“A bus came. The soldier turned away from her and walked toward it. Tatiana watched him. Even his walk was from another world; the step was too sure, the stride too long, yet somehow it all seemed right, looked right, felt right. It was like stumbling on a book you thought you had lost. Ah, yes, there it is.”

“What? I demand to know. "What is it now?""You're not going to go." he says."Watch me.""I've been having a vision of this place, too." This stops me from my wild, cowardly (how can he think I'm brave?) retreat back to the road ..."You're having a new vision, too?" I ask. "It's right here." He walks toward me, his strides long and purposeful across the grass. "Right now. I've been seeing it for weeks, and it's happening right now."He stops in front of me. "This is the part where I kiss you," he says.”

“So Lyra and her daemon turned away from the world they were born in, and looked toward the sun, and walked into the sky.”

“All right. All right.' He thought: am I taking to drink too? It seemed to him that he had no shape left, nothing you could touch and say: this is Scobie.”

“And just so you know—that winter forest we walked into first? That was from Through the Looking Glass too. Hey, if you’re going to saddle me with the blame for your overconsumption, at least get the book right.”

“She gave him a dubious look, as if he wasn’t quite right in the head. "Sometimes, Englishman, I do not understand you. I love you, but I do not always understand you."She turned and started across the meadow. He remained where he was and watched her walk away, with her skirts in her hand and the sun on her hair."I love you, too," he said, but only after she was too far away to hear. "I always have.”