Mustardseed grinned at Bertie. "I was never any good at geometry, but you’re stuck in a love triangle, aren’t you?"

"Shut up," she ordered even as Moth asked, "But what if there were four of them?"

"That’s a love rectangle, and five people would be a love pentagon."

"And what are six people in love?" Cobweb demanded.

Mustardseed thought it over a moment. "Manslaughter, I suppose.

The only reason I'm friends with any of you is because I outgrew the von Trapps, one annoying Austrian at a time.

I may hold ye at arm's length....But I want ye t' be mine an' mine alone. - Nate to Bertie, as they danced.

The collar had restrained his winds but not killed them. They uncoiled from behind the shadows, ready to surround her, to lift her up, to carry her away with only Ariel’s silk-clad arms wrapped about her to keep her from falling.

Spirare, they whispered to her like an incantation. Breathe us in.

Bertie didn’t mean to, but she inhaled, and everything inside her was a spring morning, a rose opening its petals to the sun, the light coming through the wavering glass of an old, diamond-paned window.

Tendrils of wind reached for Bertie with a coaxing hand. Release him, and he will love you.

My dearest Miss Farthing, will you do me the unutterable honor of wearing this cheap bit of metal that will most likely turn your finger green, pretending to love and honor me as your husband for the purposes of subterfuge and stratagem?

Could we wear spandex and blow things up?