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

I lost everyone I loved," I tell him. I wait for him to look at me, and then I add, "The day I met you.

Childhood is a long, long road, from which that dark whispering forest of death seems an impossible destination.

I nod like I'm not at all unnerved by this new cold side to him. Not cruel like his father. Not warm like the husband who sought me out on quiet nights. Something in between. This Linden has never woven his fingers through mine, never chosen me from a line of weary Gathered girls, never said he loved me in a myriad of coloured lights. We are nothing to each other.

I always knew I was an excellent liar; I just didn't know that I had it in me to fool myself.

My head is my favorite swimming pool.

I want to make a world more magical than my own. I don't care if it makes sense, I don't care if it's ridiculed or if, rather than a neat round planet that goes around forever, it ends with a cliff that falls off into nothing. I want to have my eyes wide open, and I want to see this room and at the same time, not this room.