“Sure. If she gets mugged, she can just flute them to death.”

“If it had been my decision, you would still be sleeping, and I would be hoping every hour of every night you lived was filled with the foulest of dreams.”“My only nightmare in this moment is the quality of the mattress you saw fit to place me on,” said Simon. “Really, brother, have you never heard of lumbar support?”

“Hope means you keep holding on to things that won't ever be so again.”

“If anything attacked us, we could just panic at it until it went away.”

“You're nobody's rainbow. You're nobody's princess. You're nobody's doorway but your own, and the only one who gets to tell you how your story ends is you.”

“I am so tired of this gothic crap,” I muttered. “Just once, I want to meet the villain in a cheerful, brightly lit room. Possibly one with kittens.”

“My lord was never sane, but he was my love, once. He always will be, somewhere. Wherever it is that the once upon a times go when they die.”

“None of this is real, my dear. Not this house, not this conversation, not those shoes you're wearing--which are several years out of style if you're trying to reacclimatize yourself to the ways of your peers, and are not proper mourning shoes if you're trying to hold fast to your recent past--and not either one of us. 'Real' is a four-letter-word, and I'll thank you to use it as little as possible while you live under my roof.”

“Don't let anyone tell you, ever, that this is a zero-sum game. Your genius does not threaten me. It delights and inspires me.”

“The Luidaeg sighed and put her arms around me, pulling me close. "Come here," she said. "I need to hold someone, and you need to be held. It's a fair trade. Just for a little while, and then we can go on being what we are." I thought about objecting, but dismissed the idea and nestled against her, enjoying the feeling of security given by knowing someone bigger and stronger than I was would stop anything from hurting me. That's all childhood is, after all: strong arms to hold back the dark, a story to keep the shadows dancing, and a candle to mark the long journey into day. A song to keep the flights of angels at bay. How many miles to Babylon? Sorry. I don't care.”

“Clichés are relatives of the fairy tale, and tropes aren’t bad; they go with the territory.”