You made this?' Finn looks at me. 'No, Saint Anthony brought it to me in the night. He was very put out I didn't give it to you right then.

There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark's Eve," Neeve said. "Either you're his true love . . . or you killed him.

It's for personal reasons," I say stiffly, which is what my mother had always told me to say about things that had to do with fighting with your brothers, getting any sort of illness that had intestinal ramifications, starting your period, and money.

There's a tap on the door then. We all exchange looks, Tommy Falk's as uncertain as the rest of ours. No one moves, so I finally wipe my hands off on my pants, go to the door, and open it a crack. Sean stands on the other side, one hand in his trouser pocket, the other holding a loaf of bread. I wasn't prepared for it to be Sean, so my stomach does a neat little trick that feels like either hunger or escaping.

Do you know how to wrap a leg?" "I was born wrapping legs," I say stiffly, because I'm insulted. "Must've been a challenging delivery," Sean notes.

It's a hard thing to hold a civil conversation after recalling that one party has used a Taser on the other, so both of them finished the walk in silence.

The biggest mistake you can make is assuming that creativity will hit you all at once and the muse will carry you to the end of the book on feather wings while Foster the People plays gently in the background. Storytelling is work. Pleasurable work, usually, but it is work.