All Souls Trilogy Quotes

Sorry, we've got ghosts.

I marveled at the beauty of all life and savored the power and possibilities of my imagination. In these rare moments, I prayed, I danced, and I analyzed. I saw that life was good and bad, beautiful and ugly. I understood that I had to dwell on the good and beautiful in order to keep my imagination, sensitivity, and gratitude intact. I knew it would not be easy to maintain this perspective. I knew I would often twist and turn, bend and crack a little, but I also knew that…I would never completely break.

You are all mine, even if you run. I will find you because a soul needs its other half to truly live.

I have a weakness for smart men.

Whoever can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead.

We don’t lock up books in this house,” Philippe said, “only food, ale, and wine. Reading Herodotus or Aquinas seldom leads to bad behavior.

Change is the only reliable thing in the world.

Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky. Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes. Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.

You’re impossible. Stop worrying about what other women do. Be your own extraordinary self.

You tell me that magic is just desire made real. Maybe spells are nothing more than words that you believe with all your heart,

Whenever I felt like that, I would have a chat with my own Fat Mary. She was like the sweet fresh air after the rain. She brought me newness, clarity, and relief. She managed to get in touch with and resurrect the free spirit deep inside me. Being one with the spirit allowed me to soar above my everyday reality. I marveled at the beauty of all life and savored the power and possibilities of my imagination.

monsters always look just like ordinary men.

My life now has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Everything before was preamble. Now I have you. One day you will be gone, and my life will be over.

Two years were all we had, love," she whispered, "and we squandered them.

In their hearts, they know that we are all created equal in the eyes of God and the universe. Whoever thinks otherwise will never be happy.

The strongest distinguishing characteristic of humans is their power of denial.

The most terrifying monsters always look just like ordinary men.

I’ve seen courage like yours before—from women, mostly.” Matthew continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “Men don’t have it. Our resolve is born out of fear. It’s merely bravado.

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change. —PHILIPPE DE CLERMONT, OFTEN ATTRIBUTED TO CHARLES DARWIN

Love couldn’t be moved by circumstance, poor choices, or even blatant lies—skewed and damaged, yes, but the heart couldn’t deny what it wanted most once the desire was planted. Whether in bliss or affliction, love owned you all the same.

fine initium novum,’” Matthew said, gazing upon the land of his father as though he had, at last, come home. “‘In every ending there is a new beginning.

Decide what to do to survive, and do it.

For storms will rage and oceans roar, When Gabriel stands on sea and shore, And as he blows his wondrous horn, Old worlds die and new be born.

Magic was nothing more than desire made real,

You have found a woman who is worthy of you, with courage and hope to spare, Matthaios.’ ‘I know,’ Matthew said, taking my hand. ‘Know this, too: you are equally worthy of her. Stop regretting your life. Start living it.

The secret is that I may be the head of the Bishop-Clairmont family, but you are its heart,” he whispered. “And the three of us are in perfect agreement: The heart is more important.

Stop trying to be perfect. Try being real for a change.

Now and then in life, love catches you unawares, illuminating the dark corners of your mind, and filling them with radiance. Once in a while you are faced with a beauty and a joy that takes your soul, all unprepared, by assault.

No wonder Philippe always looked so exhausted,” he said ruefully when he was through. “It’s very fatiguing pretending you’re in charge when your wife actually rules the roost.

What was wrong with these American students? Didn’t they know I was the teacher and they had to do as I said? I learned quickly that my authority meant little, if anything, to them. I was not the all-powerful and feared mwalimu (teacher) of Africa.

I went to the recreation room and knelt down in front of the same Nativity scene where I’d prayed to Baby Jesus to find my mother when I was a child. I looked at him lying there in his bed of hay and wondered why this scene never left me. Over the years, whenever I prayed, I prayed to Baby Jesus. He was the miracle baby who never grew up. I believed that he really listened to me and often answered me. As I knelt there I realized that Sister Silvestris was right all along. She told us every Christmas that whatever we asked of Baby Jesus he’d grant us.

