There is never any turning back Gemma. You have to go forward. Make the future yours.

The dull pain of truth weights my soul, pulling it under. I am left hopelessly awake.

It's only his thumb brushing slowly across the lower edge of my lip, but it's as if time slows and the sweep of that thumb below my mouth takes forever. It is no spell that I know of, but it holds such magic, I can scarcely breath. He pulls his hand away fast, aware of what he's done. But his touch lingers.

You couldn't be perfect enough to keep the world from betraying you.

Don't you? if you keep them from the magic, they will never know what their lives could be.' They will remain protected,' Asha insists. No, 'I say. 'Only untested.

Can we really conquer chaos so easily? If that were so, I should be able to prune the pandemonium of my own soul into something neat and tidy rather than this maze of wants and needs and misgivings that has me forever feeling as if I cannot fit into the landscape of things.

When the world moves forward too fast for some people, they try to pull us all back with their fear.