“I nodded, disappointed, but then I got an idea. "Hey, Grover. You want a magic item?"His eyes lit up. "Me?"Pretty soon we'd laced the sneakers over his fake feet, and the world's first flying goat boy was ready for launch."Maia!" he shouted.He got off the ground okay, but then fell over sideways so his backpack dragged through the grass. The winged shoes kept bucking up and down like tiny broncos."Practice," Chiron called after him. "You just need practice!""Aaaaa!" Grover went flying sideways down the hill like a possessed lawn mower, heading toward the van.”

“I looked at him through swollen eyes. The light glowed around him and he looked like he was floating. He was a glowing creature from another world, opening his gossamer wings and beckoning me. I wanted to tumble into his embrace. We'd be able to fly and I wouldn't mind the sunshine or the sky if he could just hold me forever.”

“Scrambling through the drifts, Blay rushed over and landed on his knees. Qhuinn was sprawled on the ground, his long, heavy legs stretched out, his upper body in John’s lap.The male just stared at him with those mismatched eyes, unmoving, unspeaking.“Is he paralyzed?” Blay demanded, looking over at John.“Not that I’m aware of,” Qhuinn replied dryly.I think he’s got a concussion, John signed.“I do not—”He went flying off the hood of his car and hit this tree—“I mostly missed the tree—”And I’ve had to hold him down ever since.“Which is pissing me off—”

“He put his shoes over the red stone footprints and when he came to the last one on the path, fell to the ground and imagined being shot. The grass was cool and sharp on his cheek. Dying, he resolved, was like that—like lying down on a piece of very green grass, surrounded by flowering shrubs, and never getting up again.”

“Grover wore his fake feet and his pants to pass as human. He wore a green rasta-style cap, because when it rained his curly hair flattened and you could just see the tips of his horns. His bright orange backpack was full of scrap metal and apples to snack on. In his pocket was a set of reed pipes his daddy goat had carved for him, even though he only knew two songs: Mozart's Piano Concerto no. 12 and Hilary Duff's "So Yesterday," both of which sounded pretty bad on reed pipes.”

“Die human, DIE!! Die nasty polluting person!!!!' yelled Grover. I turned him so he faced me. He kept on clicking his plastic gun towards me as if I was part of the game.”