I turned to leave, then whirled around and flung my arms around Philippe’s massive shoulders. How could such a man ever be broken? “What is it?” Philippe murmured, taken aback. “You will not be alone either, Philippe de Clermont,” I whispered fiercely. “I’ll find a way to be with you in the darkness, I promise. And when you think the whole world has abandoned you, I’ll be there, holding your hand.” “How could it be otherwise,” Philippe said gently, “when you are in my heart?

Nobody really wants to keep secrets, not even the dead. People leave clues everywhere, and if you pay attention, you can piece them together.

I want what I shouldn’t want, and I crave someone I can never have.

The door swooshed open. A tiny woman in a purple miniskirt, red boots, and a black T-shirt that read STAND BACK—I’M GOING TO TRY SCIENCE walked through. Miriam Shephard had arrived.

It’s doubtful we’re the first creatures to love those we should not, and we surely won’t be the last.

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.

Everyone who has ever been in pain knows that morphine and magic are the same.

Everybody thinks the library is just a building, but it isn’t.

Fix you? Ah, little wolf, I have no desire to fix you. I just want to see all your broken edges shine. I want to feel how sharp you are.

Am I dreaming?” “You’re not dreaming,” Matthew said. “And, Diana?” He hesitated. “I love you.” It was what I most wanted to hear. The forgotten chain inside me started to sing, quietly, in the dark.

I watched in silence as the parts of Matthew I knew and loved—the poet and the scientist, the warrior and the spy, the Renaissance prince and the father—fell away until only the darkest, most forbidding part of him remained. He was only the assassin now. But he was still the man I loved.

Turn to me with all your heart. Do not refuse me because I am dark and shadowed. The fire of the sun has altered me. The seas have encompassed me. The earth has been corrupted because of my work. Night fell over the earth when I sank into the miry deep, and my substance was hidden.” The Moon Queen held a star in one outstretched palm. “From the depths of the water I cried out to you, and from the depths of the earth I will call to those who pass by me,” I continued. “Watch for me. See me. And if you find another who is like me, I will give him the morning star.

The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science.

One should find wholeness in marriage, Gabriel, but it should not be a prison for either party,” said Rabbi Loew.

I had been in 1590 for less than twenty-four hours, but I was already heartily sick of Christopher Marlowe.

a willingness to change was the secret of survival.

I love him, I truly do. I feel it in my bones, in my soul, with all my heart. It's just like all those sentiments that I've read about in the past in those Hallmark cards.

Still, you need him as much as you need the air you breathe, and he wants you as he’s wanted nothing and no one since I made him. So it is done, and we will make the best of it.

Why do today’s women think it’s important to open a door themselves?” he said sharply. “Do you believe it’s a testament to your physical power?

Behind my closed lids, my eyes stung, and I bit my lip. Tristan stroked my hair and I opened my eyes, staring into his soul, which was filled with all the sympathy, sorrow, and longing that I felt in my heart. For what I had lost. For what he had never had. And for what he never would have, if I did what he'd asked and abandoned my quest to break the curse. "I love you, Cécile," he said, and my breath caught. It was one thing to feel it, and quite another to hear the words from his lips.

If you’re angry with me, say it. If I’ve done something you don’t like, tell me. If you want to end this marriage, have the courage to end it cleanly so that I might—might—be able to recover from it. Because if you keep looking at me as though you wish we weren’t married, you’re going to destroy me.

Rebecca asked me what made the most lasting impression on children. I told her it was the stories their parents read to them at night, and all the messages about hope and strength and love that were embedded in them.

The goddess does not want us to imitate some ideal of perfection, but to be our true selves.

Ysabeau wanted me to know she approved of you. Like the gold from which it is made, you are steadfast. You hide many secrets within you, just as the bands of the ring hide the poesies from view. But it is the stone that best captures who you are: bright on the surface, fiery within, and impossible to break.

He was so worthy of being loved; I didn’t want him to be alone. Something in my expression must have revealed what was on my mind. “No pity, Auntie. The winds do not always blow as the ship desires,” he murmured, tucking me into my chair. “The winds do what I tell them to do.” “And I plot my own course.

Alchemy is the story of creation, told chemically. Creatures are chemistry, mapped onto biology.

