I walked over and picked up one of the jugs. "What's this? Some kind of Caster disinfectant?" Lena took it out of my hand and lined it up with the others. "Yeah, it's called bleach.

It wasn't about how she looked, which was pretty, even though she was always wearing the wrong clothes and those beat-up sneakers. It wasn't about what she said in class--usually something no one else would've thought of, and if they had, something they wouldn't have dared to say. It wasn't that she was different from all the other girls at Jackson. That was obvious. It was that she made me realize how much I was just like the rest of them, even if I wanted to pretend I wasn't.

Aw, come on. I barely speak English, unless we're talking about the Lowcountry kind.

I was lost before I found her in my dreams, and she found me that day in the rain. I knew it seemed like I was always the one trying to save Lena, but the truth was she had saved me, and I wasn't ready for her to stop now.

Sometimes everyone does the right thing and there's still a mess left to clean up. Someone has to take responsibility for it.

I watched for her hair to curl, the telltale Caster breeze. It didn't move. This wasn't Caster magic she was working. It was another kind altogether. She couldn't charm her way out from under Macon's watch. She would have to resort to older magic, stronger magic, the kind that had worked best on Macon from the time she first moved to Ravenwood. Plain old love.

If a girl says not to get her a birthday present that means get me a birthday present and make sure it's jewelry.