“He leaned down, far enough that the dark ends of his hair brushed feather-light against her face, caught in her lashes, She had just enough time to take in a breath, to blink, to part her lips before he took them with his own. Time froze. Her heart ceased to beat. Her eyes fluttered shut.The cool slip of the small metal loop pressed into her skin as he kissed her. Urgent.Gentle.So slow.Sweet, soft demolition.He tasted of cloves and coffee. And of something else. A farawat essence, familiar and yet somehow foreign, too. Something sere and arid. A little like some. A little like decayAsh.”

“Dancers churned around them like storm tossed flowers, their heads held to either side as they whirled with abandonment.“Look at them,” he whispered, his voice in her ear. “Have you ever seen anything like it? They have everything, don’t they? Everything except a single care to dwell on.”

“You yourself could be nothing more than a shadow, someone else’s dream who is, themselves, someone else’s.”

“Painted faces laughed. It was like a mad carnival where everyone was oblivious, lost in the bliss of chaos, a throng unaware of a bomb planted beneath thefloorboards.”

“Despite all the dark armor, the kohl liner, the black boots and chains, she saw him clearly now. She’d peered through the curtain of that cruel calmness, through the death stare and the vampire sentiments and angst and, behind it all, had found true beauty.”

“He hated himself," Gwen said. "You just got caught in the cross fire.”

“Not anymore, though," he said. "And I guess that's the one perk of loving a dead girl. She never changes.”

“Though Isobel could recall only a few specifics regrading the appearance of Poe's wife-a handful of vague characteristics picked up during her study with Varen, retained from the one or two glimpses she'd had for her portraits- Scrimshaw, it seemed, had forgotten nothing.”

“Isobel had entrusted the note to Gwen just before Baltimore. And the small scrap of paper still remained her only tangible evidence that Varen had loved her.Expect...he didn't anymore.”

“You loved her," Isobel”

“Side by side we'll fight the tide,That sweeps in to take us down.Hand in hand we'll both withstand,Even as we drown.”