We are all punished for the lives we have chosen, in one way or another.

He who leaps for the sky may fall, it's true. But he may also fly.

That was what her parents did not understand—and had never understood—about stories. Liza told herself storied as though she was weaving and knotting an endless rope. Then, no matter how dark or terrible the pit she found herself in, she could pull herself out, inch by inch and hand over hand, on the long rope of stories.

If you take, we will take back. Steal from us, and we will rob you blind. When you squeeze, we will hit. This is the way the world is made now.

The idea—the fact of it, the fact that he even noticed and thought about me for more than one second—is huge and overwhelming, makes my legs go tingly and my hands feel numb.

I start to follow her, and Alex grabs my hand. "I'll find you," he says, watching me with the eyes I remember. "I won't let you go again." I don't trust myself to speak. Instead I nod, hoping that he understands me. He squeezes my hand. "Go," he says.

The first time I saw you, at the Governor, I handn't been to watch the birds at the border in years. But that's what you reminded me of. You were jumping up, and you were yelling something, and your hair was coming loose from your ponytail, and you were so fast..." He shakes his head. "Just a flash, and then you were gone, Exactly like a bird.