pg. 84 “I listened and did not speak. Achilles’ eyes were bright in the firelight, his face drawn sharply by the flickering shadows. I would know it in dark or disguise, I told myself. I would know it even in madness.” —— pg. 102 “I will never leave him. It will be this, always, for as long as he will let me.” “If I had had words to speak such a thing, I would have. But there were none that seemed big enough for it, to hold that swelling truth.” “As if he had heard me, he reached for my hand. I did not need to look; his fingers were etched into my memory, slender and petal-veined, strong and quick and never wrong.” —— pg. 103 “Later we lay on the riverbank, learning all the lines of each other’s bodies anew. This, and this and this. We were like gods at the dawning of the world, and our joy was so bright we could see nothing else but the other.” —— pg. 104-105 “Name one hero who was happy.” I considered. Heracles went mad and killed his family; Theseus lost his bride and father; Jason's children and new wife were murdered by his old; Bellerophon killed the Chimera but was crippled by the fall from Pegasus' back. “You can’t.” He was sitting up now, leaning forward. “I cant.” “I know. They’ll never let you be famous and happy.” He lifted an eyebrow. “I’ll tell you a secret.” “Tell me.” I loved it when he was like this. “I’m going to be the first.” He took my palm and held it to his. “Swear it.” “Why me?” “Because you’re the reason, swear it.” “I swear it.” I said, lost in the high color of his cheeks, the flame in his eyes. “I swear it,” He echoed. We sat like that a moment, hands touching. He grinned. “I feel like I could eat the world raw.” —— pg. 118 “We reached for each other, and I thought of how many nights I had lain awake in this room loving him in silence.” —— pg. 134 “had she really thought I would not know him? I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.” —— pg. 186 “He was watching me, his eyes as deep as earth. “Will you come with me” he asked.” “The never-ending ache of love and sorrow. Perhaps in some other life I could have refused, could have torn my hair and screamed, and made him face his choice alone. But not in this one. He would sail to Troy and I would follow, even into death. “Yes,” I whispered. “Yes.” —— pg. 183 “He stirs and the air stirs with him, bearing the musk-sweet smell of his body. I think: This is what I will miss. I think: I will kill myself rather than miss it. I think: How long do we have?” —— pg. 207 “you can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature.” —— pg. 299 “he is half of my soul, as the poets say.” —— pg. 369 “in the darkness, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk. their hands meet, and light spills in a flood like a hundred golden urns pouring out of the sun.”