So I tried my best to stifle hope. Because hope's twin was despair, and despair was infinitely worse. If hope hurt, then despair was the absence of hurt. It was the absence of feeling. It was the absence of caring. I wanted very much to care.

A wanton women is ripened fruit,' Constanze intoned,'begging to be plucked by the Goblin King.

I am wildness and madness made flesh. You're just a girl"–he smiled, and the tips of his teeth were sharp–"and I am the wolf in the woods.

I am wilderness and madness made flesh. You are just a girl" –he smiled, and the tips of his teeth were sharp–"and I am the wolf in the woods.

You are the monster I claim, mein Herr.