place of ghosts and specters, ever since my canines first tore open flesh. This was the first time it had been a place for the spark of life. Not a spark—that didn’t do justice to her feelings as deep as the sea and her voice as otherworldly as the gods themselves. She was a flame, the pure fire of mortality that kept humans striving, yearning, living in all of its messy, perilous splendor, seeking beauty even as they faced death.
