“The hot blue-glass eyes of the mannequins watched as the ladies drifted down the empty river bottom street, their images shimmering in the windows like blossoms seen under darkly moving waters.”

“The witchlight made his skin paler, his eyes more intently blue. They were the color of the water in the North Atlantic, where the ice drifted on its blue-black surface like the snow clinging to the dark glass pane of a window.”

“She stared at the dark shimmer of glass that faced the street. The Clares never pulled curtains. They were comftorable with the dark. But there was another kind of dark. The darkness of minds full of hate.”

“I told Papa of whole cities under water, streets filled with drifting seaweed and glittering fish”

“The world beyond the water was a blue of green and stone and blue. A moment later Yoshi pushed through, the water pouring down in sheets so smooth it looked like glass, and stepped into the calm [p. 296]”

“A stone lies in a river; a piece of wood is jammed against it; dead leaves, drifting logs, and branches caked with mud collect; weeds settle there, and soon birds have made a nest and are feeding their young among the blossoming water plants. Then the river rises and the earth is washed away. The birds depart, the flowers wither, the branches are dislodged and drift downward; no trace is left of the floating island but a stone submerged by the water; — such is our personality.”