I was just an okay person.

Real friends are hard to come by, and as annoying as Henry is, he'd throw himself in front of dragon's fire for you." "And that's the definition of a real friend?" "Oh, yes, just ask Owain." He laughed.

Dreaming led to disappointment, and disappointment to a kind of depressed funk that wasn’t easy to shake. Better to stay in the gray than get eaten by the dark.

I closed my eyes. I forced myself to relax, to remember that here, now, and always, I was the predator.

I pulled myself from his mind, day by day, piece by piece, memory by memory, until there was nothing of Ruby left to weigh him down or keep him bound to my side.

Thank you,” he was whispering, “thank you, thank you.…” And then he was kissing my face, every inch of it he could find, wiping away the tears and soot, chanting my name.

Owain told me about the beautiful, fair-haired Vesta. It took me several minutes to work out that Vesta was a horse, and that Owain was possibly in love with her.