“She craved a presence beside her, solid. Fingertips light at the nape of her neck and a voice meeting hers in the dark. Someone who would wait with an umbrella to walk her home in the rain, and smi...”

“Happiness. It was the place where passion, with all its dazzle and drumbeat, met something softer: homecoming and safety and pure sunbeam comfort. It was all those things, intertwined with the heat...”

“It was brave," countered Issa. "It was rare. It was love, and it was beautiful.”

“She'd spoken of their happiness as though it were an undeniable fact, no matter what happened--apart from everything else and not subject to it. It was a new idea for him, that happiness wasn't a m...”

“I...I sang," she whispered, "if that matters," and Karou felt her heart pulled to pieces. This Misbegotten warrior, fiercest of them all, had crouched in an icy stream bed to sing a chimera soul in...”

“I'm afraid they're in love," he said, concerned. "They don't want to leave you." He lifted one hand from her waist to gently brush a pair from her neck, where their wings fanned against her jaw. Me...”

“She'd spoken of their happiness as though it were an undeniable fact, no matter what happened--apart from everything else and not subject to it. It was a new idea for him, that happiness wasn't a m...”

“I'm afraid they're in love," he said, concerned. "They don't want to leave you." He lifted one hand from her waist to gently brush a pair from her neck, where their wings fanned against her jaw. Me...”

“And they were quiet but their blood and nerves and butterflies were notthey were rampantly alive, rushing and thrumming in a wild and perfect melody, matched note for note.”

“Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that youve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you sa...”

“As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.”

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there i...”