I'm a powerful being... a wizard," Corny said. "So don't try anything." "Yes," said the little faery, blinking black eyes rapidly. "No. Try nothing.

I'm afraid that whatever I touch is spoilt by the contact." "I'm not scared of being spoiled," Val said.

Occasionally, there are battles in the sky. One likes to imagine the angels are always triumphant. One does not like to think of the ancient and terrible scales balancing the infernal and divine as wobbling back and forth. Tilting freely, to and fro. One does not like to think that sometimes it is the angel that falls.

She didn't know how much she'd been hoping that he still loved her, until she felt how much it hurt to realize he didn't.

I heard you've been having some problems with your girlfriend." Headmistress Northcutt says. "No," I say. "Not at all." Audrey broke up with me after the winter holiday, exhausted by my moodiness. It's impossible to have problems with a girlfriend who's no longer mine.

It’s just that you go so crazy being alone like that. Sometimes he’d forget my water or food and I’d cry and cry and cry.” She stops talking and looks out the window. “I would try to tell myself stories to pass the time. Fairy tales. Parts of books. But they got used up.

I'm afraid my voice is going to break. I am afraid she is going to hear how much this hurts.