When you are in pain, a moment is an eternity.

You can never trust anyone once you've had to trap them in a cage.

In life, the hardest decisions often have to be made more than once. But each time, it gets easier.

You are stronger than me," Asa says. "And in bravery and strength, there is a kind of beauty.

Clockwork could not run counter to its nature. The seconds, minutes, and hours moved only forward. Patient, precise, and unstoppable. Memory was an indulgence, an illusion that broke like a wave upon the juggernaut of time. The past remained the past.

Sometimes, when we want something so badly, we fear failure more than we fear being without that thing.

In the early morning hours, Hannah read at the table by the dim light of dawn. She leaned in close to the pages, chin resting on her folded arms, eyes racing over the words, like chasing butterflies over the hills, to catch as many as she could before going to work. She wondered at how such tales of magic could be contained by mere paper and ink for her to read again and again.