Like all parents, they were just doing their best from moment to moment.

The point is that all you can do is lock down your head and keep a tight grip on your heart and soul while you let your body enjoy the ride

Vote?” Matthew said, incredulous. “Since when did we vote in this family?” “Since Marcus took over the Knights of Lazarus,” Gallowglass replied, drawing a silver lighter from his pocket. “We’ve been choking on democracy since the day you left.

Diana: You are everything we dreamed you would one day become. Life is the strong warp of time. Death is only the weft. It will be because of your children, and your children’s children, that I will live forever. Dad   P.S. Every time you read “something is rotten in the state of Denmark” in Hamlet, think of me.

Nightmares are like Master Harriot’s star glass. They are a trick of the light, one that makes something distant seem closer and larger than it really is.” “Oh.” Jack considered Matthew’s response. “So even if I see a monster in my dreams, it cannot reach me?” Matthew nodded. “But I will tell you a secret. A dream is a nightmare in reverse. If you dream of someone you love, that person will seem closer, even if far away.

I have a master’s degree in medieval literature. Wyverns—or firedrakes, if you prefer—were once common in European mythology and legends.” “But you . . . you’re my accountant,” Sarah sputtered. “Do you have any idea how many English majors are accountants?” Vivian asked with raised eyebrows.

Neither his family nor his next taste of blood mattered as much as knowing that she was safe and within arm’s reach. If that was what it meant to be bewitched, he was a lost man.

They fear us because we are different. Fear breeds contempt, then hate. It is a familiar story.

Einstein said that all physicists were aware that the distinctions between past, present, and future were only what he called ‘a stubbornly persistent illusion.’ Not only did he believe in marvels and wonders, he also believed in the elasticity of time.

Why would she risk her life to come back for me, or offer her soul when I’d already given all I could to protect her, when I had nothing more to give in return? Love. Because she...loved me.

You’re taking this very well, Gallowglass,” Diana said gratefully. “Matthew would be trying to talk me out of it.” “That’s what you get for falling in love with the wrong man,” he said under his breath, slipping the phone back into his pocket.

She guesses that for all their differences, he might just be the only other creature in their world who was born and made as she was. Perhaps souls like theirs can only wander so far before they collide.

Take care, Gallowglass,” Matthew murmured. It was no casual farewell, but an order. His nephew nodded. “As if your wife were my own.

Are you always like this? All dressed up in adrenaline and no place to go?

We spend our time striving and straining to be something that we’re not. Let those desires go. Honor who you are.

Sam said nothing about it, as though he spontaneously composed music with nature all the time.

No human is ready for forever, and forever is all I have. But you gave me a part of your life, when mortal lives are so short.

In short, there are mysteries of science and of soul that will never be understood no matter how hard we measure, no matter how strongly we believe, no matter how deep our think tanks and how high our aspirations. But as anyone will tell you—for we all know this within our hearts—the impossible happens and grand cosmic mysteries are solved on a regular basis, although most of the time the solutions lead to even greater mysteries.

No, I’m a vampire.” Matthew stepped forward, joining Chris under the projector’s light. “And before you ask, I can go outside during the day and my hair won’t catch fire in the sunlight. I’m Catholic and have a crucifix. When I sleep, which is not often, I prefer a bed to a coffin. If you try to stake me, the wood will likely splinter before it enters my skin.” He bared his teeth. “No fangs either. And one last thing: I do not, nor have I ever, sparkled.” Matthew’s face darkened to emphasize the point. I

The family never puts ‘surely’ and ‘Philippe’ in the same sentence. It always ends badly.

Magic was nothing more than desire made real, after all.

I could still feel the chain that anchored me to Matthew, witch to vampire.

Philippe paused on his way out the door. “You have found a woman who is worthy of you, with courage and hope to spare, Matthaios.” “I know,” Matthew said, taking my hand. “Know this, too: You are equally worthy of her. Stop regretting your life. Start living it.

