I loved the way his eyes glowed when they looked at me. My piece of Earth.I kissed it one more time, gently, and let it go.

I found it easier to stare out into the infinite blackness, away from the fire burning itself out in his eyes.

It felt as if I’d been teleported to the dark side of the moon, forced to gaze out at the stars and wonder which one I’d come from.

–We are all dying– she told me. –Even something of the immortal will die–“What?”–Meaning–

My body slid from human to wolf in a crack! of black smoke. Wolf was panting and I watched frost dissipate on my hot tongue, sending tiny rivulets of steam into the air. The world was sharp and clear, and I never realized how many different colors of shadow there were. It made me savor the dark beauty of night even more.

We cannot leave, but that does not mean we will stay—stay in the same place in the same system that profits from recycling us at the bottom. We will disrupt it. Build our own space that will swallow bits and pieces of theirs. We were waiting for permission, waiting for the Darkness to acknowledge our worth, but we’ve always had the power to make it come to be.

I clung tightly to Kwan’s mane as he propelled his great serpent body through the cloud banks. The cockatrice’s big green head dipped under the clouds, and I spotted an emerald island below, with dramatic peaks jutting up from the jungle. I asked the great cockatrice for the name of the isle, but he only laughed at me, saying that names changed faster than a century’s wind. That didn’t seem very fast to me, but I took his word for it.

When you face the vampyres, you fight with passion, because you can see a new sunrise beyond their darkness. A life beyond their misery. And you’re going to make sure everyone else wakes up with you to see it.

The Bloodsucker Queen has lived for what, a millennium? She can wait on her decaying ass a little while longer.

We’re only five years apart,” I said defiantly. “If you look at some of those dysfunctional vampyre relationships, we’re near normal.