So." [Isobel] cleared her throat. "What are we doing?""We," [Varen] said at last, "are doing a project on Poe.""Didn't he marry his cousin or something?""The man is a literary god and that's all you have to say?

You're a dream. Like everything else.

Death always wins.

I keep telling myselfThat you’rejust a girl.Another leaf blown across my pathDestined to pass onAnd shrivel into yourselfLike all the others.Yet despite my venomYou refuse to witherOr fade.You remain golden throughout,And in your gaze I am left to wonder if it is me aloneWho feels the fall.

Isobel moved farther into the kitchen, not knowing whether to be relieved that her mother hadn't had an atomic meltdown, or mortified that she'd taken it upon herself to play head chef with the nearest thing Trenton High had to a Dark Lord.

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

It is naught but pain and regret when we think of the things and people we will never have, the opportunities we may never get. But to pine for those we have had and loved and once held but will never clasp again, it is torture of an unbearable degree. It is the worst pain possible. Enough to drive you away from yourself...

You were dropped as a child, weren't you?" Varen asked her."Maybe once or twice," Gwen said, "but at least I wasn't raised by highly literate vampires who, every night just before bed, fed me a steady diet of dark sarcasm and gothic horror fiction.""Every morning before bed," Varen corrected. Stepping forward, he moved toward the headstone. "We slept during the day.

As though sensing her heightening alarm, Pinfeathers halted his advance."I can’t help it that I’m susceptible to you," he whispered. "You know that. It’s just that you’re so...unreal...and so I have to touch you. If only to be certain that I’m not the one who’s dreaming. You see, I hear that sort of thing is going around.

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

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

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.

The more this guy talked, the more he sounded like a fortune cookie.

Her fingertips reached to trace the damage, but he grasped her hand with his own. He leaned down, far enough that the dark ends of his hair brushed feather-light against her face, caught in her lashes.

Lady Ligeia," he began again, "is a woman in the literature who returns from the dead, taking over another woman's body to be with her true love.""Oh, yes. Lovely" Isobel blanched. "I guess the other chick didn't mind at all?

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.

She never answered. She couldn’t. All she could do was stare, reaching toward him with her gaze alone, pulling him to drown in the sorrow of those depthless black pools.

Can I tell you something?" He tilted his head, moving in closer still, so close that she could feel his breath against her cheek. "Do you want to know what my grandma used to say about kisses on the forehead?"He pressed his lips to her brow, holding the silk soft kiss for a long moment while Isobel stood in place, unable to bring herself to shove him away."She told me it’s the kind of kiss we save for the dead.

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.

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

She wanted to touch him, to throw her arms around him — but something held her back. Maybe it was the fear that her arms would pass right through him, that she would have come all this way only to find a ghost after all.As though he’d been able to read her thoughts, he slowly angled toward her. He raised his hands and held his palms out to her. Isobel lifted her own hands to mirror his. He pressed their palms together, his fingers folding down to lace through hers. She felt a rush of warmth course through her, a relief as pure and sweet as spring rain.He was real. This was real. She had found him. She could touch him. She could feel him. Finally they were together. Finally, finally, they could forget this wasted world and go home."I knew it wasn’t true," she whispered. "I knew you wouldn’t stop believing." He drew her close.Leaning into him, she felt him press his lips to her forehead in a kiss. As he spoke, the cool metal of his lip ring grazed her skin, causing a shudder to ripple through her."You..." His voice, low and breathy, reverberated through her, down to the thin soles of her slippers. "You think you’re different," he said. She felt his hands tighten around hers, gripping hard, too hard.A streak of violet lightning split the sky, striking close behind them.The house, Isobel thought. It had been struck. She could hear it cracking apart. She looked for only a brief moment, long enough to watch it split open."But you’re not," Varen said, calling her attention back to him. Isobel winced, her own hands surrendering under the suddenly crushing pressure of his hold. A face she did not recognize stared down at her, one twisted with anger — with hate."You," he scarcely more than breathed, "are just like every. Body. Else."He moved so fast. Before she could register his words or the fact that she had once spoken them to him herself, he jerked her to one side. Isobel felt her feet part from the rocks. Weightlessness took hold of her as she swung out and over the ledge of the cliff.As he let her go.The wind whistled its high and lonely song in her ears. She fell away into the oblivion of the storm until she could no longer see the cliff — could no longer see him.Only the slip of the pink ribbon as it unraveled from her wrist, floating up and away from her and out of sight forever.

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.

Demons... they don't just waltz into your life and take over for no reason," she said, her voice going soft again. "They might knock on the door, but ultimately, you have to be the one to invite them in.

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.

Just because I wear black and keep a private journal, that doesn't mean I'm going to blow up the school. Or terrorize mindless cheerleaders, for that matter.

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.