“Kami," he said, "you're crying." "No, I am not," Kami lied. "I got something in my eye.""You got something in your eye.""Yes. Possibly a speck of dust," Kami said, and broke down. "All right, possi...”

“And you don't ever have to worry about what I feel. The way I feel about you won't change. You can do whatever you like to me. You could turn this town to dust, burn the woods until they were cinde...”

“I did not matter what distant iron city had raised him. He had been made by Sorry-in-the-Vale, his bones as much a part of it as the valley and the woods. It was as if she had the whole town spread...”

“She had worried she would break if her heart broke, but she wasn't broken. She had lost everything, but she was not lost. It seemed a worthwhile thing to know.”

“I know what other people think about me, Rusty told her. That Rusty, they say. Charming and handsome, they say first, of coursetheyre not blind. Then they add, All the ambition and drive of a choc...”

“What the world stigmatizes as romantic is often more nearly allied to the truth than is commonly supposed.”

“Sky, wait. The way his voice wraps around my name makes me wish the only word in his entire vocabulary way Sky.”

“I'm not going to do it again," Lena Marquez whispered to the red purse across the hall from her nestle of blankets. "Never again.”