She smiled, if he could see that, and waited for him to ask the real question. But he was silent. He wanted her to volunteer the story, she realized, and she could just as easily choose to say nothing. But he deserved to know. They all deserved it, and Kirra already knew it, and Cammon may have guessed it, because Cammon could read souls, but Tayse was the only one she would tell.

And you're not leaving," she said. "Promise me." It was as if she had asked him to promise to keep breathing, to notice sunshine, to permit the spinning of the earth. What choice did he have? Even if he left her, she would be camped in his heart, an insistent and willful presence. She would match her strides to his on any journey he ever took; she would lie beside him on any bed. Amalie, he said, "that's the easiest promise I've ever had to make.

Are you asking me if there is a god?' he said, still in that soft voice. 'All I can say is, I believe there is. I feel him when I sing. He has responded to my prayers countless times. He guides my actions and he dwells in my heart. I know he is there.

If there is no god, what is left but science? What is left to endow us with any grace? You can tell me the chemical makeup of my skin and my brain, but how can you explain away my soul? And if there is no god to watch over me, chastise me, grieve for me, rejoice for me, make me fear, and make me wonder, what am I but a collection of metals and liquids with nothing to celebrate about my daily living?

she had something I could not have, and so I resented her—but I realized the fault was mine and not hers.

Everybody's afraid of love, because love is what hurts the most.

Yes, Jenna, I love you with all my heart. And with my atoms and molecules and electrons and whatever further breakdown you require.