There is only one way to a man’s heart. Through gentleness. Not by getting angry or jealous.

Maybe now that Elijah was feeling well enough to be interfering in my business, he’d also be well enough to look after his own chores.

This could, quite possibly, be the dumbest thing she’d ever done: pursuing a poisonous basilisk into a cave during an earthquake in the company of a bunch of dead guys, armed with a potato cannon and a six-pack of lye. Never mind her soggy pink fiberglass armor. This was going to be an epic way to die. The.

That is my mom. The lady who made Christmas cookies every year and never figured out how to drive a stick shift. My mom is a Jedi.

People scared Petra – they were volatile, unpredictable. But the natural world could always be explained. It behaved according to established laws that didn’t change. Petra could play by those rules.

That night I lay in bed and stared out the window. Night and I were old friends.

I think I’d rather be branded than submit to some of the things that you have to.” He said this without spite, just a soft statement of fact. “I’m not strong enough to do that.

There was a difference, I had decided, between knowing and believing. And I wanted both.

I wanted the syrupy taste of this small rebellion. And this stupid machine was denying that bit of freedom to me . . . just like everyone else.

For me, that was love. Tangible. Love was what was in front of me, not a distant fantasy.