I was a living star. I was combustion. I was a new sun born to shatter air and eat the earth.

Maybe love was superstition, a prayer we said to keep the truth of loneliness at bay. (...) The stars looked like they were close together, when really they were millions of miles apart. In the end, maybe love just meant longing for something impossibly bright and forever out of reach.

And maybe he wanted her to be the kind of girl who dressed as Queen Mab, who loved words and had stars in her blood.

I looked up through the broken beams of the barn’s roofs to the night sky. It was full of stars, but I could only see the endless reaches of darkness between them.

I tilted my head back, breathing deeply. It was a clear, moonless night, and after those long months underground, the sight of all that sky was dizzying. And so many stars—a glittering, tangled mass that seemed close enough to touch. I let their light fall over me like a balm, grateful for the air in my lungs, the night all around me.