I have no memory of climbing the stairs up to the roof. I don't even know how to get where I am, which is a problem since I'm going to have to get down, ideally in a way that doesn't involve dying.

It's starting to sink in," Corny said. "I can almost look at you without wanting to bang my head against the wall.

It demeans you to cover rotten meat with honey. I know what I am. What would you want with a monster?" "Everything.

She loves the serene brutality of the ocean, loves the electric power she felt with each breath of wet, briny air.

You carried my heart in your hands tonight," he said. "But I have felt as if you carried it long before that.

If they were real, then maybe the world was big enough to have magic in it. And if there was magic — even bad magic, and Zach knew it was more likely that there was bad magic than any good kind — then maybe not everyone had to have a story like his father's, a story like the kind all the adults he knew told, one about giving up and growing bitter.

If the enemy of my enemy is my friend, then surely you should be friend to my friend.