Sex and dominance. It’s what modern humans think vampire relationships are all about,” I said. “Their stories are full of crazed alpha-male vampires throwing women over their shoulders before dragging them off for dinner and a date.” “Dinner and a date?” Matthew was aghast. “Do you mean . . . ?” “Uh-huh. You should see what Sarah’s friends in the Madison coven read. Vampire meets girl, vampire bites girl, girl is shocked to find out there really are vampires. The sex, blood, and overprotective behavior all come quickly thereafter. Some of it is pretty explicit.” I paused. “There’s no time for bundling, that’s for sure. I don’t remember much poetry or dancing either.” Matthew swore. “No wonder your aunt wanted to know if I was hungry.” “You really should read this stuff, if only to see what humans think. It’s a public-relations nightmare. Far worse than what witches have to overcome.

There is no greater catalyst for change in a man than a woman. To love a woman is to become a new kind of man, in one direction or another. A woman holds sway over all. The right woman can assume command of your every part of your being, both body and soul. Her conquest will be total.

Feisty, am I? My husband is a member of the Congregation. A posse of men is coming on horseback to accuse me of harming a friendless old woman. I’m in a strange place and keep getting lost on my way to the bedroom. I still have no shoes. And I’m living in a dormitory full of adolescent boys who never stop talking!” I fumed. “But you needn’t trouble yourself on my account. I can take care of myself!

He said that war had destroyed the country and that men believe the cure for war is war as the curandero prescribes the serpent's flesh for its bite. He spoke of his campaigns in the deserts of Mexico and he told them of horses killed under him and he said that the souls of horses mirror the souls of men more closely than men suppose and that horses also love war. Men say they only learn this but he said that no creature can learn that which his heart has no shape to hold. His own father said that no man who has not gone to war horseback can ever truly understand the horse and he said that he supposed he wished that this were not so but that it was so.

Long since on Mars and more strongly since he came to Perelandra, Ransom had been perceiving that the triple distinction of truth from myth and both from fact was purely terrestrial-was part and parcel of that unhappy distinction between soul and body which resulted from the fall. Even on earth the sacraments existed as a permanent reminder that the division was neither wholesome nor final. The Incarnation had been the beginning of its disappearance. In Perelandra it would have no meaning at all.

He said that those who have endured some misfortune will always be set apart but that it is just that misfortune which is their gift and which is their strength and that they must make their way back into the common enterprise of man for without they do so it cannot go forward and they themselves will wither in bitterness. He said these things to me with great earnestness and great gentleness and in the light from the portal I could see that he was crying and I knew that it was my soul he wept for. I had never been esteemed in this way. To have a man place himself in such a position. I did not know what to say. That night I thought long and not without despair about what must become of me. I wanted very much to be a person of value and I had to ask myself how this could be possible if there were not something like a soul or like a spirit that is in the life of a person and which could endure any misfortune or disfigurement and yet be no less for it. If one were to be a person of value that value could not be a condition subject to the hazards of fortune. It had to be a quality that could not change. No matter what. Long before morning I knew that what I was seeking to discover was a thing I’d always known. That all courage was a form of constancy. That it was always himself that the coward abandoned first. After this all other betrayals came easily. I knew that courage came with less struggle for some than for others but I believed that anyone who desired it could have it. That the desire was the thing itself. The thing itself. I could think of nothing else of which that was true.

He spoke of his campaigns in the deserts of Mexico and he told them of horses killed under him and he said that the souls of horses mirror the souls of men more closely than men suppose and that horses also love war. Men say they only learn this but he said that no creature can learn that which his heart has no shape to holo

Baldwin had never grasped the concept of atonement. His view of Matthew’s faith was purely transactional—you went to church, confessed, and walked out a clean man. But salvation was more complicated. Philippe had come to understand that in the end, although he had long found Matthew’s constant search for forgiveness irritating and irrational.

Time is tick, tick, ticking away. How many souls will I capture today? Will they be a challenge or will they be given? Only time will tell as the clock keeps tick, tick, ticking. Your god has arrived with enough hatred for y’all, with enough evil for the big and small, so come one, come all. I will shred your souls and place them in my satchel, call you a settler and make you my peddler. Come one, come all, come stand behind your god. I will lead you into the darkness of Earth's end. Come one, come all, my wilted flowers, come claim your title, speak out and cheer it. Come one, come all, let’s have a ball, my wilted flowers . . . Sweet, Unconquerable Spirits.

