And even though I'm standing in the middle of the biggest crowd I've ever seen in my life, I suddenly feel very alone.

That is the rule of the Wilds: You must be bigger and stronger and tougher. You must hurt or be hurt.

Raven jerks and stiffens. For a second, I think she is only surprised: Her mouth goes round, her eyes wide. Then she begins teetering backward, and I know that she is dead. Falling, falling, falling . . .

But maybe you carried your demons with you everywhere, the way you carried your shadow.

Once Mo had closed the gates, he returned to his little stone hut, and his half-eaten sandwich of butter and canned sardines, and his mug of thick hot chocolate, which every night he poured carefully into a thermos labeled COFFEE.

If you cross a line and nothing happens, the line loses meaning.

Amor deliria nervosa: It affects your mind so that you cannot think clearly, or make rational decisions about your own well-being. Symptom number twelve.