The thing is, I used to like that: feeling special because I knew something no one else did. It's a kind of power, isn't it, knowing a secret? But lately I don't like it so much, knowing this. It's not really mine to know, is it?

Lately, the world felt fragile, like a blown egg, as if it might shatter beneath a careless touch.

Norah watched him, serious and utterly absorbed in his task, overcome by the simple fact of his existence.

So something had begun, and now she could not stop it. Twin threads ran through her: fear and excitement. She could leave this place today. She could start a new life somewhere else.

Grief, it seemed, was a physical place.

He had never even glimpsed her.

Each letter has a shape, she told them, one shape in the world and no other, and it is your responsibility to make it perfect.