Stay here!" he commanded me, then he raced off after Cal. I stopped for just a moment. Then I ran after them.

Being good is something that one must choose over and over again, every day, throughout the day, for the rest of one's life," Asher said. "A day is made of a thousand decisions, most small, some huge. With each decision you have the chance to work toward light, or sink toward darkness.

Over my dead body, I thought. Yes, even immortals use that phrase. It has extra oomph for us.

No matter how dark you are, no matter what you think your heritage is or how inevitable your fall is, you can always make a choice in the next second to be different.

Please, ground, just open up and let me fall into an endless crevasse till I hit the center of the earth and combust. Please. Is that too much to ask?

It happened again this afternoon. Just the way it did that other night. We were talking--talking about how to protect her, actually--and then, suddenly, I looked at her and it was as if I'd found an entire universe in her eyes.

At that moment I remembered something Cal had told me: that there is beauty in darkness in everything. Sorrow in joy, life and death, thorns on the rose. I knew then that I could not escape pain and torment any more than I could give up joy and beauty