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“One must always be careful of books,” said Tessa, “and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us.”
Will looked at her, slow and hard, and then smiled. His blue eyes lit when he smiled. “Then you must do the same for me,” he said. “Tessa.” She had never thought about her name much before, but when he said it, it was as if she were hearing it for the first time. Her own breath was very short when she said, softly, “Will.”
You’ll never understand us from reading a book, Will had said, but that wasn’t the point really. He didn’t know what books meant to her, that books were symbols of truth and meaning, that this one acknowledged that she existed and that there were others like her in the world.
“Inanimate objects are harmless indeed, Mr. Mortmain. But one cannot always say the same of the men who use them.”
“Whatever you are physically,” he said, “male or female, strong or weak, ill or healthy—all those things matter less than what your heart contains. If you have the soul of a warrior, you are a warrior. Whatever the color, the shape, the design of the shade that conceals it, the flame inside the lamp remains the same. You are that flame.” He smiled then, seeming to have come back to himself, slightly embarrassed. “That’s what I believe.”
“I know what you’re thinking.” The voice that came from the doorway behind Tessa was soft enough that it could almost have been part of the wind that rattled the leaves on the tree branches.
Sometimes I think we forget to ask whether it is good or bad for the world.”
“How on earth do you prevent yourself?” “I go to my favorite place in London,” said Jem, “and I stand and look at the water, and I think about the continuity of life, and how the river rolls on, oblivious of the petty upsets in our lives.” Tessa was fascinated. “Does that work?” “Not really, but after that I think about how I could kill him while he slept if I really wanted to, and then I feel better.”
How strange to have the power to literally transform yourself into other people, and yet be so unable to put yourself in their place.
It is as great a thing to love as it is to be loved. Love is not something that can be wasted.”
