the demons that make a person afraid are the hardest to cast out.

Who would guess," he teased, "that I'd ever see you on a rooftop with straw in your hair?" Kit giggled. "Are you saying I've turned into a crow?" "Not exactly." His eyes were intensely blue with merriment. "I can still see the green feathers if I look hard enough. But they've done their best to make you into a sparrow, haven't they?

All the way up the river she's been holding back somehow, waiting. Now you'll both have to wait. I'm not going to disappoint her, Kit. When I take you on board the Witch, it's going to be for keeps.

I have no word of yours to assure me that our brief friendship held for you the same significance it held for me, but I must go on believing so. Every hope of the future is meaningless unless I have faith that you and I will share it together.

Tis a strange thing, that the only friends I have I found in the same way, lying flat in the meadows, crying as if their hearts would break.

From that first moment, in a way she could never explain, the Meadows claimed her and made her their own.

She snatched at the dream that had comforted her for so long. It was faded and thin, like a letter too often read.