Hope can be a powerful force. Maybe there's no actual magic in it, but when you know what you hope for most and hold it like a light within you, you can make things happen, almost like magic.

Because hope comes from in you, and wishes are just magic.

Her heart was gasping, empty. Whatever resistance had been in her, she gave it up. Her hands knew what they wanted: They wanted Akiva, the spark and heat of him. Even in the warmth of the Moroccan spring, she was cold, as if the only thing with a chance of warming her was him.

What she had shared with Akiva could not be touched by shame. Madrigal lifted her voice to say, "We dreamed together of the world remade.

Having hope was like dangling himself over a chasm and putting the rope in her hands. She could annihilate him if she wanted to.

He'd sooner die trying to hold the world on his shoulders than running away. Better always to run toward. And so he did.

Hope was mirage, and none trusted easily to it.

I wish my hair was blue."But she never broke the bone. What started as a childish defiance turned into something else. Weeks became months, and the longer she went without breaking the wishbone, the more important it seemed that when she did, the wish - the hope, rather - should be worthy of her.In the requiem grove with Akiva, it finally was.

His hope was like an intake of icy air—it hurt—and just as sharp and sudden was his jealousy. In an instant he was hot and cold with it, his hands clenching into fists so tight they burned. A flare of adrenaline coursed through him and left him shaking, and it wasn’t her. It wasn’t her, and for the fleeting flash of an instant, he felt relief. Followed by crushing disappointment and self-loathing for what his reaction had been.