Storytelling was the most honored of all talents, for it benefited everyone.

And it was different because I'd already lost her so many times, so many ways, in my head. And different because she was never really mine to lose. And different because this wasn't my fault.

Because there was nothing more terrifying to me, more excruciating, than the thought of turning away from him. it was an impossibility.

Try not to trip," she added. "We don't have time for a concussion today." I groaned. That would be just like me - ruin everything, destroy the world, in a moment of klutziness.

I felt like I was staring out across an ocean that I was going to have to swim from shore to shore before I could rest again.

I stared because their faces, so different, so similar, were all devastatingly, inhumanly beautiful.

He put his cold hands on either side of my face and fixed his golden eyes on mine. "Would you please tell me what you're thinking? Before I go mad?