Then, in spite of everything, he began to smile. So much of his existence in Everlost had been full of despair. Despair, and a fear of losing what he had. But Allie was not lost, she was just there across the river, waiting for him to find her. Nick was not lost either--not entirely. It was then that Mikey McGill realized something. It must have been his sister who first called this place Everlost, because by naming it so, it stripped away all hope except for a faith in her, and the "safety" she could provide. Well, Mary was wrong on all counts, because nothing in Everlost was lost forever, if one had the courage to search for it. Mikey held tightly on to this shining truth as he and the golem sunk into the earth. Then with all the force of his heart, his mind, and his soul, Mikey McGill began to dig.

I want to come on every inch of your body,” he whispered, and somehow it didn’t sound dirty at all. It sounded clean, pure, like rainwater. “I want to rub it in you, like this, until it’s a part of your skin. I want to stain you, Eden. I want myself embedded in your skin, in your heart, in your soul.” I didn’t know what to say to that, so I sat up and put my hands on either side of his neck and kissed him as sweetly as I could. “You’ve stained me, Javier.” Excerpt From: Karina, Halle. “On Every Street.” Metal Blonde Books, 2013-03-08T11:00:00+00:00. iBooks. This material may be protected by copyright.

If we are at war, we’re not fighting for a bewitched alchemical manuscript, or for my safety, or for our right to marry and have children. This is about the future of all of us.” I saw that future for just a moment, its bright potential spooling away in a thousand different directions. “If our children don’t take the next evolutionary steps, it will be someone else’s children. And whiskey isn’t going to make it possible for me to close my eyes and forget that. No one else will go through this kind of hell because they love someone they’re not supposed to love. I won’t allow it.

According to my grandmother’s people, two wolves live inside every creature: one evil and the other good. They spend all their time trying to destroy each other.” It was, Matthew thought, as good a description of blood rage as he was ever likely to hear from someone not afflicted with the disease. “My bad wolf is winning.” Jack looked sad. “He doesn’t have to,” Chris promised. “Nana Bets said the wolf who wins is the wolf you feed. The evil wolf feeds on anger, guilt, sorrow, lies, and regret. The good wolf needs a diet of love and honesty, spiced up with big spoonfuls of compassion and faith. So if you want the good wolf to win, you’re going to have to starve the other one.

There is that old saying, couched as a truism, and to utter it is to assert its primacy: justice, we say, is blind. By this we mean that its rules defy all the seeming privileges of the wealthy and the highborn. Laudable, without question, if from the rules of justice we are to fashion a civilization worthy of being deemed decent and righteous. Even children can be stung in the face of what they perceive to be unfair. Unless, of course, they are the ones profiting from it. And in that moment of comprehension, of unfairness to the other also being a reward to oneself, that child faces – for the first but not the last time – the inner war we all know so well, between selfish desire and the common good. Between injustice, clutched so possessively deep in the soul, and a justice that now, suddenly, stands outside that child, like a stern foe. With

It was too familiar to Cody. He placed his arms around his wife trying somehow to shelter her from the reality she was facing. There was another reason for his closeness; his desperation to show her he was not one of them, that the tribes of cruel men did not recognize him as one of their own, and to show his wife that his promise to create a safe place for her was a promise she need not fear would be broken. In the innermost part of him, from the secret child that lives within all men, was a scared cry, “Please don’t think I’m bad too.” From the other innermost part of him, the secret animal that prowls in some men was a raging wolf ready to kill. The battle line within the man had been drawn. The boundaries of faith rose up around the rage, warning the soul against righteous anger morphing to blood lust.

