“Okay... That's still blind-making.”

“Not everything made you stronger. It was possible to survive, yet still be crippled for your trouble. Sometimes it was okay to run away, to skip the test, to chicken out. Or at least to get some help.”

“Why are you still wearing...?" Aya began. "Oh, that's not smart plastic? You're really an ugly?"David rolled his eyes and Shay said quietly, "David's never had any surge at all. But I wouldn't use the word ugly...Tally might eat you.”

“If you see everything through hovercams and feed stories, you wind up blind to what's right in front of you.”

“She needed Andrew Simpson Smith, it was that simple. And he had spent his life training to help people like her. Gods. "Okay, Andrew. But let's leave today. I'm in a hurry.""Of course. Today." He stroked the place where his slight beard was beginning to grow. "These ruins where your friends are waiting? Where are they?"Tally glances up at the sun, still low enough to indicate the eastern horizon. After a moment's calculation, she pointed off to the northwest, back toward the city and beyond that, the Rusty Ruins. "About a week's walk that way." "A week?""That means seven days.""Yes, I know the gods' calendar," he said huffily. "But a whole week?""Yeah. That's not so far, is it?" The hunters had been tireless on their march the night before. He shook his head, an awed expression on his face. "But that is beyond the edge of the world.”

“Maybe she still was a pretty-head, making up irrational stories about the empty forest. The longer she stayed alone out here, the more Tally understood why the Rusties and their predecessors had believed in invisible beings, praying to placate spirits as they trashed the natural world around them.”

“He squeezed her hand. "Then I'll come get you, wherever you are when it happens. We'll be okay.""But what about everybody else?"He stared out across the river, nodding slowly. "My guess is, everybody else is in big trouble.”