She's been conned, ruined, left for dead, and she's not going to forgive any of it. She will soldier on, if only out of spite.

What have you done? What have you given up?' So many things, Cecily. More than you know.

Fate, I think, is a thief.

So many of the things I've wanted are the things I've been taught to fear.

He kissed back, all the pages spread out around us like riddles waiting to be solved. Let them wait. Let my genes unravel, my hinges come loose. If my fate rests in the hands of a madman, let death come and bring its worse. I'll take the ruined craters of laboratories, the dead trees, this city with ashes in the oxygen, if it means freedom. I'd sooner die here than live a hundred years with wires in my veins.

I had this feeling like the solution to everything would be down there if only I could dig through all those clouds.

And then I wonder, does my brother think of me this way? We entered this world together, one after the other, beats in a pulse. But I will be first to leave it. That's what I've been promised. When we were children, did he dare to imagine an empty space beside him where I then stood giggling, blowing soap bubbles through my fingers? When I die, will he be sorry that he loved me? Sorry that we were twins? Maybe he already is.