“He couldn't live without being a draki, and I couldn't live without him.”

“I once saw a show about an amputee who lost his leg and still feels it. He actually wakes up at night to scratch his leg as if it’s still there, attached to him. They call it a phantom limb.I would be like that. A phantom draki, tormented with the memory of what I once was.”

“Then again, there’s nothing simple about Will. I think back to what he can do—bend earth, resist shading, his immense strength—and it’s glaringly inaccurate to consider him a human. But then I can’t think of him as a draki either. And this strikes me as sad. Will doesn’t belong anywhere. Not among humans. Not among draki.But he belongs with me. The conviction is still there, as senseless and dangerous as always, seeping into my bones, my heart. A fact I wouldn’t change even if I could.”

“Only now, here with Will, I realize I'm something more. Someone not bound by the rules of her pride, her race, her family. Someone who can be loved for herself, draki or not."I thought about you," I whisper, my voice not my own. It belongs to someone else. Someone brave, someone about to risk everything and follow her heart. "I've never stopped thinking about you." Somehow, I doubt I ever will.”

“I won't leave you! Do you know how unbearable it's been without you? You're not like the rest of them." His hand swipes through air almost savagely. I stare at him, my eyes wide and aching. "You're not some well-trained puppy content to go along with what you're told. You have fire." He laughs brokenly. "I don't mean literally, although there is that. There's something in you, Jacinda. You're the only thing real for me there, the only thing remotely interesting.”

“I shrug like I don't care. ...Like every fiber of my being isn't weeping in need for him”

“I will never see him again. Never know why he let me go. Never learn if he really whispered what I think he did. Beautiful.”