Thank you to the world for being a wild and inspiring place, full of odd creatures, strange people, and mysterious cities. I hope by and by to know you better.

She moved like a poem and smiled like a sphinx.

Once upon a time, there were two moons, who were sisters. Nitid was the goddess of tears and life, and the sky was hers. No one worshipped Ellai but secret lovers.

Light coursed through Karou and darkness chased it-burning through her, chilling her, shimmer and shadow, ice and fire, blood and starlight, rushing, roaring, filling her.

And there's no better way to thaw a face, as it turns out, than with another face.

Soon, everything else would come rushing at him. Like the ground to a falling man, it would come rushing up and hit him all at once - the place, the company, her words; one implication would lead to another and shatter him - but around that intake of breath the world hung silent and bright, so bright, and Akiva only knew this one thing, and held on to it and wanted to live inside of it and stay there forever. Karou was alive.

And they were quiet but their blood and nerves and butterflies were not—they were rampantly alive, rushing and thrumming in a wild and perfect melody, matched note for note.