J. R. R. Tolkien gives one of the most entrancing descriptions of the true nature of Sabbath. In book 1 of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, he describes a time of rest and healing in the house of Elrond in Rivendell. The hobbits, along with Strider, their guide, have made a dangerous, almost fatal journey to this place. They will soon have to make an even more dangerous, almost certainly fatal journey away from this place. But in the meantime, this: For awhile the hobbits continued to talk and think of the past journey and of the perils that lay ahead; but such was the virtue of the land of Rivendell that soon all fear and anxiety was lifted from their minds. The future, good or ill, was not forgotten, but ceased to have power over the present. Health and hope grew strong in them, and they were content with each day as it came, taking pleasure in every meal, and in every word and song.2 The future, good or ill, was not forgotten, but ceased to have power over the present. That’s Sabbath.

You will come upon those who exude life, who burn bright. In their company, how are you to be? Proud to name them friend? Pleased to bask in their fire? Or, in the name of need, will you simply devour all that they offer, like a force of darkness swallowing light, warmth, life itself? Will you make yourself a rocky island, black and gnarled, a place of cold caves and littered bones? The bright waves do not soothe your shores, but crash instead, explode in a fury of foam and spray. And you drink in every swirl, sucked down into your caves, your bottomless caverns. ‘I do not describe a transitory mood. Not a temporary disposition, brought on by external woes. What I describe, in fashioning this island soul, so bleak and forbidding, is a place made too precious to be surrendered, too stolid to be dismantled. This island I give you, this soul in particular, is a fortress of need, a maw that knows only how to ease its eternal hunger. Within its twisted self, no true friend is acknowledged and no love is honest in its exchange. The self stands alone, inviolate as a god, but a besieged god … forever besieged.’ Gothos leaned forward, studied Arathan with glittering eyes. ‘Oddly, those who burn bright are often drawn to such islands, such souls. As friends. As lovers. They imagine they can offer salvation, a sharing of warmth, of love, even. And in contrast, they see in themselves something to offer their forlorn companion, who huddles and hides, who gives occasion to rail and loose venom. The life within them feels so vast! So welcoming! Surely there is enough to share! And so, by giving – and giving – they are themselves appeased, and made to feel worthwhile. For a time. ‘But this is no healthy exchange, though it might at first seem so – after all, the act of giving will itself yield a kind of euphoria, a drunkenness of generosity, not to mention the salve of protectiveness, of paternal regard.’ Gothos leaned back again, drank more from the cup in his hands, and closed his eyes. ‘The island is unchanging. Bones and corpses lie upon its wrack on all sides.’ Arathan

Listen to my last words anywhere. Listen to my last words any world. Listen all you boards syndicates and governments of the earth. And you powers behind what filth consummated in what lavatory to take what is not yours. To sell the ground from unborn feet forever - "Don't let them see us. Don't tell them what we are doing -" Are these the words of the all-powerful boards and syndicates of the earth? "For God's sake don't let that Coca-Cola thing out - " "Not The Cancer Deal with The Venusians - " "Not The Green Deal - Don't show them that - " "Not The Orgasm Death - " "Not the ovens - " Listen: I call you all. Show your cards all players. Pay it all pay it all pay it all back. Play it all pay it all play it all back. For all to see. In Times Square. In Picadilly. "Premature. Premature. Give us a little more time." Time for what? More lies? Premature? Premature for who? I say to all these words are not premature. These words may be too late. Minutes to go. Minutes to foe goal - "Top Secret - Classified - For The Board - The Elite - The Initiates - Are these the words of the all-powerful boards and syndicates of the earth? These are the words of liars cowards collaborators traitors. Liars who want time for more lies. Cowards who can not face your "dogs" your "gooks" your "errand boys" your "human animals" with the truth. Collaborators with Insect People with Vegetable People. With any people anywhere who offer you a body forever. To shit forever. For this you have sold out your sons. Sold the ground from unborn feet forever. Traitors to all souls everywhere. You want the name of Hassan i Sabbah on your filth deeds to sell out the unborn? What scared you all into time? Into body? Into shit? I will tell you; "the word." Alien Word "the." "The" word of Alien Enemy imprisons "thee" in Time, In Body. In Shit. Prisoner, come out. The great skies are open.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. ‘I have a dream that one day, on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down to gether at the table of brotherhood – I have a dream. ‘That one day even the state of Mississippi – a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of op pression – will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream.’ He had hit a rhythm, and two hundred thousand people felt it sway their souls. It was more than a speech: it was a poem and a canticle and a prayer as deep as the grave. The heartbreaking phrase ‘I have a dream’ came like an amen at the end of each ringing sentence. ‘. . . That my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character – I have a dream today. ‘I have a dream that one day down in Alabama – with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification – one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers – I have a dream today. ‘With this faith we will be able to hew, out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope. ‘With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. ‘With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.’ Looking around, Jasper saw that black and white faces alike were running with tears. Even he felt moved, and he had thought himself immune to this kind of thing. ‘And when this happens; when we allow freedom to ring; when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city; we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands . . .’ Here he slowed down, and the crowd was almost silent. King’s voice trembled with the earthquake force of his passion. ‘. . . and sing, in the words of the old Negro spiritual: ‘Free at last! ‘Free at last! ‘Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

