“And then the fiery tangle of hair was no longer connected to the rest of her body. The shivering orange waves fell to the ground, and bounced once before rolling toward the trees.”

“And then as you were sleeping, you said my name. You spoke so clearly, at first I thought you'd woken. But you rolled over restlessly and mumbled my name once more, and sighed. The feeling that coursed through me then was unnerving, staggering. And I knew I couldn't ignore you any longer.”

“I stared into Jared's eyes, and the strangest thing happened. All the melting and melding I had just been through was shoved aside, into the smallest part of my body, the little corner that I took up physically. The rest of me yearned toward Jared with the same desperate, half-crazed hunger I'd felt since the first time I'd seen him here. This body barely belonged to me or to Melanie-it belonged to him.”

“I'm trying to keep"― he huffed, shifting his weight as the treetop bounced him―"my promise!"I blinked my wet blurry eyes, suddenly sure that I was dreaming."When did you ever promise to kill yourself falling out of Charlie's tree?”

“I didn’t drop my arms when his anguish quieted; I was in no hurry to let him go. It seemed as though my body had been starving for this from the beginning, but I’d never understood before now what would feed the hunger. The mysterious bond of mother and child—so strong on this planet—was not a mystery to me any longer. There was no bond greater than one that required your life for another’s. I’d understood this truth before; what I had not understood was why. Now I knew why a mother would give her life for her child, and this knowledge would forever shape the way I saw the universe.”

“Surely, as a rule, some little bit of moonlight would filter through the clouds, through the clinks in the canopy of trees, and find the ground.Not tonight. Tonight the sky was utterly black. Perhaps there was no moon tonight-a lunar eclipse, a new moon.A new moon. I shivered, though I wasn't cold.”

“And then the third wife did something that the Cold Woman did not expect. She fell to her knees at the blood drinker's feet and plunged the knife into her own heart.”