said into the microphone. "Our next caller is Regina. Hi, Regina, how can I slay your personal demons?"The words tasted like shame.”

“In the big house opposite someone was playing the piano at Dolzhikov's. It was beginning to get dark, and stars were twinkling in the sky. Here my father, in an old top-hat with wide upturned brim, walked slowly by with my sister on his arm, bowing in response to greetings."Look up," he said to my sister, pointing to the sky with the same umbrella with which he had beaten me that afternoon. "Look up at the sky! Even the tiniest stars are all worlds! How insignificant is man in comparison with the universe!"And he said this in a tone that suggested that it was particularly agreeable and flattering to him that he was so insignificant. How absolutely devoid of talent and imagination he was!”

“I look up at the night sky, and I know that, yes, we are part of this Universe, we are in this Universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the Universe is in us. When I reflect on that fact, I look up—many people feel small, because they’re small and the Universe is big, but I feel big, because my atoms came from those stars.”