Masques

When I die of heart failure the next time you frighten me like that, you can put that on my gravestone—‘I didn’t mean to startle her.

It was unsettling to be in love with someone who looked like the face in her nightmares.

Over the years, she'd learned not to question him too closely—mostly because he wouldn't answer her.

[C]hildren were a much more difficult audience than adults because no on had yet had a chance to teach them that it was better to be polite than honest.

The woods grew increasingly dense as Wolf walked farther from the castle. A hoot from an owl just overhead made Aralorn-the-mouse cringe tighter against his neck. “Lots of nasties in these woods,” she said in a mouselike voice devoid of all but a hint of humor. “And I,” announced Wolf in a grim voice that was designed to let Aralorn know that it was time to be serious, “am the nastiest of all.” “Are you really?” asked Aralorn in an interested sort of tone. “Oh, I just adore nasties.” Wolf stopped and looked at the mouse sitting innocently on his shoulder. Most people cowered under that look. Aralorn began, industriously, to clean her whiskers. When Wolf started to walk again, though, she said in a stage whisper, “I really do, you know.

The thought of herself as decoration was absurd.