It's a funny thing, character, the way it brands people as they age, rising from within to leave its scar.

A twinge at the edge of her lips and she continued, the soft, slow lilt of recitation: "Ancient walls that sing the distant hours.

Quite simply the book and I were meant to be together.

To abandon a child, she had once said to someone, when she thought Cassandra couldn't hear, was an act so cold, so careless, it refused forgiveness.

...which fairy-tale princess ever chose her maid over her prince?

There’s something about hospital walls; though only made of bricks and plaster, when you’re inside them the noise, the reality of the teeming city beyond, disappears; it’s just outside the door, but it might as well be a magical land far, far away.

Adults weren’t supposed to understand their children and you were doing something wrong if they did.