The monster showed up just after midnight. As they do.

I remember the ache I used to feel when she got too close, how it felt like grief, how it felt like a loss, like I was falling, falling into nothing, how it clenched me up and made me want to weep, made me actually weep.

You went up a girl and came down a woman.

That's what librarians do. They open up the world. Because knowledge is useless if you don’t know how to find it, if you don’t even know where to begin to look.

Francia don’t look too convinced. I never seen arms so crossed.

War is like a monster," he says, almost to himself. "War is the devil. It starts and it consumes and it grows and grows and grows." He's looking at me now. "And otherwise normal men become monsters, too.

So who are you then, Todd Hewitt?" he says. "What makes you so special?" Now that, I think, is a very good asking.