I feel a flash of grief so intense it almost makes me cry out: not for what I lost, but for the chances I missed.

For a moment, my heart aches for him. I should never have asked him to join me here; I should never have asked him to cross.

His secret name, which belongs to me, and to him, and to no one else.

I wonder if this is how people always get close: They heal each other's wounds; they repair the broken skin.

They haven't killed us yet," I say, and I imagine that one day I will fly a plane over Portland, over Rochester, over every fenced-in city in the whole country, and I will bomb and bomb and bomb, and watch all their buildings smoldering to dust, and all those people melting and bleeding into flame, and I will see how they like it. 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.

Take it from me: If you hear the past speaking to you, feel it tugging up your back and runing its fingers up your spine, the best thing to do-the only thing-is run.

Po flickered. "Thank you?" it repeated. "What is that?" Liesl thought. "It means, You were wonderful," she said. "It means, I couldn't have done it without you.