While I'm gone," Gansey said, pausing, "dream me the world. Something new for every night.

I sat on the hill, the wind whispering through the long grass that surrounded me. I stared at the stars and wanted more than what I was and more than what the world was and just - wanted.

Then I began to play. Variations on a G major chord, the most wonderful chord known to mankind, infinitely happy. I could live inside a G major chord, with Grace, if she was willing. Everything uncomplicated and good about me could be summed up by that chord.

That night, like every other night since I’d met her, I curled Grace into my arms, listening to her parents’ muffled movements in the living room. They were like busy little brainless birds, fluttering in and out of their nest at all hours of the day or night, so involved in the pleasure of nest building that they hadn’t noticed that it had been empty for years.

Oh! Your hand is cold." Ashley cupped her fingers against her shirt to warm them. "I've been dead for seven years," Noah said. "That's as warm as they get.

I watched the edges of the leaves slowly unfold, fluttering in the breeze. "How long did you wait?" It would've been unbearably romantic if he'd had he courage to look into my face and say it, but instead, he dropped his eyes to the ground and scuffed his boot in the leaves- countless possibilities for happy days- on the ground. "I haven't stopped.

This object that we hold in our hands, a book... that tactile pleasure, it's just not going to go away.