My mother always said that I was born out of a bottle of vinegar instead of born from a womb and that she and my father bathed me in sugar for three days to wash it off. I try to behave, but I always go back to the vinegar.

No, you used nouns and verbs together in a pleasing but illogical format.

...and we sat like that, one creature in two bodies, for a long time, until I forgot what I'd been upset about and I was myself again.

When you traffic in monsters, that's the risk you run, that you'll find one too monstrous to stomach.

How do you get 'feng shui' out of 'thoughtful'?

In that moment, Blue was a little in love with all of them. Their magic. Their quest. Their awfulness and strangeness. Her raven boys.

Gabe brings home a chicken and Tommy Falk for dinner. Truth be told, I'm not unhappy to see any of them. Gabe, because it's been so long since we've had dinner with him; the chicken because it's not beans; and Tommy Falk because his presence makes Gabe cheerful and goofy.