The Lost Girl

I’d rather spend the rest of my life without ever seeing you again,” he says, “than watch them destroy you because of me.

If you expect the worse, you're only denying someone a chance to be better

But maybe that's what the dead do. They stay. They linger. Benign and sweet and painful. They don't need us. They echo all by themselves.

You,” he says, before the door closes all the way. “I often dream of you.

You exist by the Weavers' grace. Only as long as you are what they expect of you. Do not understand how fragile that is? But if you replace your other, you might be safe. You might make your familiars happy, and then they will always keep you. So if only for my sake, child, hope that happens." "I don't wish for her to die!" "Then I will wish it," she replies ruthlessly.

I’d rather spend the rest of my life without ever seeing you again,” he says, “than watch them destroy you because of me.” His hand slips to the back of my neck, skimming over my Mark, and stops in my hair. He leans down and kisses my forehead. I long to reach up, close my fingers over his arm, keep him here. He pulls away but not by much. His mouth lingers on my forehead and then, as if with an effort, he straightens. “Want him,” he says, his face hidden in shadow, “not me. He’d love you more than I could.” Then he leaves me alone.

You have to be a two people; a saint and a sinner

That's how I feel every single day," he say brokenly. "Every day, Eva. Your life is dangling by a thread. And I'm scrabbling to hold on, but it keeps slipping through my fingers.I'm here because I can't stand not to be. It's not some big noble sacrifice. I want to be here. I don't like the world without you. I need you to be alive.

...We’d be like Cathy and Heathcliff. Harry and Hermione. Liam and Noel.” ... “Well, I’m not sure they’re the best example anyway,” Sean points out, handing me a coffee. “Nor are the others. None of them exactly ended up together.” “That doesn’t matter. What matters is what they did together, what they could achieve side by side. We’d be unstoppable if we were together.

I want to be human so badly it hurts.

Amarra used to read books about battles. Great heroic battles. Swords and shields and knights and honor. Battles like that don't happen anymore, yet I feel like I am caught in one. Once I may have hoped to fight for my life with all those things: swords and shields and knights and honor. But I don't have a sword. My shield is broken. I don't know what is and isn't honorable anymore. And now I've sent my knight away.

If Sean's voice is layers of wood, and Mina Ma's is the voice a copper pot, then Mathew Mercer's is the voice of a wild animal. I suddenly think of a movie Ammara and I loved when we were little, and I think of Scar, the lion who murdered his brother to become king. That kind of voice.

Come on," I say, "let's go be star-crossed lovers and court disaster.

He can see what move I'm planning to make in chess and counters before I can do it. He always knows who the killer is in a detective story. I think he could make a career out of detecting, but he wants to write plays for theater. Maybe he could be a Shakespeare instead of a Sherlock. He could be anything. Anything he wants to be.

For someone who died," I mutter at an imaginary Amarra, "you've done a very good job of hanging around." But maybe that's what the dead do. They stay. They linger. Benign and sweet and painful. They don't need us. They echo all by themselves.