What is a person, if not the marks they leave behind?

The countryside rolls past around them, a jostling portrait of a world she already knows.

the greatest danger in change is letting the new replace the old

"Be gone," he says, the words half-pleading. Sadness sweeps across his face, but not the kind that comes with knowing. No, it is the sadness reserved for lost things, a storm-torn tree, a horse made lame, a carving split one stroke before it's done.

Déjà vu. Déjà su. Déjà vécu.

A fall woman indulging in a second spring.

she longs for the mornings, but she settles for the nights

She wants to hold the night like a chocolate on her tongue, savor every second before it melts.

"Who are you?" he asks. "I am the one who sees kindling and coaxes it to flame. The nurturer of all human potential."

There is a violence to this blind black void. It is birds' wings beating against her skin. It is the rush of the wind in her hair. It is a thousand whispering voices. It is fear, and falling, and it is a feral, wild feeling, and by the time she thinks to scream, the darkness has peeled away again, the night has re-formed, and Luc is once again beside her.

sunlight and silk sheets.

It is the last thing he says, before Luc unfolds. That is the only way to think of it. The black hair rises from his face, climbing through the air like weeds, and his skin ripples and splits, and what spills out is not a man. It is a monster. It is a god. It is the night itself, and something else, something she has never seen, something she cannot bear to look at. Something older than the dark. "Surrender."

Greatness requires sacrifice. Who you sacrifice to matters less than what you sacrifice for.

the collision of a girl and the dark

Belief is a bit like gravity. Enough people believe a thing, and it becomes as solid and real as the ground beneath your feet.