Romeo wouldn’t change his mind. That’s why people still remembered his name, always twined with hers.

You never know how much time you'll have.

My life was an unending, unchanging midnight. It must, by necessity, always be midnight for me. So how was it possible that the sun was rising now, in the middle of my midnight?

I stared into her eyes, wide under the thick fringe of lashes, and yearned for sleep. Not for oblivion, as I had before, not to escape boredom, but because I wanted to *dream*. Maybe, if I could be unconscious, if I could dream, I could live for a few hours in a world where she and I could be together. She dreamed of me. I wanted to dream of her.

Don't be self-conscious, if I could dream at all, it would be about you. And I'm not ashamed of it.

I felt like I was trapped in one of those terrifying nightmares, the one where you have to run, run till your lungs burst, but you can't make your body move fast enough... But this was no dream, and, unlike the nightmare, I wasn't running for my life: I was racing to save something infinitely more precious. My own life meant little to me today.

Ian paused and leaned closer to me so that I couldn't seem to see anything around his face, just snow and sapphire and ink.