Oblivion

“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.”

“But then, you do possess a certain knack for impelling lovesick wretches to ruin, don’t you?”

LIVED FOR LOVE, YET PERISHED BY ITS HAND

“Darkness will win,” she said. “It has to. So long as you try to fight fire with fire.”
“Sometimes,” he said, speaking in that quiet and contained way that always frightened her, “fire is the only way to fight.”

“Darkness devours because it must. And so there is no escape.”

“When the light at last dies, as it always dies, darkness will devour. Be it that darkness which is your own or someone else’s.”

“I mean, don’t you think it’s at all romantic, the idea that love could conquer death?”

“Memories make better weapons than words.”

“Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do in life? We’ve all got a part to play. Someone’s gotta be the bad guy.”

“And I guess that’s the one perk of loving a dead girl. She never changes.”

“Paper girl in a paper play. I thought I wrote you out.”

“Death comes for us all eventually. Sooner for some than others, though nearly always sooner than expected. Especially, as you just witnessed, in regards to those we hold most dear.”

“You really ruined him, you know. And now I have to wonder what it is—pardon, what it was about you that did it.” The Noc tilted his head at her while he continued to strangle her, as if he really wanted to know. “What type of poison are you, girl?”

“Tell me truly, girl. Do you not ever tire of running?” he asked. “Do you never grow faint from the sickness, the pitiless pain—the fever that is living? From the horrible, horrible throbbing of your own aching heart?”

“Don’t let him through,” Isobel urged. “You’re strong enough. You are. Please. You—you’re all I have.”
“Touching.” Wincing, he held up a palm. “Really. Romantic even. But save it. I think we both know that’s not how you would have it. Otherwise, you might have stayed in the dream. The one I made for you. For us.”

“Some say memories are merely another form of dreaming,” the
Noc said. “We, of course, would argue that they are, rather, another
form of torture.”

She needed to get away. Out of there. Home. She wanted to be
home. To wake up and never, ever sleep again.

“Many a great work of literature has been lost by remaining
tucked haphazardly into the pockets and knapsacks of young, carefree
scribes such as yourselves. Wanderlust wayfarers, cavalier bards, wistful
wordsmiths—”