She stared at him, at his face. Simply stared as the scales fell from her eyes. "Oh, my God," she whispered, the exclamation so quiet not even he would hear. She suddenly saw-saw it all-all that she'd simply taken for granted. Men like him protected those they loved, selflessly, unswervingly, even unto death. The realization rocked her. Pieces of the jigsaw of her understanding of him fell into place. He was hanging to consciousness by a thread. She had to be sure-and his shields, his defenses were at their weakest now. Looking down at her hands, pressed over the nearly saturated pad, she hunted for the words, the right tone. Softly said, "My death, even my serious injury, would have freed you from any obligation to marry me. Society would have accepted that outcome, too." He shifted, clearly in pain. She sucked in a breath-feeling his pain as her own-then he clamped the long fingers of his right hand about her wrist, held tight. So tight she felt he was using her as an anchor to consciousness, to the world. His tone, when he spoke, was harsh. "Oh, yes-after I'd expended so much effort keeping you safe all these years, safe even from me, I was suddenly going to stand by and let you be gored by some mangy bull." He snorted, soft, low. Weakly. He drew in a slow, shallow breath, lips thin with pain, but determined, went on, "You think I'd let you get injured when finally after all these long years I at last understand that the reason you've always made me itch is because you are the only woman I actually want to marry? And you think I would stand back and let you be harmed?" A peevish frown crossed his face. "I ask you, is that likely? Is it even vaguely rational?" He went on, his words increasingly slurred, his tongue tripping over some, his voice fading. She listened, strained to catch every word as he slid into semi delirium, into rambling, disjointed sentences that she drank in, held to her heart. He gave her dreams back to her, reshaped and refined. "Not French Imperial-good, sound, English oak. You can use whatever colors you like, but no gilt-I forbid it." Eventually he ventured further than she had. "And I want at least three children-not just an heir and a spare. At least three-if you're agreeable. We'll have to have two boys, of course-my evil ugly sisters will found us to make good on that. But thereafter...as many girls as you like...as long as they look like you. Or perhaps Cordelia-she's the handsomer of the two uglies." He loved his sisters, his evil ugly sisters. Heather listened with tears in her eyes as his mind drifted and his voice gradually faded, weakened. She'd finally got her declaration, not in anything like the words she'd expected, but in a stronger, impossible-to-doubt exposition. He'd been her protector, unswerving, unflinching, always there; from a man like him, focused on a lady like her, such actions were tantamount to a declaration from the rooftops. The love she'd wanted him to admit to had been there all along, demonstrated daily right before her eyes, but she hadn't seen. Hadn't seen because she'd been focusing elsewhere, and because, conditioned as she was to resisting the same style of possessive protectiveness from her brothers, from her cousins, she hadn't appreciated his, hadn't realized that that quality had to be an expression of his feelings for her. Until now. Until now that he'd all but given his life for hers. He loved her-he'd always loved her. She saw that now, looking back down the years. He'd loved her from the time she'd fallen in love with him-the instant they'd laid eyes on each other at Michael and Caro's wedding in Hampshire four years ago. He'd held aloof, held away-held her at bay, too-believing, wrongly, that he wasn't an appropriate husband for her. In that, he'd been wrong, too. She saw it all. And as the tears overflowed and tracked down her cheeks, she knew to her soul how right he was for her. Knew, embraced, and rejoiced.