I could still smell her on my fur. It clung to me, a memory of another world. I was drunk with it, with the scent of her. I'd got too close. The smell of summer on her skin, the half-recalled cadence of her voice, the sensation of her fingers on my fur. Every bit of me sang with the memory of her closeness. Too close. I couldn't stay away.

What are you wishing for?' Grace interrupted. 'To kiss you,' I said to her.

whoopdie-friggin-doo, fooled you!

Or even tell me it's because you could not live without The Boy's stunning Boyfruits for another night..." Sam's face was twisted into a weird shape at the mention of his Boyfruits.

She doesn't know any better, what a girl like her needs is a man with both his legs on the land. A man who will hold her down so that she doesn't fly away. She doesn't know yet that someone like you looks better on the shelf than in your hand.

Every third step I ran, my breath exploded out of me all in a rush. One step to suck in another cold lungful. One step to let it excape. One step of not breathing.

Overhead, the stars were wheeling and infinite, a complicated mobile made by giants.