The conviction that everyone in this house must be dead had gained such a hold on Magnus that it was a shock when the woman who had summoned him here opened the door.

For as is often the happenstance with that which is precious and lost, when you find him again, he may well not be quite as you left him.

Astriola. That IS demon pox. You had evidence that demon pox existed and you didnt mention it to me! Et tu, Brute!' He rolled up the paper and hit Jem over the head with it.

I dislike boats," Ragnor observed, looking around. "I get vilely seasick." The turning green joke was too easy. Magnus was not going to stoop to make it.

You might want to get up," he said. "Everyone will be here quite soon to rescue you, and you may prefer to have clothes on when they arrive." He shrugged. "I would, at any rate, but then, I am well known to be remarkably shy.

I’d do almost anything for you,” Simon said quietly. “I’d die for you. You know that. But would I kill someone else, someone innocent? What about a lot of innocent lives? What about the whole world? Is it really love to tell someone that if it came down to picking between them and every other life on the planet, you’d pick them? Is that—I don’t know, is that a moral sort of love at all?

I want you to be happy, and him to be happy. And yet when you walk that aisle to meet him and join yourselves forever you will walk an invisible path of the shards of my heart Tessa. I would give over my own life for either of yours.