Her mouth is always on the verge of a smile. It makes her look like there's always something amazing she needs to tell me, even when it's just hello.

Yes, she is." He looks at me, his face carved in pain. "She is dying, Sara. She will die, either tonight or tomorrow or maybe a year from now if we're really lucky. You heard what Dr. Chance said. Arsenic's not a cure. It just postpones what's coming." My eyes fill up with tears. "But I love her," I say, because that is reason enough.

It was nice not having to be the one in control, for a little while. It was nice to be the one who was protected, instead of the one who'd been protecting eveyone else.

My mother... she is beautiful, softened at the edges and tempered with a spine of steel. I want to grow old and be like her.

The wolves knew when it was time to stop looking for what they'd lost, to focus instead on what was yet to come.

Nowadays, I dont have expectations, and this way she beats them all.

it was possible to grow up in an instant, that you could look down and see the line in the sand dividing your life now from what it used to be.