“For now he knew what Shalimar knew: If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it.”

“Without wiping away the tears, taking a deep breath, or even bending his knees—he leaped. For now he knew what Shalimar knew: If you surrendered to the wind, you could ride it.”

“If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it.”

“She knew - she knew by now - that there really can be a person, one at least, that you can embrace as easily and wholly as though the two of you were one thing, a thing that once upon a time was broken into pieces and is now put back together. And how could she know this unless he knew it too? It was part of the wholeness, that he must; and that too she knew. With her he was for a moment whole, they were whole: as whole as an egg, and as fragile.”

“What would you do if you knew you could not fail.”

“But now the world, he thought, had taken them. He knew that this could suddenly happen. One day you just woke up, and there was somewhere that you needed to be.”