I had never been this mad at her before. It was one thing to be attacked by someone you hated, but this was something else. This was the kind of hurt that could only be inflicted by someone you loved, who you thought loved you. It was sort of like being stabbed from the inside out.

It was all so clear now. Like everything had been lost in darkness, and then the sun came out. Some moments are like that.

I want you here. I don't care if it's a hundred degrees and every blade of grass dies. Without you, none of that matters to me.

Age-appropriate makeup? Who are you people? What makeup is age-appropriate for a seven-year-old?

She had the power to destroy. I had only seen the power to love. When you discovered both, who could figure out what to do with that?

The one broken window that permanently wouldn't roll up had destroyed her perfectly curled blond prom-hair, and by the time we got to the gym she looked like Marie Antoinette with bedhead.

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.