The truth, she found, felt smooth, like a skipping stone in the palm of your hand.

It's like all my life I've been this tower standing at the edge of the ocean for some obscure purpose, and only now, almost eighteen years in, has someone thought to flip the switch that reveals that I'm not a tower at all. I'm a lighthouse. It's like waking up. I am incandescent.

Around Mik, my powers desert me. I lose basic motor function, like my brain focuses all neural activity on my lips and shifts into kiss preparedness mode way too early, to the detriment of things like speech, and walking.

You mean he came to your school? The scandalous rodent-loaf!

Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love. It did not end well.

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

Anyway, since when are you shy? Just talk to him already!' ' 'And say what? Nice fiddling, handsome man?' 'Absolutely.