“He grunted; she recognized it as relief that she wasn't going to nag him further about Tor the Just, who probably wasn't that boring if he could hold off the Notherners for nine days and melt a hole in the hills.”

“She was still waiting for him to come back to her, even though he wasn't going to. She was still holding out for something that wasn't going to happen. She was good at waiting. That seemed like a sad thing to be good at.”

“It wasn't awful to be dead. The stillness would almost be a relief. She wouldn't want pain, she wouldn't want to be wounded or mutilated. She could never shoot herself or jump off a building. But being dead wasn't unthinkable.”

“She should probably stop calling him "the Djinn." He did, after all, have a name. He was Khalil somebody. According to one of his companions, he was Khalil Somebody Important.Grace wasn't sure, but she thought his name might be Khalil Bane of Her Existence, but she didn't want to call him that to his ... well, his face, when he chose to wear a face ... because she didn't want to provoke him any more than she already had, and she was really, really just hoping he might get bored and go away now that all the excitement had died down.All the excitement was dying down now, wasn't it?”

“He wasn't into one-night stands, he wasn't into scoring just to see if he could, he wasn't into acting just charming enough to get what he wanted before cutting loose in favor of someone new and attractive. He just wasn't like that. He would never be like that. When he met a girl, the first question he asked himself wasn't whether she was good for a few dates; it was whether she was the kind of girl he could imagine spending time with in the long haul.”

“cell phones have a way of disliking the bayou and the river. It must be water thing.""But what about when you weren't i the bayou? Surely Calhoun gave you a cell phone to keep in touch when you were in town.""I melted two of them. he decided it wasn't worth it."He looked down at her to see if she was teasing him. Her gaze was all too serious. "You melted them?"She nodded. "I melt things. Accidentally."Nicholas wasn't touching that. Considering all that melting going on inside of him any time he was close to her he could believe she'd melted a couple of phones. After all, they were much smaller than he was. His breath chuffed out and he took her hand, deciding to try to diffuse the situation. "Try not to melt any body parts.”