Are you saying you don't love me?" Hazael asked Liraz. "Because I love you. I think." He paused in contemplation. "Oh. No. Never mind. That's fear.

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.

Everything lined up. It has been easy, as if it were meant-" "Meant!" she said, amazed. She spun to face him, which, in the crush, brought her against his chest as if they were still dancing. She fought backward for space. As if what were meant?" "You," he said. "And me.

Love affair. Doesn't that sound so middle-aged? And also ill-fated. Like ill-fated is an understood prefix to love affair. Well, ill-fated is fine, as long as it's a meaty and fraught ill-fated love affair, not a pale and insipid one.

I want.." she said, knowing what she wanted, feeling pulled toward it, arching toward it, but hardly knowing how to say it.

I start to wonder if I’m being creepy. I mean, I am creeping. Does creep-ing automatically make one creep-y? Or are there dispensations for…romance? I bet all stalkers believe they’re being romantic. I did it for love, officer.

They were tower stairs, a tight corkscrew down. The spiraling descent made Karou dizzy: down, around, down, around, hypnotic, until it seemed as if she were caught in a purgatory of stairs and would go down like this forever.